Tech Leaders

Tech leaders often approach innovation differently from their colleagues on the business side. In some instances, this can be a benefit, as they have a unique perspective on how technology can enable new ways of getting things done. To grow a successful innovation function over time, technology leaders should follow the lead of their high-performing peers.

Take a big swing. Alexander Aravanis, CTO and senior vice president at Illumina, takes a unique approach to vision: His team tries to build a road map of how the world will look in 5–10 years and develops products for projected future needs.

Anticipate failure. Innovation teams walk a fine line when it comes to measurement. They need to feel comfortable trying big things that might not work out. Otherwise, people won’t give voice to new ideas.  According to our study, organizations with leading innovation maturity are more likely to consider failures as positive and celebrate lessons learned (78% vs. 54%).

This doesn’t mean that innovators get a blank check to experiment without ever worrying about results. Aravanis said it’s important to track the impact of moonshot projects over time and not be afraid to pull the plug on anything that simply isn’t working. Fifty percent of companies with mature innovation programs set targets and measure their ability to convert new ideas into products, compared to just 38% of overall respondents.

Establish air cover. 44% of survey respondents with a leading innovation function said their C-suite is completely aligned with their innovation agenda, compared to 36% of total respondents.

Mash up cultures. Tech leaders should look for opportunities to add as many diverse perspectives as possible to innovation teams. This includes both demographic diversity as well as diversity of experience. People with different skills will likely approach a product from new angles and potentially expose problems in its functionality. Adversarial red teams may expose security vulnerabilities. The input of all these different people through an iterative process can lead to a more solid product in the end.

Hartsock said that innovation springs from the collision of different ideas. “That’s where the magic happens,” Hartsock said. “If it were something we all agreed on, that would be the safest innovation we’ve ever done. But that’s not where change comes from.”

Invest in experiments. Many areas of business look to bring in mature technologies that are ready to deliver value immediately, but this can be a limiting mindset when it comes to innovation. Pushkarna said her team is experimenting with the latest advances in technologies such as augmented and virtual reality, even though some of the use cases might be exploratory. The reason being that experiments could lead to learnings that pay off down the road.

Source: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/cio-insider-business-insights/technology-leadership-cio-innovation.html