Innovation
StrategyCornell

Certificate Program

An enterprise with an innovation culture doesn't just happen. You must plan for both financial success and cultural change. There are several types of and approaches to innovation. How do you create an innovation strategy for your enterprise?

In this course, you will begin to create a roadmap called the innovation placemat. You will identify your organization's goals and align your innovation strategy to it. You will cultivate an executive champion and set SMART goals for your new product, service, or technology. You will identify risks and barriers to deployment and create mitigation plans to overcome them. Along the way, you will hear case studies of organizations large and small, private and government, established and startup, and in many domains who have successfully established an innovation strategy with sustainable positive effects on their bottom lines.

To create and sustain a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in your organization, it is helpful to establish an environment that supports certain mindsets. And these mindsets can create first a culture change in your organization, often followed by a higher financial return on investment. These mindsets are the competencies that convert ideas to impact.

In this course, you will learn about and apply three key innovation competencies: lean startup, maker culture, and design thinking. Each of these competencies are used by large and small organizations, resulting in new products and services and satisfied employees and customers.

Lean thinking is a form of customer discovery where you will develop a series of hypotheses and then test them. Maker culture is based on the do-it-yourself ethos and can help you prototype and test products quickly, reducing time to market. Design thinking is a process of empathetically listening to and then co-designing with your customers. While the three competencies have some overlapping methodology, one or two of them will best support your innovation strategy and tie in more effectively with your organization's overall strategy.

The following course is required to be completed before taking this course:

• Developing Innovation Strategy

There are many exciting tools you can use to implement innovation at your organization. These tools are the “hammer and nails” of innovation. In this course, you will learn about 14 innovation tools. You will also see how other organizations have used them to successfully increase cultural and financial ROI, please customers, and improve operational efficiencies. These tools range from simpler activities such as conducting employee training, hosting hackathons, and implementing design sprints to more complex methods such as establishing an external incubator, founding a center of excellence, and acquiring another company. You will then further iterate your innovation placemat.

The following courses are required to be completed before taking this course:

• Developing Innovation Strategy
• Building Innovation Competencies

So far you have created an innovation strategy and established a vision, SMART goals, and outcome measures. You've identified competencies such as lean startup, makerspace, and design thinking, and selected tools to build an innovation culture. Now you will learn how to implement your strategy. After you map key internal stakeholders, you will devise a campaign plan for your strategy and build a dedicated team. You will understand the different motivations of your innovation shop and “the performance engine” and learn to work effectively with performance engine team members. You will further build out your innovation placemat with your implementation plan, identifying policies that can enhance innovation at your organization.

The following courses are required to be completed before taking this course:

• Developing Innovation Strategy
• Building Innovation Competencies
• Innovation Tools

In this course, you will devise a strategy to manage a portfolio of innovation projects at your organization. You will examine best practices for portfolio management and establish a plan to spread your innovation and innovation culture. Then you will examine typical risks to your scaling strategy and establish a sustainment plan. Finally, you will revise your innovation placemat and present a practice pitch. This activity will prepare you to pitch your innovation placemat at your organization.

The following courses are required to be completed before taking this course:

• Developing Innovation Strategy
• Building Innovation Competencies
• Innovation Tools
• Implementing Innovation