Innovation is exhilarating—but let’s face it, it’s also messy. All too often, organizations fall into the trap of chasing the newest, flashiest idea—a phenomenon I call “shiny object syndrome.” The problem? These efforts often lack alignment with real business challenges, leading to wasted resources, frustrated teams, and missed opportunities.
This misalignment isn’t just inefficient; it’s dangerous. It puts innovation programs under scrutiny, forcing leaders to question whether the effort and investment are truly worth it. That’s why driving quick wins and delivering impact aligned with strategic priorities isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s essential for sustaining confidence and momentum.
It’s no surprise, then, that only 6% of CEOs report being satisfied with their organization’s innovation programs. Misalignment is the root cause. When innovation efforts fail to deliver clear, strategic value, skepticism grows—and the program’s future is put at risk.
An Example: Tackling the Alignment Problem in Energy
In the energy industry, we have a unique advantage: utilities are required to file plans publicly, such as grid modernization or wildfire mitigation initiatives. These filings provide essential insights into strategic priorities and are a great starting point for identifying where innovation can have the most impact.
But let’s be honest, translating thousands of pages of dense, legal documents into an actionable technology roadmap for innovation is an enormous task for any team to handle alone. And even when roadmaps are available, they often conflict, making it critical to return to a trusted, universally approved “one source of truth.” These foundational insights, signed off by leadership, are essential for identifying where to focus time and resources effectively.
How We Help: From Chaos to Clarity
At InnovationForce, we understand the scale of this challenge—and we’ve made it our mission to help. Our AI-driven solutions are designed to catapult the impact of your innovation approach, bridging the gap between complexity and clarity, all guided by your source document of truth. By aligning innovation with your unique strategy, we not only make the process more efficient but also unlock the creativity that drives real results.
1️. Start with the Challenge
Great innovation doesn’t start with ideas, it starts with problems. By focusing on well-defined operational challenges, we ensure innovation efforts are rooted in solving real, meaningful issues. Most likely, these are capability gaps your SMEs have already articulated into public filings or roadmaps.
By returning to the original trusted source and generating challenge statements using our InnovationWorks AI, you can rest assured that you’ll focus your efforts in the right place. This approach avoids the scattershot pursuit of trends and creates a foundation for impactful work that earns trust and support from executive leadership.
2. Strategic Prioritization: Focused Innovation with a Pinch of Creative Abrasion
Not all challenges are created equal, and that’s where our InnovationWorks platform shines. Teams can generate challenges directly from their organization’s original “source of truth”—the foundational documents that define their strategic goals. By leveraging these documents, teams can rapidly align on priorities, eliminating unnecessary back-and-forth during meetings and reducing uncertainty about where to allocate valuable resources.
With a use case library filled with challenges generated from these strategic sources, organizations can create clarity across departments and build a shared understanding of where to focus efforts.
But here’s the twist: alignment doesn’t mean eliminating friction. Instead, it’s about fostering the right kind of tension—what innovation management expert and InnovationForce co-founder Dr. Linda Hill calls “creative abrasion.” By encouraging diverse perspectives to collide constructively, teams can develop more innovative and robust solutions. And the magic truly begins in the next step!
3️. Intelligent Matching: Enter the Power of AI
Once the right challenges are identified, our platform takes the reins, leveraging the power of AI to drive results. It matches your unique challenges with industry-validated solutions from a curated marketplace, streamlining decision-making and removing the guesswork.
This seamless blend of AI and human expertise accelerates outcomes, bringing the right ideas into your innovation workflow—ready for creative abrasion to spark meaningful collaboration. By focusing on whether the solution fits, rather than questioning the validity of the challenge, teams can move forward with confidence.
Dr. Hill’s research shows that when solutions are sourced from a marketplace of ideas, you can trust that the ideas you choose to pursue are backed by alignment and strategic purpose. From there, collaboration thrives, and your culture of innovation starts to take shape.
The Payoff: Faster Results, Bigger Impact
Our structured, automated workflows empower organizations to move from ideation to implementation up to 85% faster. By enabling informed, rapid decision-making, teams can save as much as $500,000 per idea.
But the real magic lies in the alignment this process creates—where teams, goals, and solutions converge seamlessly to deliver tangible outcomes. It’s not just about speed for the sake of speed; piloting is a valuable learning step in the innovation process. The real challenge is avoiding the decision-making gridlock that bogs down ideas before they ever reach the pilot stage.
With alignment built in from the start, teams can leverage rapid scoring tools and incorporate creative abrasion to move forward confidently, ensuring ideas are both strategically aligned and collaboratively refined.
The result? Less time spent in limbo and more time spent innovating.
Creative Abrasion + Alignment = Innovation That Sticks
True innovation requires more than just tools and AI—it thrives on a human-centered loop where collaboration and constructive conflict fuel progress. This is the cornerstone of building a sustainable culture for timeless innovation.
When teams are aligned on well-defined challenges and encouraged to bring diverse perspectives to the table, the outcomes are transformational. The key is knowing they’re working on the right set of ideas—a foundation that fosters confidence, creativity, and meaningful collaboration.
The result? Not just faster innovation, but better innovation. Teams move from what once felt like chaos to clarity, achieving repeatable success through a standardized process that scales.
Let’s Build the Future Together
Imagine an innovation program where every challenge is aligned with strategic goals, where friction sparks creativity, and where solutions move from ideation to impact in record time. That’s the future we’re building at InnovationForce—and democratizing to be accessible to every and any innovator.
Connect with me if you agree and let’s connect and make it happen.