Innovation is good for Business, but that doesn’t mean every Innovation is good for every business. When you try something new within your organization, you want it to succeed, and there are certain steps you can take to increase the likelihood that this will happen. It’s all about doing the right investigations correctly and laying the groundwork ahead of time.

Communication

The first step in choosing the right innovative solutions is to talk to your stakeholders and find out more about their needs and concerns. Who your shareholders are will vary based on what element of your business you are looking at, but they might be customers, employees, or both. Many businesses falter at this first step and end up introducing solutions that nobody wanted or needed in the first place. You can utilize change management tips to help you cultivate a process for communicating your plans to your shareholders as these two processes have some similarities.

However, you may need to do more than simply invite feedback. If you have not cultivated a culture of trust and openness within your company, you might have difficulty getting employees’ actual opinions. Therefore, this could be a process that starts some months ahead of time and involves changing how employees and managers interact with one another.

Appropriate Tools

The information that you gather through communication can help you select the appropriate tools. If your fleet manager tells you they need a better management solution, you could look into fleet telematics. With this tool, your fleet manager could better analyze both vehicle operations and driver actions and stay on top of maintenance needs. You may want to work with your stakeholders at this stage as well, getting feedback from them on whether the features of the solution you have selected will solve their issues or at least improve things.

Specific Objective, Clear Measurables

You probably already measure things like how your colleagues affect your home life, and vice versa. But what about how business innovations can have the same affect? Most software and other products that you purchase allow you a trial period. In order to be sure that you are making the right choice, you need to have both a specific objective and clear measurables. In other words, what are you trying to achieve, and what will be the signs that you are achieving it or that you are making progress toward achieving it?

You need these measurables as well if your innovation is not something that you purchase but a reorganization within your company, a new process, or any other change that you are putting into place. Your measurables should include timelines by which you expect to see certain results. You should also be specific about the outcomes that you expect.

Letting Go

There is a surprising downside to trying to be happy when it comes to innovation. This one is harder than it may sound in that you need to let go of the attachment you have to your innovation. It’s very easy to get passionate about a certain solution, and this is particularly true if it is something that you’ve created yourself. It can be crushing to get feedback from customers that suggests no one is particularly interested in the shopping app you have created to improve their user experience, but if you are too invested in your idea, it can make it difficult for you to accept that while it may be exciting or interesting or the right choice from your point of view, you probably need to go back to the drawing board.

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