Innovation Management Process – An Oxymoron?

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This is our first blog post, so let me start with the obligatory “Hello world!”

What is this blog about? It’s about innovation – specifically, practical tips & articles to help you manage innovation at your organization.

The word “innovation” conjures up many images. Creative genius. Eureka moments. Light bulb going off. Magical. Mystical. Accessible to only a select few blessed humans. You get the idea! Well, I’m not a big believer in this notion of innovation. Why not, and what do I believe then?

Before I answer, let us consider the following quote by Samuel Palmisano, former CEO of IBM:

We treat innovation as if it were magical, not subject to guidance or nurturing, much less planning. If we study history, however, we know that’s simply untrue.

I agree with Mr. Palmisano. In fact, when we study history we see that companies like GE and P&G have demonstrated this over many, many decades. They have systematized innovation much like any other process – say manufacturing, marketing or sales. They manage their innovation as a process – step-by-step.

This is the notion of innovation I believe in. I believe in it so much, for my day job I work at a company which builds innovation management software tools that help companies systematize their innovation management process.

Over the coming months and years, my colleagues and I plan to share our thoughts  on this topic via posts in this blog. Our posts are free to read. And… I’m confident they will be worth every penny!

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I'm your author, Michael Shrivathsan. I've worked at several innovative companies in Silicon Valley, USA over the past two decades - and helped innovate 5 market-leading products. I'm also a USPTO patent recipient. For my day job, I'm the VP of Product Management at Accompa - we make IdeaGlow, a cloud based idea management software.

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