Innovation is the key to success!!"  Whatever you feel about this quote, whether you believe it to be true or whether you believe success comes from outside of innovation or maybe somewhere in between, innovation is a key driver for many successful businesses. 

Innovation drives engineers and scientists to think outside the box, to look for the angle that no one else has looked for.  It draws on solutions from the 'left field', but all too often innovation can be stifled before we even start, why is this a common place practice for so many companies, managers and leaders?

Sometimes the fear of innovation (or creating something new or different) is enough to stop or halt the attempt, even before we put pen to paper we should be free to innovate in our minds, we should be allowed to explore the world without 'buts and what ifs'.

Sometimes we do not fully understand where a person who has the innovation is 'coming from', we need to alter our mindset, to get into their frame of mind, this I have found to be the most challenging.

Sometimes we are told that the reward does not repay the risk!  We are told that it would cost too much if we failed and that your time would be better off spent doing something else.  But what do we encourage our children to do?  Experience the world, make mistakes and learn from them, and likewise we should encourage our young (and some older) engineers to make mistakes, have the freedom to explore, do the  'what happens if I try this...' and learn from it

And sometimes we could fear the result, what happens if this does work or if we do find the solution to the problem.  We can be told that it is easier and simpler to let things be or that to introduce a new way of working will require 'a considerable amount of effort to implement' so we will sit with the "Status Quo".

Whatever barriers to innovation you are experiencing continue to push, continue to work, continue to strive for the result, because when you succeed, when you get that result, when you finally make the breakthrough, that is when you can say "I made the difference and I did not give up"

When trying to be innovative, businesses can choose from a variety of different strategies. Each offers advantages and disadvantages. Among the different types of innovation processes business can employ: So the following are some types of innovation.

Open: Originated by Henry Chesbrough, a professor at University of California at Berkley and executive director for the Center for Open Innovation. Open innovation is when companies use internal and external ideas to help advance their operations.

Disruptive: Coined by professor, author and entrepreneur Clay Christensen. Disruptive innovation is when new products or services start out at the bottom of the marketplace but end up eventually moving up and displacing their competitors.

Reverse: Reverse innovation is when products or services are developed first for use in developing nations.
By Msele Musa
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