10 Hard-Won Truths About Running Internal Innovation Programs
AI made building easy. Getting a company and its people to actually innovate is still hard. These are the ten choices, learned running programs for some of the biggest corporates in the world, that decide which outcome you get.
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23 pages · 10 truths · 10-question checklist
By Thomas Van Halewyck, CEO and Charles-Edouard Monroe, Director, Customer Success & Strategy
AI made building easy. Innovating is still hard.
Anyone can prototype today. With AI, an employee with an idea can have a working demo in an afternoon. What AI has not closed are the other two gaps: whether the organisation will fund, sponsor and absorb what its people build, and whether those people have the skills and appetite to lead it.
That makes innovation programs more relevant in the age of AI, not less. They build the two kinds of readiness AI cannot.
Ten truths, in two phases.
Design sets the ceiling of what your program can achieve. Execution decides whether you reach it. Each truth comes with what to do about it.
Set your program’s ceiling
- 1WeightingChoose ventures or talent before you start
- 2HorizonChoose exploit or explore, not both
- 3CanvasMake every other design choice on purpose
- 4JourneyTailor the five stages to your people
- 5AIUse AI without losing judgment
Reach the ceiling you designed for
- 6SourcingBuild the pipeline toward your weighting
- 7PacingPlan for the pacing to break
- 8CoachingGive teams room to struggle
- 9GatesHold the line at every gate
- 10LandingLand the winners after pitch day
Lessons from real programs, not theory.
Written for the people who run the program, and the ones who back it.
A program works when the people who design it and the people who absorb its output agree on what it is for.
“What follows are our learnings designing and running innovation programs for some of the biggest corporates in the world: the choices that decide which outcome you get.”
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