Chapter 1 - Lesson 2: Fundamental Concepts
This lesson explains the difference between innovation and improvement, the relationship between creativity and innovation, and between R&D and innovation. Innovation relates to an entity that did not previously exist whereas improvement tends to refer to change in an existing offering. For some, a new offering may be seen as an innovation, whereas for others it may be just an improvement.
The lesson then explains the innovation process in which market or product research finds new opportunities and creativity leads to new potential solutions. Proof of concept for the new solution is established at the validation step of the innovation process, and after this a working solution of the product or service is developed. Delivery to users completes the innovation process.
Throughout the innovation process, the level of risk an organization adopts depends on what is often called its “ambition level” and depends on the organization’s culture.
An organization can allow these activities to occur in an ad-hoc manner, but experience has shown that managing activities with a system approach ensures alignment with strategy and produces better results.
A system approach enables an organization to pursue new opportunities by leveraging internal knowledge and collaborating externally. Using an ISO management system enables integration with other management systems such as ISO 9001:2015.
Lesson 2 concludes with an assignment on complexity. This illustrates how assignments in subsequent chapters will typically work.