[itssho]

This is a totally valid opinion of innovation management and I share it mostly... So quick background I've been involved in 3 startups now with varying degrees of success (1 included an exit). In all of those cases we had our early days where 'ideas' pretty much drove the bus. We had an idea... we validated it (at least in the 1 case of exiting lol) and grew from there. Then something happens when there are 50 people in the office... people have ideas... ideas about the product, ideas about the sales, ideas about the fridge in the break room. Whatever. Point is, now the path forward isn't so clear and version 2 of the product is not as obvious as version 1 was. Processes that worked in the beginning are straining and the founders don't always know exactly why. Do they need to be ripped out and replaced or just incrementally changed. Now in the case of a startup it means the founder clears the schedule, sits down with people and figures shit out. In a large company (250+ people) that's not even possible. It would have been nice if as a founder I didn't have to clear the schedule and brute force this, would have been nice if I could have had a pipeline of ideas that helped team leads quickly approve incremental changes and founders understand new problems and make larger strategic decisions without turning to divination :P (which happens). Sort of like a CRM for ideas... this is how I think about innovation management. Innovation shouldn't a new management objective that demands you show what you 'innovated' on this quarter or your fired.