How to Make Innovation a Continuous Project

Innovation can’t be a series of one-off projects. It will seem disjointed and ultimately confuse your customers, because the rollout appears random. Instead, make innovation continuous. Each project should build on the last, with your customer’s needs always at the forefront.

Read on for guidance on how to put an innovation process into action and the benefits of doing so effectively.

Consult Internal Teams

Creating an innovation process starts with consulting your internal teams. This will ensure that all departments have a chance to discuss their concerns before you decide to move forward with any innovative ideas.

Check Out Your Competition

How are your competitors innovating? How often do they do it? How do they roll out new products or services? Looking at how your competition approaches innovation can give you an idea of what may work with your target audience and what won’t.

Outline a Process

Innovation is much more seamless with a process in place. Your process will obviously be tailored to your organization and its needs, but experts say that it should include the following stages at the very least:

●  Innovation sourcing

●  Curation

●  Prioritization

●  Exploration and testing

●  Incubation

●   Integration and refactoring

Once you’ve developed an innovation process, it’s time to study how your target audience has changed to begin putting this process to work.

Study Changes in Your Target Audience

Before you decide to move forward with any innovation, you need to look at any changes in your target audience. This allows you to take in any new pain points they have or challenges they’re facing. You can use this information to move forward in your process with the best chance of resonating with your customers emotionally.

The best way to learn about your target audience is through detailed market research. Market research is most productive when led by a market research analyst. A market research analyst specializes in conducting quantitative and qualitative studies to teach you more about your target audience and the ever-changing trends in the market.

Gather Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is a powerful tool when it comes to innovation. You can ask your customers exactly what they want from your brand. Instead of developing the most fantastic product or trying out a trending service, focus on offering your customers more value based on what they’ve told you.

Implement Your Changes in Stages

Once an innovation project is complete, it needs to be introduced to the world in stages.

Take time to market the new product or service to your target audience before its launch. Allow them to test out certain features and functions during the development process. You could give loyal customers early access and then introduce it to everyone else based on the feedback you get.

All in all, you shouldn’t just drop changes on your customers out of nowhere. Instead, keep them involved and notified throughout the project. Give them bits and pieces during the process, so they know how to use what’s new once it drops entirely.

Be the Best Leader You Can Be

Innovation won’t happen without solid leadership. Being a good leader can help you confidently make decisions, collaborate with your internal teams effectively, and genuinely connect with external audiences. 

One of the most important ways to ensure you’re the best leader you can be is by taking care of yourself. It’s easy to get caught up in the innovation hamster wheel, constantly racking your brain about change and never taking a moment to breathe.

Neglecting your mental, physical, and emotional health can lead to executive burnout. In other words, you’re spending every waking hour working, and instead of results, you’re getting low-quality work and a loss of enthusiasm.

Don’t work until you can’t handle it anymore. Avoid executive burnout by getting ample rest each night, implementing a regular exercise routine, and focusing on good nutrition. Also, make time for loved ones and dive into your passions.

Successful innovation is reliant on strong leadership. So, take care of yourself and always find time to sharpen your leadership skills.

Conclusion

To make innovation a continuous project, you have to create a process, consult your teams, conduct thorough research on your target audience, and listen to customer feedback. Once you’ve completed an innovation project, implement changes in stages.  And finally, be the best leader you can be to ensure you can continuously implement changes without burning o