Innovation Training

"Why Innovation Matters," will help you understand what innovation is, why your organization makes it a priority, and how to better align your efforts with your organization's ultimate innovation goals. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

"The Anatomy of an Innovation," introduces the LaunchPath Idea Canvas, a simple framework for thinking about innovation. Using this framework will make it much easier for you to identify, evaluate, and act on innovation opportunities. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

In “The Innovation Process,” you take a brief tour through the six key stages of the innovation process and learn how a disciplined innovation process minimizes the risk of failure and keeps the cost of failure in check. Additionally, you will learn how to productively respond to unavoidable setbacks on the path to innovation. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

“What Makes a Great Innovation Great” explains the five categories of criteria that organizations typically use to assess a business idea so that you can be strategic in your search for an idea that your organization will support. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

Finding a good business idea requires effective creative thinking which boils down to the three simple principles covered in this lesson. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology. Otherwise, no prerequisite skills or knowledge are required.

Learn where to look for business ideas by exploring the four business opportunity search zones.

"How to Find a Good Business Idea" walks you through the step-by-step process of generating lots of ideas that will increase your effectiveness in finding an idea that your organization will support. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

This lesson explains the overall objective and structure of a successful pitch deck and provides critical context for the remainder of the lessons included in this unit.

Great pitch decks capture attention and build anticipation with an intriguing and compelling cover slide. This lesson walks you step-by-step through the process of creating your "Big Idea" slide.

To sell your idea effectively, you must narrate a tale of exciting opportunity by telling a story of an urgent problem and an innovative solution. This lesson walks you through the process of telling your story and includes a fun example taken from a live pitch event.

One of the most difficult challenges of intrapreneurship is explaining how your innovation works at a summary, "big picture" level. This lesson makes it quick and easy using a simple 4-step process.

"How big is the market for your innovation?" This is often THE question at the top of Management's list, but also the topic that most intrapreneurs struggle to understand, much less explain. This lesson will empower you to confidently speak Management's language, and quantify the size of your market with ease.

Your management will want to understand the nitty gritty details regarding the anticipated financial impact of your innovation. For example, how will it impact pricing? Units sold? Total revenue? Costs? Profit? This lesson will empower you to develop and articulate great answers to all such questions.

What are the key metrics of your innovation's growth, revenue, and costs? As your innovation is implemented and operated, how do you anticipate those metrics will change over time? These are the questions that your Forecast slide answers. This lesson empowers you to create the Forecast slide with ease.

How does your innovation stack up against the competion? In this lesson you will learn a simple way to articulate your competitive edge.

Your Distribution Model explains how you will get your innovation out into the world. I.e. it answers the questions: - Where will your customers discover that your innovation exists? - Where will they evaluate the features, benefits, and costs of your innovation? - Where will they acquire or access your innovation? This lesson provides you with a simple process for answering these questions.

Innovation success often depends more on the quality of the team than the quality of the idea. A great team can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat; a weak team may squander the most promising opportunity. Given this reality, it is critically important that you assemble a winning team. This lesson offers insightful, actionable tips on how to make that happen.

The Risk Mitigation Slide is an opportunity for you to: - Challenge your own assumptions and proactively identify risk; - Neutralize your Innovation Council's concerns by proactively bringing these risks to their attention, and showing how they might be mitigated; and - Establishing your credibility as a person who is both insightful enough to see the risk and transparent enough to lay it on the table. This lesson walks you through a 4-step process for developing and articulating your risk mitigation plan.

Lesson 12, "Delivering the Pitch," teaches you the elements of good delivery and tips about how you can effectively prepare to deliver a winning pitch. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology. Otherwise, no prerequisite skills or knowledge are required.

"Innovation Testing Basics" explains why testing is critical to the innovation process and discusses six key principles of innovation testing.

"Orientation to Market Testing" explains the vital importance of market testing and introduces you to the six principles of effective market testing. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

"How to Create a Market Test Plan" reviews how to find and use the Market Test Plan Template, a resource that will help you - Identify your market assumptions, - Determine the risk level of each assumption, and - Develop tests for the risky assumptions. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

"How to Create a Market Test Interview Script" covers the five objectives of a market test interview and reviews the market test interview script development process using two resources: the Market Test Plan and the Sample Market Test Interview Script. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

"Market Testing Tips and Tricks" teaches you how to find target customers and schedule and conduct market interviews. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

"Orientation to Model Concept Testing" explains model concept testing and why it is so important. It also covers the six key principles of successful innovation testing. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

"How to Create a Model Concept Test Plan" simplifies the process of creating a Model Concept Test Plan by guiding you step-by-step through the process with a simple template which also provides links to pertinent, supporting information. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

"How to Create a Model Concept Interview Script" covers the objectives of the model concept interview and the process of developing an effective model interview script. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

In "How to Create a Prototype of Your Solution" you'll learn what a prototype is and how a prototype of your solution can save you a substantial amount of time and money. This lesson is supplemented with additional resources to support you in the development of your prototype. This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

"Model Concept Testing Tips & Tricks" teaches you how to find target customers and schedule and conduct effective interviews. (Please note that these objectives and this lesson are the same as "Market Testing Tips & Tricks." While the content of Market Tests and Model Concept Tests are different, the process is the same; therefore, they share the same tips & tricks.) This lesson has been written for a professional and managerial audience and assumes a basic knowledge of business concepts and terminology.

"Orientation to Model Reality Testing" explains what model reality testing is, why it matters, the questions the model testing should answer, and the importance of applying the key principles of innovation.