Some questions to evaluate an innovation expert

Over at Conversation Marketing there is a post entitled "10 Questions to evaluate a Social Media Expert". Read it, because it is just spot on. I especially loved this one:

Bonus Question: How often do you write?

"I hate writing". Cough!

"Oh, I try to but I don't have much time". Cough Cough Cough!

"Every day". Ding! Ding! Ding! A Winner!

There you go. An instant social media expert evaluator. Sort of like a Cylon Detector, but hopefully more effective.

The beauty of this post is this final bonus question. It goes right to the heart of the whole expert thing. A real expert walks the walk as well as doing the talking.

This got me to thinking what might be my top questions when evaluating an innovation expert? And might it possible to come to a single bonus question which acts as innovation Cylon Detector?

What follows, then, is my attempt at some questions. For purposes of brevity (because you know I can write ad-nauseam), I've limited myself to 4 plus the Cylon detector.

1: Where would you spend my innovation budget?

There are several good answers. If they say "on capturing great ideas", don't come to any firm position yet. If they say "working on several great ideas", reserve judgement. But if they say "working on that one great idea that we'll help you find", throw them out.

What most innovation teams lack is any kind of predictability, and that's because they fail to consider things from a portfolio viewpoint. An innovation expert will have spent enough time trying new things to know that most will fail. Therefore, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

2: Well how would you define innovation then?

"Trying to create the next iPhone". Only an acceptable answer if the conversation was about doing disruptive innovation in the first place. Otherwise, this is a sign that you have someone in front of you who thinks that all innovations must radically change the market to have any point. It is also a sign of someone who has not learnt that most new things fail. iPhones and Googles and Facebooks are once-in-a-lifetime flukes. [And don't tell me that Steve Jobs keeps having these flukes: he runs an innovation portfolio. Of course Apple is successful at innovation].

"Doing stuff that you aren't already doing as part of business-as-usual". Excellent, top points answer. Why would you limit what you could consider except ruling out what is already working fine?

3: How many innovators does it take to change a light bulb?

The real point of this question is working out whether you're dealing with someone that wants to sell you designers, analysts ,ethnographers and technologists. If your innovation expert needs all these things, what they are selling you is an ongoing consulting contract.

A real innovation expert will tell not need all these things. They'll understand that real innovation comes from organisations that are actually innovative. In other words, they'll advise you on cultural and processes changes and how you can make your people do innovation better.

4: Where's your science?

"Innovation isn't a science! It's about creativity!". Big raspberry for the wrong answer. It's probably true enough that a single innovation is about creativity, but when you treat multiple innovations as a portfolio there's lots of science available. A real innovation expert will know how to forecast demand curves, calculate the launch trajectory based on consumer behaviour theory, have the basics of expected-values and expected-losses, and a whole lot more besides. They'll have read and understood the great texts such as Christensen and Rogers. And they will likely have done their own work extending the methodological approach to innovation in companies.

An innovation expert without the science is the same as a doctor without the medical training: a quack. A snake-oil salesman who knows the bright shiny bottle is much more important than the contents. You'd be better off hiring a witch-doctor who can do a rain-dance.

The Cylon Detector: How many other innovators do you know?

Expert innovators are a pretty close-knit bunch, and its probably true to say most know each other. As well as that, the real experts amongst them know that they have to talk to each other just to keep up. It's a young discipline, so there's lots of progress going on on so many fronts.

Now, if the answer to this question is none, or only the other innovators in their home firm, what you have is definitely not an expert innovator. You might have a pretty-good innovator, but he or she won't be an expert. It takes time to become one, just as it takes time to get to know everyone else doing work in the space.

Comments

[Bruce Stewart]

An excellent set of questions — I can really see how to weed out innovators from the hangers-on and pseudo-brilliant from these.

Your posts are consistently thoughtful and excellent; thank you for writing.

[Billy Bigwords]

Not sure this really does it for me. IMO there is only one question (with a follow up). Name me up to three innovative ideas you have successfully introduced into an organisation and up to three that did not succeed. And the supplementary question... and how did you determine success/failure. In other words... have they ever done it or do they just talk about it. I don't really care how many examples they come up with - just some indication that they are able to succeed and willing to fail.

Cheers
Billy Bigwords

[suluclac]

Innovating in an industry that doesn't understand precisely how it works must be tough going.

Wouldn't the most useful innovations be a way to see clearly what is going on in each company, and a way to understand exactly how the financial system works as a whole?

What people in finance haven't grasped is that the amount or type of regulation imposed doesn't really matter. Without knowing how the business works, it won't be long until (choose your own analogy) the brakes fail, the dam bursts, the engine overheats etc.

[Joe Young]

I discount any person that is a self proclaimed expert in anything. An innovator should have a degree of humility because they know there has been a full spectrum of results from their work ranging from wonderful success to utter failure.

Thanks for the post James. Always a pleasure to read.

Joe

[Jeffrey Phillips]

Hi James. On topic and on point as usual. As an innovation "expert" - I'm not really sure there are many of those, but I play one on TV, there are a couple of questions I always hope a potential client will ask, because it shows they are honest with themselves. The first is: will you teach us how to become better innovators? The second is: how should we think of innovation in context with our corporate strategies? The third is: how long will it take for our firm to become better innovators? For the prospects who aren't really engaged, the expectations are: I'm too busy with my day job to learn this, innovation is really just a buzz word I have to parrot and finally, we don't expect to be doing this for very long.

If an innovation expert tries to tell you that innovation is easy, or cheap, or fast, or doesn't require a substantial commitment from the client, run, don't walk away.

[Susan Abbott]

Wow, this is a tough bunch to please.

I think consultants should be able to tell you where they can help and where they can't. No company can help everywhere, I don't care who they are, how big they are or what model they are using.

I would encourage you to think about your suppliers on a portfolio basis. Some are good at helping with fuzzy front end, others good at solving complex challenges, others good at helping create supporting infrastructure. Some that are good at front end cannot support change management or prototyping strategies. But not all innovation projects need that.

I firmly believe the best consultants are prepared to (and want to) engage deeply with you to understand what you are trying to do/achieve. And are responsive to that understanding. I guess that would be my Cylon test.

[James Gardner]

I think it interesting that so many people think the best experts will be able to list off a set of successes and failures and this is the list by which they would be judged.

Of course, everyone has both successes and failures in doing new things all the time... so I wonder if that is really a differentiator when you are actually looking for an expert?

[Billy Bigwords]

I see on jobserve that a city based new media organisation are looking for a Chief Innovation Officer. Perhaps you should send them your questions??

[Bruce Davis]

Some more innovation cylon detector questions:

How many ideas do you need to have one good idea? Answer = 10
Which has greater value, the thinking up or the doing right? Answer = doing
What have you learned from failure? Answer - everything (if they are a proper cylon they are programmed to self destruct if they fail)
Who is your innovation hero, Leonardo Da Vinci or Robert the Bruce? (answer the Scottish french guy with the spider fetish - leonardo was rubbish at execution).

[Ron Shevlin]

Sorry to argue with you, James, but your list and the one you reference doesn't do it for me. Here are the questions I'd ask:

1) What are you going to do for us?
2) How will you know if you've been successful?
3) How will you determine how to allocate the budget?

And I go into the interview with an open mind -- not a preconceived notion of what the "right" or "wrong" answers are.