Moving Ideas Swiftly Through the Innovation Funnel

Why Ideas Must Move Swiftly Through The Innovation Funnel 

Forbes describes corporate innovation as “having out-of-the-box thinking as a strategy within your business”, but creative ideas need to be supported by structured frameworks that transform concepts into tangible innovations. It is increasingly clear that modern innovation funnels need to operate at speed too. 

Swift-moving innovation funnels allow you to get products to market sooner. Perhaps more importantly, though, the repercussions of failing to get this right include;

• The company spending too much time on ideas that are set to fail.
• Missing out on opportunities due to tech advancements or new offerings by competitors.
• Successful ideas becoming compromised by ineffective prototyping.
• The company wasting money on development and screening processes.
• Innovative employees losing the energy and freedom to innovate.
  
  

Three Steps to Time-Efficient Innovation

1. Agile and Lean Approaches

Lean innovation ensures faster movement of ideas through the funnel through short feedback loops and giving  intrapreneurs the opportunity to work on their ideas without lengthy “work in process” phases. Organizations like Atlassian and Google, for example are known for giving employees the freedom to create. This becomes particularly easy with innovation programs like our flagship KICKBOX Intrapreneurship program, that allows for both freedom and structure when innovating. 

Agile focuses on adapting to changing environments, often due to tech developments or external matters out of your control. Rather than delaying processes, though, this can support the idea of iteration. By implementing agile practices throughout the entire innovation process, including product development and release, organizations can expedite the movement of ideas through the funnel while identifying failures at the earliest stage.

2. Streamlining Processes and Workflows

Empowering mindset shifts that encourage autonomy and give intrapreneurs a voice will certainly help foster innovation, not least because it will statistically yield more ideas and highlight the best ones far sooner. It is important to establish streamlined processes and workflows through a clear roadmap.

KICKBOX turns innovation into a discipline, allowing innovators to work through the key phases confidently and quickly without compromising the outcomes. Employees will complete stages that include;

• Understanding client demands.
• Analyzing the market.
• Defining functions.
• Developing concepts.
• Visualization of ideas.
• Feedback gathering and integration.
• Product simulation.

In turn, this should prepare the idea for the bottom of the funnel, meaning an innovation can be released to market. This added engagement and direction prevent the threat of lost momentum, ensuring ideas move swiftly through the innovation funnel.

3. Cross-Functional Collaboration and Communication

Cultivating a company culture that utilizes cross-functional collaboration leverages success by bringing different perspectives, skills, and expertise together. While innovation often revolves around customer-centric ideas, diverse outlooks, and insights will be necessary to turn ideas into something that resonates with the intended audience.

Naturally, though, poor communication and collaboration can cause delays, disruptions, and information silos. Clear objectives, clear communication channels, and an openness to experimentation should lend themselves to collaborative problem-solving for improved outcomes.

With KICKBOX Intrapreneurship, it is even possible to connect with other Kickboxers as well as other companies employing KICKBOX, to gain valuable thoughts and create further collaborative opportunities. Ideas will move from concept to completion with far fewer hiccups.