Why killing ideas is key in innovation

Alex Osterwalder
Tendayi Viki
June 9, 2021
#
 min read
topics
Innovation Culture
Innovation Metrics

Finding your company’s next growth engine and positioning it for the future isn’t easy. The key to success lies in the acknowledgement that you can't pick the winner. Great ideas and bad ideas look virtually the same in the early stages of innovation. To find the winners, you can't avoid investing in the "lemons".

Here's how world class innovators, we call them Invincible Companies, find the winners. They invest small amounts of resources in a large number of teams to test and adapt their ideas. They then kill at least half of those projects after a short amount of time. Only few ideas and teams that can produce evidence get follow-up investments. They repeat this elimination process until the best ideas and teams emerge.

The key to the above is threefold. Firstly, eliminate the blockers to innovation and let any team with an idea start. Secondly, hone your ability to kill ideas that don't produce evidence after a short amount of time. Thirdly, make every team feel like a winner, so that they come back to test new ideas.

Learn how to do this in the real world on this month’s webinar. Tendayi Viki (Pirates in the Navy) and Alex Osterwalder (The Invincible Company) share their experience from the field.

As usual, we’ll also have some fun exploring what’s hot or not in the world of corporate innovation. We'll share practical tools and dive into the world of innovation portfolio management.

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About the speakers

Alex Osterwalder
Entrepreneur, speaker and business theorist

Dr. Alexander (Alex) Osterwalder is one of the world’s most influential innovation experts, a leading author, entrepreneur and in-demand speaker whose work has changed the way established companies do business and how new ventures get started.

Tendayi Viki
Author, Speaker, Advisor

Tendayi Viki is an author and innovation consultant. He holds a PhD in Psychology and an MBA. As Associate Partner at Strategyzer, he helps large organizations innovate for the future while managing their core business.

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Alex Osterwalder
Tendayi Viki
June 9, 2021
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Why killing ideas is key in innovation
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Why killing ideas is key in innovation

June 9, 2021
#
 min read
topics
Innovation Culture
Innovation Metrics

Finding your company’s next growth engine and positioning it for the future isn’t easy. The key to success lies in the acknowledgement that you can't pick the winner. Great ideas and bad ideas look virtually the same in the early stages of innovation. To find the winners, you can't avoid investing in the "lemons".

Here's how world class innovators, we call them Invincible Companies, find the winners. They invest small amounts of resources in a large number of teams to test and adapt their ideas. They then kill at least half of those projects after a short amount of time. Only few ideas and teams that can produce evidence get follow-up investments. They repeat this elimination process until the best ideas and teams emerge.

The key to the above is threefold. Firstly, eliminate the blockers to innovation and let any team with an idea start. Secondly, hone your ability to kill ideas that don't produce evidence after a short amount of time. Thirdly, make every team feel like a winner, so that they come back to test new ideas.

Learn how to do this in the real world on this month’s webinar. Tendayi Viki (Pirates in the Navy) and Alex Osterwalder (The Invincible Company) share their experience from the field.

As usual, we’ll also have some fun exploring what’s hot or not in the world of corporate innovation. We'll share practical tools and dive into the world of innovation portfolio management.

related reads
No items found.
Why killing ideas is key in innovation

Finding your company’s next growth engine and positioning it for the future isn’t easy. The key to success lies in the acknowledgement that you can't pick the winner. Great ideas and bad ideas look virtually the same in the early stages of innovation. To find the winners, you can't avoid investing in the "lemons".

Thanks for your interest in 
Why killing ideas is key in innovation
Why killing ideas is key in innovation
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Whether you’re looking for more information or you’re ready to start a project, we’re ready to help.
Thanks for your interest in our solutions. We will be in touch with you soon.