How to build an Innovation System for an organization.

Building an innovation system is crucial for any business looking to stay competitive and stay ahead of the curve. However, it can be difficult to know where to start. In this article, I will break down the process of building an innovation ecosystem into four key phases: problem sourcing, validating, and scaling.

By understanding these phases and how they work together, you can create an innovation ecosystem that will help you grow and thrive in today's fast-paced business environment.

The first phase

of building an innovation ecosystem is understanding what problems you want to solve and why. This is a crucial step that will guide the entire process.

To understand what problems you want to solve, you need to look at both internal and external sources. Internal sources include your own business strategies and challenges, while external sources include trends, needs, dreams and desires of your potential and existing customers. By understanding these internal and external factors, you can create a clear picture of what problems you want to solve.

The second phase

of building an innovation ecosystem is identifying opportunities and ideas to solve the problems you have identified.

This is where you start to brainstorm and explore different solutions. The key is to be open-minded and explore as many different options as possible. This is where an external perspective can be particularly valuable, as it can help you see things in a different light.

The third phase

is validating your ideas.

This is where you test and evaluate different solutions to see which ones are the most viable and which ones fit best with your business. This is a critical step that will help you identify which ideas have the most potential and which ones are worth pursuing further.

The fourth and final phase

is integrating and scaling your solutions.

This is where you take the ideas that have been validated and start to implement them into your business. This is where you can start to see the real benefits of your innovation ecosystem. By scaling your solutions, you can start to see real growth and change in your business.

Want to dive deeper into it?

If you are interested in an even deeper dive into the 4 phases have a look at this podcast episode which was part of a live show I did early 2022 and is available in audio and as well in video.

Find the full episode audio and video here

Want to download the system overview?

Download the PDF I used in the live show and have a look into it. I tried to keep it very simple to illustrate the main points.

Have questions?

In case you have questions or want to go even deeper into what I have shared in the live podcast episode, feel free to contact to me or use the comment function.

Podcasts to innovate:

In this podcast episode I interview AJ Greenberg founder of an incredible App. Imagine you document your life in an app and build your biography on the go.

AJ Greenberg is the Co-founder of Biograph. A platform where you can document your memories in voice, text, video, photo and can utilize this data to tell your story.

In this episode we talk about the importance of storytelling, memories, his experience in writing memoirs and the power of documenting your life.

Videos that touched a nerve:

How do we leverage experienced employees in organizations to innovate is the insight of this 4 minute video clip.

Have you ever been in the position that you are the most experienced person in the team and a new manager arrived and did not involve you due to your experience?

Are you a leader struggling with experienced employees?

This clip might be interesting for you to watch.

Books that help me innovate:

Exponential Organizations by Salim Ismail

I still remember when I read this book the first time. It must have been around 2013 I was the Global Project Manager of the Most Sustainable IKEA Store Project living in Bonn Germany and looked for inspiration around organizational change, organizational setup and how we can innovate organizations for good.

I found this book and Salims famous ted talk How to fix civilization and was hooked.

Thank you for reading.

Feel free to comment and let me know if you have any questions.

That’s it for today.

Innovate - the human way

Jens

P.S. If you need help setting up an innovation system the Human Innovation Academy might be an option for you to learn more.