Train for Innovation

Is innovation some chance occurrence that comes in a flash of brilliance by the CEO? Is it the domain of just a handful of creative geniuses? No. You can establish a culture and a process for innovation throughout the organization. It takes leadership. A good place to start is with training.

How did your organization acquire its skills in quality, sales, marketing, people management, finance and all the other myriad competences that you use? You hired people with the skills or you trained people so that they acquired the skills or people learn on the job. So if you want to develop expertise in innovation then the same approaches apply. You hire creative people. You train people in the cultural and procedural aspects of innovation. And people learn about innovation by practicing it.

The main areas for training include:

Problem Analysis
Questioning
Listening
Idea Generation
Managing Brainstorms
Idea Evaluation
De Bono's Six Thinking Hats
Prototype development
Project gating
Project management

Generic training courses are available and there is some benefit in mixing with people from other environments. Most organizations prefer to run their own-in-house courses tailored to their needs and addressing their issues. The primary purpose of the training is to develop skills and teach methods that can be applied. However, a secondary benefit that is often overlooked is that the training can yield useful ideas or help evaluate difficult choices. In order to do this it is important to set out with the objectives of ensuring that the right issues are addressed and that the best ideas on the day are captured.

If you want your company to be more innovative then plan for innovation, allocate resources for innovation and train for innovation.