We often talk about ambidexterity as something the organization needs. It applies to innovation teams just as much.
On one side, we have to deliver on the roadmap: the priorities leadership has set and the short-term wins the organization expects. This week, five experts share tactics for the challenges Novum members brought to our season opening, from good ideas dying late in the funnel to scaling beyond a pilot, so you can finish the year strong.
On the other side, we need to ask what our role is in creating the future, and what our role will be in it. Paqui Lizana looked at the top questions Europe's 20 most innovative companies are working on, found that every one pointed inward, and proposes three that are missing.
Both matter. The first keeps the function credible today, and the second decides whether it matters tomorrow.
Hans Balmaekers
Founder, the Compass and Novum
Answers Are Cheap Now. Is Your Innovation Team Asking the Right Questions?
When AI can produce answers in an afternoon, the value of an innovation team lies in the problems it chooses to work on.
Most innovation roadmaps across Europe share the same structure: supply chain resilience, digital transformation, cost discipline. Paqui Lizana, an independent strategic advisor on the future of innovation and co-founder of Brilliant Failures AI Studio, wanted to see exactly where those roadmaps converge. Her work focuses on the foundational questions about the role of innovation management in large organizations. So, she scanned the innovation roadmaps of Europe's 20 most innovative companies and listed the 20 top questions they are working on over the next five years.
Every single one pointed inward, built around one basic priority: how does our company win?
What Innovation Teams Should Focus On Before the Year Ends
Clarify what's out of scope, design the portfolio first, make foresight a habit, roll out AI around a real job, and replace the big pitch with small commitments.
At the start of the new season at Novum, members shared their priorities and the challenges they are facing until the end of the year.
One team keeps watching well-evidenced ideas die late in the funnel. Another is building portfolio governance from scratch, starting with data that currently lives in slide decks and people's heads. Other members are trying to establish foresight as a credible, ongoing practice rather than a one-off exercise. A one-person innovation team is trying to get the rest of the organization excited about adopting new technology. And several members are wrestling with the same question underneath all of it: how to move innovation from a separate function into the way the organization actually works.
What’s happening @ Novum
A member who recently became the first Open Innovation lead at a large international manufacturer keeps getting requests that miss the mark, from whatever's trending to routine supplier searches relabeled as finding an external partner. As they put it: "Innovation itself isn't a universally understood concept — even within our own company, people define 'innovation' very differently." We'll work together next week Thursday Oct 8th on positioning that's specific enough to filter out mismatched requests without having to say no.
On Wednesday Oct 14th we’ll explore how AI, social listening, and direct consumer engagement can be combined to uncover new business opportunities. We’ll have Daniel Martin Callizo (NOBA Ventures), and Gianluca Balzamo (Reckitt) share how these insights can be translated into new concepts, tested for desirability and feasibility, and ultimately brought closer to implementation. We’ll also discuss one of the harder parts of the process: bringing internal stakeholders along.
Keen to put your challenge in front of peers, or join discussions about leveraging AI for innovation? Join the Novum Society - check this page for more info.
The roadmap earns the budget and the credibility, so it almost always wins the fight for time.
But a team that only delivers on the roadmap gives up the role it's there for: leading the organization into new territory.
Before the year ends, make room for both: one tactic to finish strong, and one bigger question to carry into next year. If you'd like to talk through how you're balancing the two, just hit reply.
Hans
Hans Balmaekers
Founder, the Compass and Novum
