It's impossible to say how many times I've seen this happen but it's fair call that over the 10 years or so I've been in this game, I reckon it's one of the top two or three reasons why innovation fails, yet nobody seems to be talking much about it.ames, this day is packed with opportunities to explore the intersection of technology and talent.
We're thankful that there are people who walk among us full of ambition, drive, and vision to pull off truly great ideas and pull the world ever so slightly further towards that gravitational force of innovation excellence. So why is it then that we see great ideas fail? There's a well-trodden formula for helping us figure out problem identification, problem-solution fit, product-market fit and so on. Yet somehow, we seem to accept the other well-worn formula that most innovation fails. This is a real curiosity.
I've come to believe that there's something that we tend to overlook on a wholesale basis when we're beavering away developing solutions. Years back, I was involved with a global company, a household name, fortunate enough to meet with a great many entrepreneurs and innovators developing the most incredible solutions to life-threatening conditions like heart disease, cancer, and other debilitating chronic illnesses. One thing leapt off the page at me: when I was working with these fantastical entrepreneurs, they tended to overlook how their solutions would fit into their customers' operational workflow.
These workflows stem from years or even decades of organisations developing systems and norms for managing everyday tasks. In healthcare, for instance, these workflows are exceedingly important because we don't want people running around our healthcare networks trying to figure things out as they go – we want to know that everything they do has been thought about and crafted and manufactured to make sure that we have the best outcomes for our patients while managing the cost of care and quality of experience from the providers' point of view.
Equally, this rings true in other types of organisations and businesses. If we don't really understand the operational workflow that surrounds a challenge or problem area, how can we possibly think that we can build a solution and integrate that solution into an organisation in a seamless way? The effort required to onboard and implement a new solution is clearly greater than the effort required to disrupt or potentially disrupt an operational workflow.
It's the reason why lifesaving technologies never find their way to market, it's also the reason why entrepreneurs can struggle for years to land a corporate client. It's why the sales process is long and arduous. It's why runways cut and burn out in the effort to try and land customers.
Interrogating and mapping out operational workflow is an under-represented and misunderstood field of expertise. The better we can do this, the better we are able to show how our solutions can be implemented with minimal risk and effort and how they don't interrupt operational workflow, the quicker we can build great solutions to the problems that we care most about.
Peter Osborne
CEO
Cremorne Digital Hub
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Peter Osborne is an experienced innovation leader with a 25-year career in global listed companies including Seek, Trade Me in New Zealand and Philips North America where he Directed open innovation programs involving companies across multiple regions. Pete also co-founded a venture incubation group in Melbourne, launched Bingle - Australia’s first online car insurer, and has advised a number of international tech companies. Expert in ideation through to product launch and scale up, including market validation, fundraising, go to market and customer engagement strategies, Pete is now entirely focused on empowering innovation and growth with an industry-first approach in Melbourne through Cremorne Digital Hub.