It seems that with every new business shift, some pundit comes out with a statement meant to re-define the era. These are unprecedented times. Well they are right to a large extent, because with every major business trend, we have seen a couple of constants:

• Fantastic selection of new products
• Faster cycle times
• Greater end-user demands
• Price hyper-sensitivity
• More players in to a crowded field

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But because of the recent growth intensity of these constants, the phenomenon has pushed once lackadaisical organizations to understand the need for a structured innovation approach; urgently. However, many among them seem to have a hard time letting go of an entrenched dogma: one that dictates that the workflows around innovation activities can remain standardized. Much like old-school marketing executives who once dismissed the power and value of online community engagement, managers who still believe that a cookie-cutter workflow will obtain across the channels, whether internal and/or external, are fooling themselves into rapid obsolescence.

Is it the inability to see this or the fear of the unknown?

Traditional models called for a fairly rigid and compliant set of stops along an idea’s path – informal stage gates if you will – if one part of the routing and task-set didn’t jive with a particular department or individual (process role player), they would have to adapt, re-route, escalate, wait or eventually disengage out of frustration. Not only is this approach ineffective and unproductive, it sends some of an organization’s best and brightest away with a negative experience; not many returned for repeat engagements – would you?. After all, seeing the progress of the idea one is engaged with is a huge part of the intrinsic reward of participation. There are many factors that can affect routing: type of idea, department affected, response capability, complexity…the list can be extensive.

There are three workflows that a company with an innovation process ideally should have:

1. Challenge workflow
2. Open workflow
3. Sequential workflow

These all must have a degree of malleability, adaptability and configurability – after all, could we expect the same forms, templates, participants (read SMEs) and turn-around times for idea that affects engineering than one that affects HR…or accounting…or production?

The most underdeveloped (speaking on a human dynamics level – not a technological one) and under-utilized of these three models is the Open workflow approach – not coincidentally, the newest of the three. It is by far the most significant in its capacity to engage, accelerate and deliver – with the most exciting aspect of this nascent practice lying in its potential to produce the much-lauded break-out innovations that we all yearn for.

If ideas are the lifeblood of innovation, then workflows are the cardio-vascular system.