If-Then Milestones : An Alternative to Risk Reduction
One of the greatest problems in corporate innovation systems is that too much effort is placed on the idea review process – sometimes called the stage gate – while insufficient effort is placed on generating truly innovative ideas and seriously poor attention is paid in developing creative challenges for generating ideas (such as “In what ways might we improve our corporate innovation process?”).
Of course reviewing ideas is a critical component in any innovation process. Organizations need to evaluate ideas to determine whether or not they meet the relevant criteria and, if not, how ideas might be improved to meet those criteria. Of course, the review process is also a time when ideas can be made more innovative.
Sadly, that’s not what usually happens. More typically, the review process is about reducing risk. Innovative ideas pass from one committee to another, each of which is worried about one perceived risk or another. Unfortunately, innovativeness is directly proportional to risk. Decrease risk and you inevitably decrease the innovativeness of an idea.

One Scene:
Indeed, I can imagine this scene in a car manufacturing firm. Barney, the head of research comes bursting into the CEO’s office. “I’ve done it, I’ve done it!” he shouts waving a strange looking model in front of Sarah, the CEO.
“What is it?” asks Sarah.
“Why, it’s a flying car that operates via a highly efficient fuel cell. The fuel cell runs on water produces virtually no pollution!”
“A flying car…. Now that is interesting. But I wonder if our customers would like it. After all, they’ve been buying wheeled cars from us for nearly a century. Perhaps you could put some wheels on it in order to make it comfortable.”
As the idea floats from one review committee to another, additional changes are made to Barney’s design.
  • “It could be hard for customers to refill water in the middle of the dessert. Perhaps we should also install a petrol (gasoline) engine just in case.”"The wheels look nice and would comfort our buyers, but we think you should make them bigger and allow the flying car to drive as well as fly as there could be times when our customers would not like to fly.”
  • “We feel that having a petrol engine and a fuel cell engine is redundant. Our customers are more used to petrol engines and we have a very fuel efficient 2.0 litre engine available. So let’s drop the fuel cell all together.”
  • “Our legal department is concerned that flying cars could raise liability issues in the event of a crash. Since the car has wheels anyway, they recommend we postpone the flying functionality for a few years until the legal environment is clearer. Let’s look at the flying bit again in 2025.”

The result? Thanks to risk-averse review committees, the flying car that runs on water using a highly efficient fuel cell becomes… a perfectly ordinary petrol engined car.

Consequences:
But the removal of all innovativeness from an innovative idea is a smaller consequence of excessive risk-averse review. Consider Barney, the inventor of the flying car in the example above. How do you think he will feel while watching his pet idea being made more and more mediocre with every review committee? In spite of having a highly innovative mind, he will either start looking for a job in a company that appreciates his brilliance – or keep his head down and his more radical (in other words, more “innovative”) ideas to himself.
Worse, Barney will not be the only one adversely affected by the review committees. His colleagues will also see what happens when you present a radical idea to company. It gets watered down into a mediocre idea. So, they will learn to censor themselves and water their own ideas down before sharing them with committees that will only water them down further in order to squeeze every element of risk – and innovativeness – out of the ideas.
Hence, risk obsessed review committees not only dilute the ideas they get their hands on, they also dilute the innovativeness of the workforce. And if a company invests in developing an innovation process and installing an idea management solution, only to dilute ideas and corporate innovativeness, they are truly establishing an expensive and time consuming approach to avoiding innovation.

Alternate approach:
Nevertheless, as stated at the beginning of this article, ideas do need to be reviewed. But the review process should not be about removing risk. It should be about examining viability, increasing innovativeness and establishing a series of “if-then milestones” for regularly testing the implementation.
To explain if-then milestones, consider the flying car example again. Sarah, the CEO, might say: “Now that is a very interesting idea, Barney. But, I am worried that such a radical idea might be too much for our clients. So, let’s do it one step at a time.
“First, patent the technology. Then go ahead and build a working prototype. And let’s have it ready for the Geneva Motor Show next March. But let’s not be so secretive this time. I want you to leak details – without giving away any technical innovations, of course – to the motoring press. To some extent we can gauge the car’s potential by their reaction.”
“IF the motoring press is too negative, THEN we can tone down your idea before the motor show. IF their feedback is very bad, THEN we may have to completely reconsider your idea. But we’ll deal with that if, and only if, it is the case.
“Then, since this is a radical idea, let’s try a more radical approach. Why don’t you write a blog about the development of the flying car? Again, keep the technology to yourself – at least until the patents are applied for – but share the development and testing of the car. That should give us a lot of feedback from car and technology aficionados. IF they bring up any serious issues, THEN we can review how to deal with those issues.
“We should also present your idea to the legal department. Doubtless they will come up with all kinds of liability objections. So, we’ll ask them to give us some scenarios. IF their scenarios indicate serious legal issues, THEN we will brainstorm ways to work around those issues.
“Assuming feedback is good, we will build a small test fleet to see how they work. We should give some test vehicles to typical owners of our current cars and look at their remarks. IF they have any serious issues, THEN we can look at how to work around those issues.
“I am concerned that finding water, for refueling, on the road might be tricky, as 50 litres will be needed with each refueling. Petrol stations might not be happy about giving away so much water. So, this is something we will have to explore with the test fleet. However IF getting water on the road is an issue, THEN we should work out a deal with the oil companies.
“Of course, IF there are serious problems with the test fleet, THEN we will have to seriously reconsider the project – and possibly drop it all together. But we’ll deal with that if and only if it’s a problem.
“So, Barney, give me a budget for all of that. IF it’s reasonable THEN we can get started on the first steps.”

Benefits:
As you can see, in this overly simplified example, the CEO has acknowledged the risk present in such a radical new idea. But instead of removing risk – and innovativeness – she has laid out a pre-implementation plan with a series of If-Then’s. If something does not work as planned, then an action is to be taken. Sometimes that action might as vague as reviewing the idea again to see how you will manage the problem. Sometimes it might be a matter of canceling the project altogether.
Bear in mind, however, that if problems do arise, the solution need not be to reduce risk and make the idea more conventional. Indeed, it might be the opposite. Look at the problem as a challenge and dream up innovative solutions to solve it.


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