By Michael Glessner
Getting innovation right is a challenge for most businesses and leaders. There are specific actions an innovation leader can encourage to help guide the organic efforts of their firm. Yet if bad habits or poor execution exist, most of these efforts will fail to produce the step change in sustained innovation results that are the goal. My colleague Scott Gamble advocates learning from past projects and this series of articles will demonstrate that concept.
The most logical place to start this discussion is with several of the key behaviors needed to win at innovation over the long term. In effective organizations, these behaviors are evident within new product development (NPD) projects, at gate reviews, at portfolio reviews, and during process improvement projects driving systemic change. Lack of these behaviors will inhibit innovation results again and again. 