As much as it’s critical to define innovation, it’s also important to properly outline and define what ‘isn’t’ innovation.

In many organizations, innovation has the tendency to get attached to projects and initiatives that should be categorized more appropriately. That’s where strong, clear innovation definitions serve some of their highest purposes. In addition to defining innovation and also what it isn’t, it’s critical to offer examples from the company history of both. 

Each organization must do this for numerous reasons including but not limited to budget allocations, outcomes and performance purposes, and team and governance structures. 

A common flaw in defining innovation - what it is and isn’t - especially in organizations that tend to have less innovation maturity, is tagging product and service development projects and initiatives as innovation. One fundamental and shared corporate innovation practice is planning innovation within longer time horizons that exceed three years. Projects and initiatives that have deliverables and a ROI timeline of less than three years, should not be tagged as innovation, although this is nuanced.

Product and service development is usually an 18 month time horizon and usually has its own budgets, departments, and teams. Certainly product and service development plays a role within the growth portfolio and may or may not share resources with the innovation team. Once again, each organization should distinguish between innovation and other growth programs inline with historical reference and the current/future corporate strategy.

When developing new or updated innovation definitions make sure to outline and define what innovation isn’t using case studies and examples from the corporate history to better organize and distinguish between innovation initiatives and other growth programs.