Driving Innovation Outcomes Through Effective Reporting

If you’re an innovation manager in a large organisation, you’ll understand the importance of reporting. Often, face time with senior executives and the board is limited, and your reports are the only way the efforts of your team can be seen and recognised.

But effective innovation reporting can be more complicated than it seems.

Can you answer the following questions?

• Do your innovation success indicators align neatly with organisational KPI’s?
• Is innovation a regular standing agenda item in board or senior management meetings?
• How often do you ‘open the books’ to senior management to provide a ‘warts and all’ assessment of likely outcomes?
• Can you grab data on the number of ideas currently in your innovation system, the status of current live projects, and who is involved, with just an hour’s notice?

“Inadequate innovation reporting is damaging innovation programs across Asia Pacific.”

Sadly, inadequate innovation reporting is damaging innovation programs across Asia Pacific.

The reason for establishing a corporate innovation program is to transform business activities. However, often innovation teams are so busy ‘doing’ that they lose track of the importance of managing expectations of senior management through effective reporting. They can easily fall into the trap of under-communicating with infrequent reporting, not including enough detail, or just reporting highlights of projects that are going well.

“Fearless and frank reporting is key to maintaining long-term innovation programs.”

Fearless and frank reporting is key to maintaining long-term innovation programs. Transparency, detail and early sharing of roadblocks, problems and discoveries will be more helpful in the long run than trying to cover up issues with a brief and rosy summary. Most management teams significantly underestimate innovation implementation timeframes. They don’t understand that not all innovation initiatives work, and that a certain level of failure is to be expected. By establishing effective management and reporting frameworks that document failures, lessons learned (it is an innovation program after all) as well as successes – the chances of achieving transformative impacts are improved.

Systemised reporting (such as that used by Brightidea) provides innovation teams with a powerful tool to track current projects and pull accurate data instantly, which can be incredibly helpful to keep time spent reporting to a minimum.

The Innovation Navigator® can also help by ensuring your innovation program aligns with ISO56000 Innovation Management Standards. The Innovation Navigator® can also measure the strengths of your current innovation system and identify improvements that will increase your return on investment, which can provide an excellent benchmark for reporting on innovation program growth and progress.

Want to transform your innovation management reporting? Contact us to find out how.