Question 1

What is the difference between an Enterprise Subscription and a Captain Workspace subscription in InnovationWorks?

Accepted Answer

In the InnovationWorks platform, workspaces allow solo innovators to small teams subscribe for a low monthly rate. The subscriptions give innovators access to the open ecosystem of ideas and challenges called "The Hangar" and an automated workflow connected to a decision making framework that allows rapid iteration and testing.

The difference between a monthly subscription and an enterprise agreement is the enterprise has the ability to configure and customize their workflows, forms, scoring questions, emails and notification, dashboards and training cues. Some enterprises also choose to have a branded environment with a customized URL.

For small teams that may not need customization and can leverage the "out of the box" workflows and forms in InnovationWorks, a smaller monthly subscription is usually a great fit or a good way to get started innovating faster.

Question 2

What is Innovation Management software?

Accepted Answer

Innovation Management is the systematic process of managing an organization’s innovation activities, from idea generation to project execution. It includes strategy, resource allocation, and performance tracking. For example, in the utility industry, innovation management may focus on meeting decarbonization mandates or improving grid resilience, requiring targeted approaches to develop, test, and implement new solutions efficiently.

The InnovationWorks platform by InnovationForce is a full "cradle to grave" innovation management solution powered by AI to help organizations complete workflow and cycle time faster.

Question 3

What are common Innovation Management processes and models?

Accepted Answer

Popular models include:
Open Innovation (Ecosystem Innovation): Collaborating with external partners to co-develop solutions.

Lean Innovation: Using iterative processes to test and refine ideas quickly.

Design Thinking: Focusing on user needs to inspire and shape innovation.

Agile Innovation: Emphasizing flexibility and responsiveness to adapt to changes. These models typically involve stages like ideation, prototyping, testing, and scaling to bring ideas to life effectively.

InnovationForce leverages these popular ways of innovating in their InnovationWorks platform. The solution includes an automated workflow based on agile, lean and design thinking principles and connected to an open ecosystem where innovators can collaborate publicly and privately with their partners. By leveraging the "wisdom of the crowd" and an open marketplace of idea, organization and teams can innovate faster, more confidently.

Question 4

What is Idea Management Software?

Accepted Answer

Idea Management Software supports the capture, assessment, and selection of ideas within an organization. It includes features like idea submission, ranking, and feedback loops, making it easy for teams to contribute ideas and for leaders to identify the most promising ones.
The best Innovation Management platforms including the market leading InnovationWorks platform, includes Idea Management as part of their overall workflow and solution. 
Idea Management may consist of forms for idea intake and online scoring for ranking and feedback for prioritization and decision making. Innovation Management can include this step in their solution but also provides workflow and project execution tools to track and automate ideas as they become pilots.

Question 5

What is Collaboration Software and the role it plays in innovation management?

Accepted Answer

Collaboration Software for Innovation facilitates team communication and project management, enabling employees from different departments to work together seamlessly. These tools promote transparency, ensure alignment with organizational goals, and foster a culture of shared innovation. The best innovation management platforms, like InnovationWorks, includes features to enable collaboration.
Some examples of collaboration activities in InnovationWorks include:
 • Scoring of ideas
 • Ability to collaborate on the creation of a test plan
 • Ability to assign test plan task to collaborators in different departments or partners in other businesses
 • Gathering "Day in the Life" feedback
 • Creating a central repository for all learnings and ability to share learnings across ecosystems.

Question 6

What is an Innovation Workspace?

Accepted Answer

Innovation Workspaces allow solo innovators and small teams create a private workspace allowing users to collaborate with partners and manage ideas with an automated workflow and decision-making framework that tracks progress within a secure, dedicated environment.

InnovationWorkspaces are available as low monthly subscriptions for innovators to begin using the award-winning InnovationWorks platform. This allows innovators to get started quickly without needing to have a full enterprise license or enterprise procurement or RFP process.

Question 7

Why are Innovation KPIs important?

Accepted Answer

Innovation KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are metrics that help organizations measure the success of their innovation efforts. These metrics provide insights into the effectiveness of different initiatives, helping leaders understand where adjustments may be needed. Examples include time-to-market, project success rate, and employee engagement in innovation activities.

The InnovationWorks platform helps organizations by uniquely measuring these performance KPIs and more that are related to culture and based on Dr. Linda Hill's research of over 150 organizations. It is the most comprehensive innovation management tool for KPI metrics measuring work effort down to the minute, time-to-completion, risk, financial impacts (e.g., OPEX, CAPEX and ROI) as well as cultural KPIs (e.g., shared purpose, rules of engagement, Creative Abrasion, Creative Agility and Creative Resolution).

Question 8

What are the core KPIs derived from Dr. Hill’s research?

Accepted Answer

Linda Hill’s research identifies seven KPIs critical to innovation, divided into cultural attributes and capabilities. The five cultural KPIs include Shared Purpose, Shared Values, Rules of Engagement for Thinking and Interaction, and Innovation Factors. The three capabilities—Creative Abrasion, Creative Agility, and Creative Resolution—are behaviors that enhance innovation by promoting diversity of thought, adaptability, and effective decision-making​​.

Only InnovationWorks is the only SaaS platform with the ability to measure Creative Abrasion, Creative Agility and Creative Resolution.

Question 9

How do Cultural KPIs help organizations innovate more effectively?

Accepted Answer

By measuring and tracking the Cultural KPIs highlighted in Linda Hill's groundbreaking research Collective Genius, the InnovationWorks platform is the only solution capable to provide actionable insights into how these unique cultural factors impact innovation outcomes. Organizations can use these metrics to identify strengths and weaknesses within their innovation processes, leading to targeted improvements that drive faster decision-making and higher success rates for new initiatives​​.

Question 10

What is Creative Abrasion and why is it important?

Accepted Answer

Creative Abrasion is the process of encouraging diverse ideas through open and constructive debate. It helps teams to generate a marketplace of ideas by welcoming different perspectives and fostering productive conflict. This capability is essential for producing innovative solutions and is one of the foundational elements measured by the CollectiveGenius AI engine​ in InnovationWorks coming in the first half of 2025.

Question 11

How does “Creative Agility” accelerate the innovation process?

Accepted Answer

Creative Agility refers to the ability to experiment, adapt, and pivot quickly based on new information. This iterative approach, much like Agile or Lean methodologies, enables teams to test ideas rapidly, adjust based on results, and move forward with confidence. In InnovationWorks, Creative Agility is tracked and optimized to reduce the time from idea generation to execution​​.

Question 12

What is Creative Resolution?

Accepted Answer

Creative Resolution is the ability to make integrative decisions that combine differing perspectives into innovative solutions. Instead of compromising or choosing between ideas, Creative Resolution seeks to incorporate the best aspects of each, resulting in solutions that are both creative and practical. This capability supports long-term innovation success by ensuring the best ideas are brought to market effectively​.

InnovationWorks is the only innovation management platform to measure Creative Resolution based on Collective Genius and Linda Hill's research of hundreds of organizations.

Question 13

What are the important KPIs an organization should track in their innovation program?

Accepted Answer

Common metrics that are tracked in the InnovationWorks platform in real-time include:

• Number of ideas in the pipeline and where are they in the stage gate process
 • Time for innovators to complete innovation workflow tasks
 • Time it take to complete the workflow
 • Cultural support for innovation
 • Employee engagement
 • Return on investment (OPEX and CAPEX reduction)
 • Risk assessment
 • Impact (e.g., customer, shareholder value, etc.)
 • Who is leading the pilot?
 • Budget spend

In addition, it is good to have the ability not just to measure the KPI but compare it in trending charts or graphs to understand patterns and context to measure your team's performance.

Question 14

How Can Open Innovation Reduce Risk?

Accepted Answer

When it comes to adoption of new ideas, highly regulated and complex organizations are usually afraid to go first. They want to wait for ideas to be commercialized before adopting too soon. But, open innovation allows organizations to collaborate with peers, research institutions technology companies, developers and universities.

This collaboration and shared learning can reduce risks by allowing organizations to:

1.) Conduct Market Research through the ecosystem
2.) Get feedback from others pilots and case studies to reduce risk in full scale production
3.) Get insight and signals from the ecosystem based on what's trending
4.) Reduce blind spots with cross-industry networks to leverage the wisdom of the crowd

This is why InnovationWorks includes access to their open ecosystem, "The Hangar" with every enterprise subscription and workspace subscription of InnovationWorks. This ecosystem is built by the solution providers so the information can be trusted (versus pulling in data from a streaming service that is not supported or authorized by the company). By allowing solution providers to create their own approved content in the open ecosystem, InnovationWorks is a trusted and dependable solution for regulated organizations.

Question 15

Who is Dr. Linda Hill?

Accepted Answer

Dr. Linda Hill is a Harvard Business School professor, co-founder of InnovationForce and a world-renowned expert on leadership and innovation. She is the co-author of the influential book Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation and a recognized authority on fostering inclusive, high-performance innovation cultures. Her TED Talk on innovation leadership has over 3 million views, demonstrating the global impact of her work on innovation​​.

Question 16

What is Collective Genius?

Accepted Answer

“Collective Genius” is a award-winning book with ground breaking research that was named to the inaugural Thinkers50 Booklist: 10 Management Classics for 2022. The Collective Genius framework, co-developed by Dr. Hill, explores the conditions and cultural attributes needed to enable sustained innovation within organizations. The framework identifies three core capabilities—Creative Abrasion, Creative Agility, and Creative Resolution—that predict innovation success by fostering a collaborative and inclusive culture. These insights are foundational to the InnovationForce platform, enabling us to uniquely measure and optimize team performance​​.

Only InnovationForce's InnovationWorks platform is authorized to leverage the unique Intellectual Property from Dr. Hill that is supported by Collective Genius. The platform will have a Collective Genius AI engine and Linda Hill chatbot launching in 1H of 2025.

Question 17

What is the connection between innovation and inclusivity?

Accepted Answer

Inclusivity is a core component of innovating. In Dr. Hill’s framework for successful innovation, her research emphasizes that diverse voices and perspectives are crucial for fostering Creative Abrasion and generating breakthrough ideas. The best innovation happens when there is a market place of ideas and unique perspectives that can create psychologically safe Creative Abrasion. This allows teams to pick the best ideas to move forward for piloting. This is a capability that teams can build and improve overtime.
The InnovationWorks platform measures inclusivity through our Collective Genius AI engine and uses it as a predictor of innovation success, empowering teams across all levels to contribute meaningfully to the innovation process​​.

Question 18

What are the benefits of using InnovationForce?

Accepted Answer

InnovationForce helps you accelerate your innovation strategy, connect challenges to ready-to-pilot solutions, and join a community dedicated to driving transformative results.

Question 19

How can I participate in the InnovationForce community?

Accepted Answer

You can participate in the InnovationForce community by joining our platform, engaging in discussions, submitting Test Flights, offering solutions, and collaborating with other members.

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