Innovation is risky. Sometimes this knowledge can hold organisations and teams back, keeping their focus on small, lower risk projects or even stopping them completely from innovating.

When that happens organisations miss out on the potentially large rewards of more ambitious projects.

However, there are simple steps you can take to make innovation less risky.

Research has shown that between 85% and 90% of the average innovation portfolio is made up of small, ‘incremental’ innovation projects that will only deliver small, financial and reputational rewards.

Such projects will never be able to deliver the growth that companies need to achieve.

The reason for this caution about innovation is often that an organisation has not developed a satisfactory approach to risk management in innovation.

How to Manage Risk in Innovation.

Two key dimensions of making innovation in organisations ‘less risky’ are:-

• Making it less risky for the organisation as a whole
• Making it less risky for innovation teams and individuals

3 Ways to Make Innovation Less Risky.

Three key ways that you can make innovation less risky are:-

     1. Use effective risk management tools.

We'll talk in more details about this below.

     2. Establish innovation systems

These will ensure that you consider all aspects of successful innovation:-

• Effective Innovation processes

• Effective innovation tools and techniques

• Ensuring that you are creating an effective ‘climate’ or ‘mindstates’ for innovation

Anatellô’s Complete 3-in-1 innovation System ensures this.

Within the area of 'climate' for innovation, organisations need to ensure that there is a ‘learning culture’ rather than a ‘blame’ culture.  This is key to making innovation less risky for teams and individuals.

      3. Innovation Training

Innovation training can also reduce risk in innovation projects by giving teams appropriate skills for each part of the innovation project, from innovation strategy, through concept development to selling innovation internally and much more.

The rest of this article focuses on risk management tools.

Managing risk in innovation requires not only that you have effective risk management tools,  but also that you conduct risk management measures on a regular basis throughout the project.

As a minimum risk should be managed formally at :-

• Concept stage
• Development stage
• Launch stage

Tools for Risk Management in Innovation.

There are many tools that can help you manage risk in innovation.

Key tools focus on:-

• Managing risk in your innovation portfolio
• Managing risk on your innovation projects.

Here we are going to focus on a tool for risk management for innovation projects.

Download the Free Risk Management Tool

This proven tool is underpinned by research and usage and has been used effectively by many organisations in different sectors.

This tool helps you focus your risk assessment in areas that are critical to innovation success.

Innovation projects are initiated in various ways. Perhaps a new technology becomes available, or a customer has made a request and you want to respond, or someone in your organisation has identified a market opportunity.

What sometimes happens is that the initial ‘opportunity’, may be used to drive the project forward. Sometimes the team can get so caught up in this original stimulus to innovate, that they do not consider adequately other factors – factors that are critical to success in innovation.

The risk management tool for projects can help you avoid this.

One of the key things about using an effective Risk Management Tool – is  that it’s not just about filling in templates and finding a way to get the ‘right’ answer so the project can proceed. Rather, it is about using the tool to direct the team’s thinking into specific areas, challenging them to come up with creative solutions to emerging problems and following up on all the actions.

Learn more about Risk Management and Download the Free Risk Management Tool Here

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