Innovation Pipeline Desk / Is your innovation program theater? Eight tests
GUIDE FOR INNOVATION LEADERS
Is Your Innovation Program Theater? Eight Yes or No Tests
The lab looks busy. There are events, a newsletter and a startup day each quarter. Ask which business owner signed for a pilot this year and the room goes quiet.
Innovation theater is activity without owned decisions. These eight tests turn that into something you can answer yes or no about your own program in under an hour.
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Answer yes or no
The eight tests
Take your current list of candidates and answer each test for the program as a whole. Any no is a place the pipeline leaks.
- Is every problem the program works on written down with a named business owner?
- Does every candidate have dated public evidence that it runs in production somewhere?
- Did each owner set a cost ceiling before candidates were scored?
- Is the data path and the security reviewer known for every candidate in pilot?
- Does every pilot have a success test the owner can mark yes or no?
- Was a kill date set before each pilot started?
- Is someone named to run each pilot after it works?
- Can every score be traced to a source and the date it was read?
Reading the result
What the answers mean
Seven or eight yes answers: you have a pipeline and need throughput. Four to six: the pipeline exists but leaks at the tests you missed. Three or fewer: the program is producing activity, and the first fix is written problem statements with owners.
Getting help
The Health Check runs these tests for you
The $2,500 Pipeline Health Check scores your current pipeline against these same eight tests and returns the written result in 10 business days, with 20 newly scored candidates and one pilot brief.
Straight answers
Questions this guide answers.
- What is innovation theater?
- Innovation theater is visible innovation activity, such as events, labs and startup days, that does not lead to owned decisions about pilots and production. The eight tests measure the decisions, not the activity.
- How long does the self test take?
- Under an hour for most teams with a current list of candidates. If you have no list, that is the first finding.
- Can we run the tests without hiring anyone?
- Yes. The tests are published here so you can. The Health Check is for teams that want them run by someone outside the program, with new candidates scored the same way.
Start with one mandate
Request a Pipeline Health Check.
The Health Check report is yours to keep whether or not you go further. Sign the Sprint within 30 days of the report and the $2,500 comes off the Sprint in full.
Health Check $2,500. Pipeline Sprint $12,000. Then $3,500 a month.
The Health Check is a fixed price, returned 10 business days after the kickoff call. The Sprint runs six weeks. The Run is month to month with 30 days notice, and covers 10 new scored candidates a month, board upkeep and the monthly report.