“Too many innovations fail because they’re solutions looking for problems — not the result of a disciplined process.”
In a recent interview with MIT Sloan Management Review, Lorraine Marchand, a seasoned innovator and general manager at IBM Watson Health, sheds light on common misconceptions about innovation. This stament highlights a fundamental issue plaguing many innovation initiatives. All too often, organizations rush into developing new products or services without thoroughly understanding the underlying problems or needs they aim to address. This approach can lead to solutions that lack relevance or fail to resonate with customers, ultimately resulting in wasted resources and missed opportunities for genuine impact.
Drawing from her extensive experience detailed in her book, "The Innovation Mindset: Eight Essential Steps to Transform Any Industry," Marchand highlights key pitfalls and provides insights into effective innovation strategies, starting from some of the major pain points.
One prevalent mistake she addresses is the tendency for innovators to focus solely on developing cutting-edge technology without considering real-world problems or customer needs. How many times people don’t think about identifying a particular problem to be solved and don’t ensure there’s demand for the solution? Apparently, in the innovation ecosystem, a lot.
Another important point of this interesting interview is her debunking the myth of innovation as a chaotic process:”There’s a misperception of innovation as this wild, crazy brainstorm, and that we’re all throwing spaghetti at the wall or drawing on the board with markers. It really is a very disciplined process, and it has to emanate from observation, evidence of a problem, documentation of the problem, and then designing that solution with the end customer in mind.
In large organizations, innovation can become a tactic. It’s got to be driven through the culture, but too often organizations view it as a tactic, not as a holistic system that’s supported throughout the organization. They say, “We’re going to take a portfolio approach, and we’re going to spend 25% of our budget and our time just innovating for the sake of innovating, trying to find something disruptive.” Well, that’s not necessarily purposeful. When innovation is done well within a large organization, it has to start with the culture; it has to start with the mindset. There has to be a way of instilling that in people — embracing change, tapping into their curiosity and a passion for problem-solving.
Mentioned article: Adopting the Innovator’s Mindset, Lorraine Marchand, interviewed by Elizabeth Heichler, Mit Sloan Review
