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Innovation is creativity with a job to do.

—John Emmerling

Innovation governance. It sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? Trust me, the first time I said those two words, they just didn’t feel or sound right. Then after some “fierce conversation” with a good friend and colleague of mine, I started to see this combination in a different light. In further spirited discussions with others on the topic, I then saw the need to explain and make the case for better innovation governance in our businesses.

My own background has had both governance in my early finance and accounting years and innovation in my later years running businesses and serving on executive teams. Whenever I look back at the times I researched and executed successful innovation, I realize that more and more of that innovation success came to be because of good governance!

Random epiphanies and great ideas don’t need governance, but they are just that—random. But systematic, holistic, continuous innovation at a larger scale and from a multitude of sources in your business and value chain does require and thrive with governance!

Consider the opening quote again: “Innovation is creativity with a job to do.” If you think about it, this really describes innovation governance. You need to be creative and ideate new solutions, but you need to execute with discipline to achieve the value. Simply said, you need both sides of the equation!

Innovation = Creativity and Ideation

Governance = Execution and Discipline

Do you see the need to measure and govern innovation? When IMA asked respondents that question, it ended up being the strongest response in the entire survey: 92% said their organization should measure and govern innovation regularly as a key business process to sustain growth and value. 92%! The downside to this was that only 44% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they set innovation goals in their business, and even a lower percentage, only 35%, used innovation measures specifically to measure performance. So we know we need to innovate—it’s clearly important, but it is hard to measure. Ultimately, how do you “govern” innovation, and who should be doing that? Keep reading…