Innovation  vs. Operations Very different approaches to high performance VadiK Inventor Author Founder   Innovation is about Love. Operating is about discipline. Operations generate today's value, while innovation creates tomorrow's opportunities. The primary difference between operations and innovation is uncertainty. It eludes planning, prediction and containment.       "Managers succeed by following rules, Innovators succeed by breaking rules." ~ KoRe proverb     Operating vs. Innovating Operating Innovating Creating today's revenue Creating tomorrow's revenue Managers are in charge Leaders are in change Following rules Breaking rules Steps are mostly linear Steps are mostly non-linear Single route and result Multiple routes and results Driven by functional teams Driven by cross-functional teams Failures are punished Noble failures are permitted Reworking is waste Reworking is a part of learning and moving forward Clear, shared goals Unclear, often conflicting goals Clear front end Fuzzy front end Easy to measure Tough to measure Rich historical data Poor historical data Scientific forecasting possible Scientific forecasting impossible, Short cycle time Long cycle time Many common causes Many special causes Traditional players & roles New players & roles Doing things right Disrupting the status quo   "In innovation doing things right is often wrong. It's managers who succeed by following the rules. Innovators succeed by breaking rules." ~ Vadim Kotelnikov       "Be wary of incremental changes – they replace creativity and real innovation." ~ Max De Pree         "Managing and innovation did not always fit comfortably together. That's not surprising. Managers are people who like order. They like forecasts to come out as planned. In fact, managers are often judged on how much order they produce. Innovation, on the other hand, is often a disorderly process. Many times, perhaps most times, innovation does not turn out as planned. As a result, there is tension between managers and innovation." ~ Lewis Lehro     Different Strategies and Routes to Success When managing daily operations, you know: When managing innovation, you have to: what results should be what steps are required to achieve them who should do what along the way rely on your intuition because you always have too little information available to make choices pursue not a single clear goal, but multiple and unclear goals explore various routes towards your goals   "If you don't change the world for the better, why do you even exist? The difference between possible and impossible is inside you... Do you want to manage innovation? The traditional management skills don't work. They will kill innovation quickly." ~ Vadim Kotelnikov       "Shun the incremental and go for the leap." ~ Jack Welch         Different Management Tools and Thinking Managing innovation requires specific approaches.       If you try to manage the fuzzy front end and the uncertainty inherent in radical innovation with tools and thinking designed for the relative certainty of operations, you are sure to fail. You'll be repeatedly shocked as most of your assumptions prove false. The most effective way to deal with uncertainty inherent in innovation is to have a learning-forward process that systematically confronts the unknown with new hypotheses, experiments with them, learns, adapts, and eventually creates an innovative solution. When innovating, you cannot figure it all out and ahead of time and stick to one plan.     Play entrepreneurial simulation games like InnoBall (Innovation Brainball) to prepare to win. Then jump in, learn and adjust as you go. "Successful innovators get used to moving forward, backing up, going sidewise, chasing parallel paths for a while, consolidating, and then going forward again." ~ Christopher Meyer