Last year innovation group Solverboard published their first Innovation Blockers Report to help shed some light on the main challenges organizations face in growing innovation to scale.  The report, which was published in December, rapidly found itself disrupted as Covid-19 swept the world and turned most of what we know upside down.

Understandably, they’ve returned to the table with an updated report with Covid fresh in our minds.  Despite the huge changes required by the pandemic, the report suggests that focus on innovation among senior managers has been in decline for several years, due in part to the poor returns on investment on innovation initiatives in that time.  Indeed, they argue that Covid has prompted many to focus purely on protecting business as usual, with innovation punted down the priority list.

Among the main blockers they found to innovation in the current climate were:

1. Fear of failure – Obviously innovation is in its very essence a step into the unknown, so fear of things going wrong is a major psychological and cultural hurdle to overcome.  The authors advocate prototyping to help overcome this fear as it makes the risks involved much lower.
2. Conflicting organizational goals – The challenge of managing short-term and long-term goals in unison is one that has hobbled innovation for decades, but the report suggests an even graver problem is a lack of real consensus around the long-term vision for the organization itself.
3. Lack of key innovation skills – Skills shortages seem to exist across a wide range of disciplines, and innovation is no different, with the report suggesting that few organizations are investing in their innovation skills base.
4. No clear definition of what innovation is – Innovation can be very complex, and the report highlights how confusing it can be internally, as people struggle to grasp whether their organization wants incremental or radical innovation, technology or process innovation, and so on.  Lack of clarity presents a barrier to successful innovation as no one really knows what is expected of them.
5. Disagreement over ownership – Few organizations have a specific ‘innovation’ department, so ownership is often spread across multiple teams.  When working well, this is great, as you bring in a multitude of views and perspectives, and ideas are both generated and developed well.  When it’s not working well, a lack of ownership can result in drift.

While the findings are interesting, it’s easy to argue that these barriers aren’t especially unique to 2020, and indeed could have been presented at any time over the last decade or so.  Whether the report proves useful in helping to overcome the blockers, only time will tell.