Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program

Enterprises face bureaucratic hurdles and a cultural resistance to change, which slow down innovation. The discomfort with failure, risk, and unknowns, along with a high likelihood of initial failure in innovation initiatives, presents significant challenges for companies.
Innovation is a process that requires organizations to reframe the way they work together to solve problems. But most lack formalized documentation that guides the accountabilities, relationships, and process steps required to succeed.
IT is not always clear on what role to play to best support innovation in the organization because it doesn’t have a clear mandate or lacks context on how the rest of the organization works to identify new opportunities.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Succeeding at innovation requires defining an operating model that is different and separate from an organization’s day-to-day operations, and the context of that model is determined by funding, the strength of innovation culture, the focus of innovation, and the level of ambition.

Impact and Result

Outperform your peers by 30% by adopting an innovative approach to your business.
Move quickly to launch your innovation practice and beat the competition.
Develop the skills and capabilities you need to sustain innovation over the long term.

Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program Research & Tools

1. Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program – A step-by-step process to create the innovation culture, processes, and tools you need for business-led innovation.

This storyboard includes five phases with activities that will help you define your purpose, align your people, and build your practice.

2. Innovation Program Template – An executive communication deck summarizing the outputs from this research.

Create the vision for your innovation program, define the operating model you’ll create, and complete a roadmap of initiatives to set the strategy.

3. Capture Ideas – Log ideas and store them in a reservoir.

Identify critical opportunities for innovation and brainstorm effective solutions.

4. Build Prototypes – Track your projects and create a method to assess them.

Prototype ideas rapidly to gain user feedback, refine solutions, and make a compelling case for project investment.

5. Assess Innovation Culture – Determine current-state strength.

Complete a cultural assessment to determine where your innovation aptitude stands.

6. Determine Your Innovation Operating Model – Find the archetype that’s right for your organization

Answer four questions to see what types of innovation operating model are the best fit for your organization.

7. Create Your Charter and Prioritize Initiatives – Document your high-level strategy and rank initiatives to build a roadmap.

Clarify your mandate for innovation and assemble your team. Then prioritize the initiatives that will have the most impact for innovation.

8. Job Description – Chief Innovation Officer

This job description can be used to hire your Chief Innovation Officer. Many other job descriptions are available on the Info-Tech website and are referenced within the storyboard.

Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

9.5/10

Overall Impact

$58,333

Average $ Saved

Average Days Saved

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Guided Implementation

9/10

$50,000

The best part was the customized advice provided based on structured templates. The worst part was that the Infotech material was created for profi... Read More

Office of the Auditor General of Canada / Bureau du vérificateur général du Canada

Guided Implementation

10/10

$25,000

Great start up for our Innovation Capability. Thanks for sharing your know-how and insights with OAG!

Office of the Auditor General of Canada / Bureau du vérificateur général du Canada

Guided Implementation

10/10

$100K

Infotech is providing some excellent content to begin the launch of an Innovation Lab. Rick and team have provided great insights and continued sup... Read More

Load More Testimonials

Workshop: Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: Define Your Ambitions

The Purpose

Identify what you want to achieve with an innovation program.
Assess your innovation culture.

Key Benefits Achieved

A clear vision and ambition for innovation that aligns the organization.
Understanding of what’s achievable today and what gaps should be closed to improve.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Understand your innovation mandate.

Innovation purpose

1.2

Identify or define the organization’s vision statement and guiding principles.

Message from the CEO
Vision and guiding principles

1.3

Develop your value proposition and performance metrics.

Scope and value proposition
Success metrics

1.4

Assess your IT innovation culture.

Module 2: Define Your Operating Model

The Purpose

Define your working model for innovation, including assigned accountabilities and working relationships.

Key Benefits Achieved

Select an operating model that will guide your innovation program.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Determine your innovation operating model.

Selection or identification of your operating model archetype

2.2

Customize your innovation operating model.

Customized operational view of operating model

2.3

Map out swim lanes with process accountabilities.

High-level innovation process mapped into swim lanes

Module 3: Develop Your Capabilities

The Purpose

Prepare your approach for executing on innovation with documented methodologies.

Key Benefits Achieved

Define a mandate with details on how to operationalize.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Select ideation methodologies.

Core capabilities and structure

3.2

Develop prioritization criteria.

Idea evaluation prioritization criteria

3.3

Select prototype methodologies.

Prototype charter and approach

3.4

Select scaling approach.

Scaling operations outline

Module 4: Build Your Program

The Purpose

Set your target state for your innovation program and create the initiatives to build that vision.

Key Benefits Achieved

Clear plan to communicate across the organization for what innovation will achieve and how it’s done.

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Create plan to review and evaluate success of innovation program.

Roadmap for putting innovation vision in place

4.2

Develop roadmap to put new innovation operating model in place.

Detailed initiatives presentation

4.3

Detail initiatives to build out innovation capabilities.

Innovation charter

Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program visualization

Transform your business by adopting the culture and practices that drive innovation.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst

Get the help you need in this 5-phase advisory process. You'll receive 9 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Prepare to innovate

Call 1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

Guided Implementation 2: Define your purpose

Call 1: Understand your mandate.
Call 2: Identify innovation vision, guiding principles, value proposition, and scope.

Guided Implementation 3: Align your people

Call 1: Foster a culture of innovation.
Call 2: Determine your operating model.
Call 3: Customize your innovation roles and responsibilities.

Guided Implementation 4: Build your practice

Call 1: Customize your operating model and swim lanes.
Call 2: Review innovation methodologies and templates.

Guided Implementation 5: Plan next steps

Call 1: Summarize results and plan next steps.

Author

Brian Jackson

Contributors

Bob Crozier, Managing Director, Chief Architect Global Operations and Automation, HSBC
Katie Dougherty, Senior Change Management Officer, International Monetary Fund
Elisha Gilliam, Managing Director of Scalable Solutions, Year Up
Michael Newcity, CEO & Chief Innovation Officer, ArcBest
Kevin Yoder, Vice President Innovation, ArcBest
Sandra Brandon, Strategy & Innovation Leader, University of Pittsburgh
Rob Leahy, Chief Information Officer, NASA Goddard Flight Centre
Shenandoah Speers, Associate CIO Applications, NASA
Brandon Ward, Chief Innovation Officer & VP Information Systems, Jefferson Centre for Mental Health
Gary Boyd, Vice President Information Systems and Digital Transformation, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield
Brett Trelfa, Chief Information Officer, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield
Kristen ‘KWJ’ Wilson-Jones, Chief Technology & Product Officer, Medcurio