Innovation matters –of course. Unless organizations change what they offer the world and the ways in which they create and deliver those offerings they risk falling behind in today’s turbulent and complex environment. Smart firms know this and they invest time and trouble to create systems, structures and processes to ensure a sustained flow of innovation.

But whilst they are highly competent at what we could call “steady state “innovation (essentially doing what they do but better) problems can occur when they confront the need for discontinuous innovation. History tells us that when technologies shift, new markets emerge, the regulatory rules of the game move or someone introduces a new business model then established players can suddenly become vulnerable. When confronted with the need to explore doing something radically different many fail the test.

A key part of the problem is that dealing with discontinuity requires a very different set of capabilities for organising and managing innovation. Searching in unlikely places, building links to strange partners, allocating resources to high risk ventures, exploring new ways of looking at the business - all of these challenge the ‘normal’ way we approach the innovation problem. And while we know a lot about how to manage the steady state kind of innovation we’re much less clear about where and how to start building discontinuous innovation capability. Smart firms are carrying out various experiments in this direction, but no-one could claim to have found ‘the’ answer. We’re all still learning-and that’s where the DI Laboratory comes in.

(See website for more details)


What is the Discontinuous Innovation Laboratory?

Very simply it is an opportunity for firms to learn together about managing discontinuous innovation – sharing experiences , trying new things out, reflecting on what has and hasn’t worked and looking at new ideas and models. By linking up with other firms, working with (practically-minded!) academic researchers and drawing on experience in different sectors and countries there’s a chance to compare, contrast, share and develop our understanding of this major challenge.

More information - see our website: www.innovation-lab.org