by Howard Smith The goal of innovation is to create business value by developing ideas from mind to market. It requires spontaneous creativity guided by disciplined business practice. Most companies find it tremendously difficult.

A systematic and systemic search to reach solutions beyond the current state-of-the-art, innovation is powered by predictable and scientific methods. Rigor and training are required.

Innovating means solving problems

Innovation is difficult, but not because employees don't have good ideas. The world is awash with technological breakthroughs. Rather, myriad obstacles limit a company's ability to innovate and cover every conceivable technical and managerial discipline. As a creator of new value, innovation isn't hit-or-miss lateral thinking, but a repeatable process. What is innovative about innovation today is the realization that it can be done systematically, and that the innovator is an obsessive problem solver.

Popular management frameworks do not provide insight into the problem-solving methods used by successful innovators. Innovation is neither disruptive nor incremental but is simply more (or less) effective. Its outcome depends solely on the creativity and knowledge of talented employees and the effectiveness of the methods and processes that support their work. There are few shortcuts via disruptive ideas that promise to take markets by storm. Disruptive innovation is an oxymoron. Innovation is always continuous, a never-ending sequence of problems to be solved that move products and services to the next step in value for customers.

Being talent-limited, every company finds innovation hard to do. Although psychological methods of enhancing creativity have proven effective for individuals and small teams, they are unlikely in and of themselves to yield inventive companies that dominate markets. Companies need more than creativity training.

An ability to solve problems is the only factor that allows the innovator to move beyond the current state-of-the-art in the design of products, services, and processes. All innovation proceeds through well-defined steps. Each step requires the innovator to avoid obstacles that would limit value creation. The days of compromise are gone. Today, markets reject products and services that don't live up to expectations of affordability, reliability, security, simplicity, manageability, adaptability, and innovation. The task of the innovator is to maximize useful functions and minimize harmful functions to create the next generation of customer value. To have a viable business, the innovator must provide this amenity without losing time to competitors or wasting resources.

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