Many roads lead to innovation. The beginning is clear: destroy, unlearn, dismantle. Unless you are willing to let go of the existing processes, products, or ways of doing things, you cannot move ahead into new territory. The next step is idea generation. This step can take the shape of listening to customers, listening to suppliers, ideation sessions, scientists tinkering, adverse conditions creating a need, or an accident. In each of these cases, there must be acute observers, people listening, observing, connecting, and taking good notes.
After an idea is generated, the innovation process becomes more focused. How can we make this work? How can we make this profitable? How can we get people to buy this product? Can our operations make this product or service? Can we undercut the competition, or destroy them with our bells and whistles? How can we ensure success, or is it low risk enough that we can slap it out there and see if it works?
At this point, teams of people from different functional areas of an organization come together to move the idea forward and introduce the innovation into the marketplace. This step generally requires executing a myriad of details.