Created on September 27, 2012
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What’s Level 1A? At Level 1, there is a single innovative idea. It improves or expands the existing business and measuring its success is no different from measuring the performance of the existing business. Also, there is no need to hire new kinds of experts or to substantially change job descriptions or core business process. At Level 1A, innovations can be implemented in a short time period — at most, a few months.
Innovation Principles: The most fundamental innovation discipline is one of learning quickly from experiments. That is easiest when feedback is rapid and the innovation makes only limited departures from the existing business. The most prepared innovators identify the specific performance measures that are likely to be affected by the innovation, understand how those changes will impact profitability, and are ready to react quickly should the experiment produce disappointing results.
The discipline of innovation is first and foremost a discipline of experimentation. Innovation projects have uncertain outcomes. Many managers, by training, abhor uncertainty. They endeavor to eliminate as much of it as possible. The more accurate the forecasts, the better the decision-making, the thinking goes.