Have you twigged about testing?

Are you throwing away your ideas? Or just throwing money at them?

It’s natural when you’re creating an idea to be excited and want to race towards the finish line so you can see your idea come to life.

But testing it first? Testing is one of the most overlooked and underfunded processes in business.

At IIG we believe that testing is a critical step in the process of commercialising innovative ideas. It’s how you ensure your product or service will have the qualities and performance that not only reflect your efforts but that will also attract customers to buy it.

Testing can often be viewed as a daunting task – what if you find out that your product or service will fail and not make it to market?

But …what if you discover something even more interesting and valuable? Some of the most famous discoveries in history resulted from tests that revealed more than the inventor or researcher was looking for, like Bakelite and Post-It notes.

Thomas Edison supposedly said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10000 ways that won’t work.”

And Winston Churchill claimed that “Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”

An innovation-focused workplace doesn’t frown upon failure because it knows that “very often the best way to test an idea is not to analyse it but to try it” (Paul Sloane, Enterprise Innovation).

For most, testing should be an eye-opener and used as a tool to drive results and involve customers.

Impact Innovation has spent years developing and refining tools to help others quickly and easily assess the potential of their ideas, because a pivot is preferable to starting again from scratch.

Discovering where there might be pitfalls and what steps can be taken to avoid them is critical knowledge that often only emerges from testing. That’s one of the reasons we offer Kick-starter Services and the Innovation Maturity Assessment.

Just like your ideas, testing practices should adapt to the project situation. Structure is key; but it simply does not make sense to ignore the innovation spark that started the process.

The Queensland Government also recognises the importance of testing, and it’s just called again for eligible businesses to test new ideas for solving all kinds of problems, from heavy vehicle rest areas to digital heritage exploration.

Advance Queensland’s Testing Within Government (TWiG) program helps SMEs improve the positioning of their ICT products with opportunities to address real industry problems while collaborating with the Queensland Government.

It’s a 12-week program and applications for the next round of TWiG close at midday on 18 April 2017.

Successful applicants will receive up to $25K to test and refine their product. Click here to learn more.

In the meantime, can we walk you through a more realistic innovation and commercialisation journey? Call us to find out on +61 7 3041 1128.

– Alexandra Connors, Impact innovation Group Project Coordinator

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