How can you establish innovation labs to drive your organization's innovation strategy?

When guiding enterprises on digital transformation, I often share that innovation without direction is like a ship cruising at high speed but without a compass. One organization I advised was keen on integrating AI into its operations but lacked a clear vision. We sat down to reflect on the 'why' behind the innovation lab. Was it to streamline operations, enhance customer experience, or pioneer a new market niche? By tightly aligning the innovation lab's purpose with its overarching business goals, every experimental project we picked had relevance, impact, and potential to scale.

No contexto do cooperativismo, estabelecer laboratórios de inovação é fundamental para impulsionar a estratégia de inovação da sua organização. Aqui estão algumas etapas para criar e gerenciar esses laboratórios: Compreenda as Necessidades e Desafios **:Forme uma Equipe Multidisciplinar Defina Objetivos Claro Crie um Espaço Físico ou Virtual Promova a Criatividade e a Experimentação Estabeleça Parcerias Externas Implemente um Processo de Inovação Mensure os Resultados Lembre-se de que a inovação é um processo contínuo. Mantenha o laboratório ativo, adaptando-se às mudanças e buscando constantemente novas oportunidades. 🚀💡

At what point does an innovation program need an innovation lab? You can go along way with a program before the difficulty of getting commitment to a lab is worth it, a physical lab appears to be an overhead. But let's imagine you have a successful program, perhaps the collaborative benefits will improve impact via efficiency and success rate. What I miss not having a lab is easily being able to bring people from site to collaborate and something physical like a museum so things are not lost at the end of a project.

Being able to put theory into practice with realistic input results in extremely valuable pragmatic outcomes during your validation process. Being able to show the main stakeholders what added value your innovation or technology validation could provide is extremely ensuring to decision makers. An innovation labs provides you the opportunity to experiment without interfering daily operations but still be relevant and realistic, making it easier to implement your innovation is case of a successful validation. You can even optimize and test settings on your new tech before implementation. Especially for physical innovation and innovation lab could be decisive for the success and throughput of your projects

Define clear objectives and goals that motivate the development of disruptive and marketable solutions. My journey taught... No ROI = No Growth == Sustainability Challenges!!!!

Establish a structured innovation process, ensuring widespread awareness and effective marketing both internally and externally. Let all be aware of organization's efforts towards Innovation. Welcome external experts periodically to have difference perspectives.

Establish a dedicated space that fosters a collaborative and inspiring environment. #environment = where people can speak their minds with zero hesitation.

Curate a diverse team encompassing interns and seasoned experts, blending design thinking, technology, critical and systems thinking, and business acumen. Embrace cross-functional collaboration, fostering a culture of openness where ideas flow freely and assumptions are challenged. Embrace failures as learning opportunities, extracting valuable insights from setbacks.

Engaging stakeholders at every stage of a project is crucial for its progress and success. It’s like a symphony where every instrument plays its part to create a beautiful melody. Smaller iterative phase-wise implementations guided by a broader road map are an added advantage, like a painter who sketches the outline before filling in the colors. For all these things to go as expected, clear communication and proper knowledge of the processes among the stakeholders are important. It’s like a recipe where every ingredient is carefully measured and mixed to create a delicious dish.

Benjamin Franklin once said, "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn." Stakeholder engagement is the bridge between an innovation lab's creations and their real-world applications. While leading AI labs at my firm, I realized its importance. Initially, while our lab developed novel AI models for geo-intelligence, it didn't help with our sales and commercialization efforts. We initiated a program to engage account and sales managers, to show them the art of the possible. Demystifying how clients could embrace it led to excitement, sales pitches, and qualified opportunities. Don't just plan to inform but engage and empower.

Stakeholder engagement cannot be the last step in the innovation. It is very important to not only engage with the Stakeholders during the planning phase. It is important to map out the interactions of the Stakeholders across the ecosystem, in case of ecosystem based innovation. In case of hierarchical organizations, the context, constraints, form and function need to be mapped out before moving to the next phase. In short, Stakeholders must be engaged in the beginning not the end.

Budget allocation for innovation in companies varies depending on factors such as company size, industry, and overall innovation strategy. However, some general guidelines can help determine an appropriate budget for innovation initiatives: - Percentage of Revenue - Fixed Amount - Project-based Budgeting - Balancing Different Types of Innovation - Factoring in External Funding - Review and Adjustment