Don’t put innovation in quarantine

During the pandemic, we all became familiar with color-coded restrictions and the inevitable quarantines, which dictionaries define as a ‘period of segregation and observation […]’.

But there is one specific quarantine we need to pay close attention to: the quarantine of corporate ideas. According to an Accenture survey of executives and managers from 500 American companies, businesses possess great, innovative ideas internally. Yet, these ideas often fail to translate into high-impact innovations for the market and the company itself, because they lack the right organizational framework to flourish and develop.
It’s as if we are putting our best ideas on standby, resulting in a massive waste of energy and resources, and risking the loss of major market opportunities.

Why do innovative ideas risk being put on stand-by?

There can be several reasons for this: from the inability to recognize an idea’s value, to a lack of internal resources to develop it effectively, to risk aversion within some companies, or simply a lack of time. Yet, these reasons often represent just the tip of the iceberg.
Below the surface lies the primary reason why ideas frequently fail to flourish within a company: the difficulty of creating an agile innovation system that is strictly customer-value oriented.

In fact, the inability to recognize the value of an idea, or the lack of resources, only becomes a problem when a company lacks a process capable of engaging the entire organization, agilely coordinating contributions across different departments, and rapidly testing various opportunities to understand what truly delivers value.

4 Key elements to develop an agile innovation system

An agile innovation system is built on a few fundamental elements:

1. Widespread Engagement

In many cases, the innovation ideas developed within a company are those of the entrepreneur, the innovation manager, or someone from upper management. On the other hand, there is little room for ideas coming from other parts of the organization, either because there is no structured collection system, or because even when ideas are gathered, evaluating them proves difficult.

An agile innovation system, however, includes company-wide, formalized moments where people from all departments come together in small teams to generate (or share) innovative ideas. These moments should not be seen as simple brainstorming sessions but rather as structured explorations of different high-impact innovation opportunities.

2. Decentralizing Decision-Making in the Early Stages

To prevent generated ideas from ending up in quarantine, it is essential to empower teams to autonomously choose the most interesting ideas to work on. This allows them to further develop these ideas and gather the necessary information for a more objective evaluation by top management.

It is possible to build a progressive development system for ideas, a sort of innovation assembly line, where early-stage decisions can be made autonomously by the small teams that worked on developing those ideas. This approach avoids two major problems:

creationg a bottleneck during the evaluation phase, which carries the risk of shelving ideas for long periods, or even forever.
the risk of discarding promising opportunities is very different from what the company is used to doing, simply because there was no opportunity to explore the idea further.

3. A system of escalation

Obviously, at a certain point in the process, the concepts developed from the initial ideas must be submitted to top management. This ensures efforts are focused on the opportunities of greatest interest to the company, without losing the valuable contribution of experience and market knowledge that executive leadership can provide. Therefore, it is important to schedule specific, regular reviews with top management to monitor the progress of innovative proposals.
This planning helps create a sense of “urgency” around innovation projects, making these activities not just important, but urgent. Furthermore, these meetings represent fundamental milestones for building a corporate culture that is more receptive to innovation.

Having alignment meetings with top management on a consistent schedule (for instance, every month) helps reinforce behaviors that support innovation while discouraging dysfunctional ones.
These meetings offer a unique opportunity to provide feedback on project teams and clarify which behaviors the company wants to encourage (for example: “when faced with a problem, bring me at least three alternative solutions”).
Feedback repeated over time forms the foundation for deep, lasting organizational change.

4. The pursuit of agility

In today’s turbulent environment, and within activities characterized by extreme uncertainty like innovation, agility becomes a fundamental element. We must constantly question what the most efficient, rapid, least complex, and least bureaucratic way is – while always complying with current regulations – to evolve ideas into successful products and services on the market.

Therefore, in the pursuit of agility and its benefits, it is advisable to periodically review your way of working, keeping in mind that initial haste and a lack of synchronization often lead to rework, subsequent time wasting, and longer overall lead times.

Ultimately, to prevent our best ideas from ending up in quarantine, it becomes increasingly essential to establish an innovation system that places agility and customer value at its very core.

Article written by:

Gabriele Colombo

Know How & People Development

He has developed his skills especially in the field of innovation according to the logic of design driven by applying the concepts in the area of research and development in companies of international character. He was responsible for the definition, planning and execution of research and consultancy programmes related to the world of innovation and continuous improvement; His experience is added to the role of teacher of Project Management and Innovation Management in courses dedicated to business executives at the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano.
Partner of Lenovys since 2021.