4 Main Causes of Innovation Not Developing

Referring to the results of a survey conducted by the Boston Consulting Group entitled "Most Innovation Companies" stated a interesting facts. Many CEOs from technology companies (89 percent) place innovation as the highest priority in the company's business cycle. One of the reasons was stated in a research from GE, namely the concern of being abandoned by consumers. Simple, because consumers always want updates to suit their needs.

It feels very natural, as we feel everyday, technology is developing so dynamically. Always offering new, more interesting and effective ways to solve our problems. This of course also has a direct impact on digital startups, as developers of problem-solving solutions through a technology approach. Up to this point, we agree that digital startups cannot be separated from product and business innovation.

So what is needed to always foster various elements in the startup body to continue to innovate. None other than the people who are in it, as a driver of business and innovation. Unfortunately, there are often some "attitudes" that are put in place, whether consciously or not, that turn out to have a negative impact on the productivity of team members in terms of innovation.

The following four things things that need to be observed as early as possible, so that innovation in startups is not hampered:

Founder limiting creativity to just thinking

The best performance of an innovation is not starting from the direction for the development of a product from management, but rather making sure the developers understand the problem to be solved. Rather than always dictating in product innovation, founder it is better to always equip the team with problem areas to explore, including providing space to find and validate customer issues. Sometimes unique thoughts actually come because of new thoughts.

“If execution is problem solving, creativity is problem finding,” SAP Chief Design Officer Sam Yen.

Restricting team members' "movement"

Once the problem has been defined, the next step is to gather information and resources to build a solution. But not a little founder who choose to be too closed, in the sense of limiting the resources available in the company, be it data, reports or other things that support development. Finally the scope is too narrow.

External validation is very necessary, because at this stage the problem is validated. This means finding customers to test every assumption that has been made. And the most appropriate way is to open pintu as wide as possible for team members to come out, test hypotheses and find out the details that are really needed for team development.

During the solution validation phase, this means testing the market. While socializing the idea within the company, researching the projected market size is essential.

"Get your team out of the building and have them talk to at least 20 people. You'll start to see interesting patterns and findings in them," Steve Blank, a serial-entrepreneur from Silicon Valley.

Betting on one big innovation

In the next stage, once the problem is found and well-validated by the market, what is usually done is to put the full strength of the team into the project. All the time, budget, and various other components are focused on that one innovation.

But from several startup stories that at the end of the pivot or fail, often do this. Which in the end they say, that it turns out to make these findings a normal process is better, rather than having to take the risk to incorporate all of them into one project. Take a portfolio approach to innovation.

Taking on too many new projects

Just being at one point is not good, but too much agenda is also not good. The most important thing is to think about how an innovation project can grow sustainably. All must have clear achievement targets, and do not let these targets fail and be delayed. Apart from being inefficient in terms of resources, it also closes other potential innovations.

This is not easy to do, the article is often founder think about "opportunity doesn't come twice". It is true, therefore the measurement of ability and discipline towards the development of innovation is very necessary to be enforced.