by Braden Kelley and Art Inteligencia
What Is an Innovation Strategy? (Short Answer)
An innovation strategy is the set of choices that tell an organization where it will create new value, which types of innovation it will pursue, how much change customers and the operating model can absorb, and how ideas will move from insight to adoption. It is not a lab, a hackathon calendar, or a poster that says “be innovative.” Strategy decides the portfolio, the barriers you will remove, and who owns the landing — so innovation is repeatable, not accidental.
If your “innovation strategy” cannot say what you will stop funding, it is a wish list.
Below: what belongs in a real innovation strategy, how it differs from innovation theater, how to build one, and how you know it is working. It sits on top of the definition in What Is Innovation? — widely adopted solutions valued above alternatives.
What Does an Innovation Strategy Include?
Strategy is choice under constraint. For innovation, the useful choices usually cover five questions:
- Where will we play? Which customer jobs, markets, experiences, or internal problems deserve new value — and which are off-limits for now.
- Which types of innovation? By degree of change (incremental, adjacent, radical/disruptive) and by what changes (product, service, process, business model, experience, ecosystem). Match the type to customer and organizational capacity — see What Are the Different Types of Innovation?
- What does the portfolio look like? Most bets incremental and adjacent; a smaller share bolder, with different metrics and more patience. One “disruptive” label on every slide is not a portfolio.
- How do ideas become adopted? A path from insight to evidence to operating-model fit to a business-as-usual owner — not a funnel that ends at the pilot. See What Is the Innovation Process?
- Which barriers will we remove? Unclear definition and goals, weak insight, rigid funding, risk aversion without learning, siloed information, incentives that punish the new way. Strategy without barrier work is aspiration. That is the core of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire.
An innovation strategy is a portfolio of bets plus a system that can adopt them — not a brainstorming brand.
What Is an Innovation Strategy Not?
- Not a lab floor plan. Labs can serve strategy. They are not strategy. Many fail when they are isolated theater — see 5 Reasons Innovation Labs Fail.
- Not copying someone else’s artifacts. Beanbags, hackathons, and “innovation Fridays” without decision rights and adoption paths are costume. Patterns in 7 Types of Innovation Theater.
- Not “innovate everywhere.” Unlimited domains dilute focus and overload the organization.
- Not only R&D or only digital. Process, experience, and business-model innovation are strategy choices too.
- Not a substitute for culture and roles. Strategy sets direction; culture and roles determine whether people can execute it — see How Do You Build a Culture of Innovation?
If the only deliverable is a vision video, you have communications — not strategy.
How Do You Create an Innovation Strategy?
- Start with a shared definition of innovation — so the organization stops labeling every novelty a win.
- Ground choices in human jobs and insight — whose life improves, and how you would know in behavior.
- Choose domains and types on purpose — including what you will not pursue this year.
- Design the portfolio and the metrics — adoption and value above alternatives, honorable kills, transfer to BAU. Frame in How Do You Measure Innovation Success?
- Name owners and mandates — who can fund, stop, and operate what used to be a pilot.
- Remove the barriers that would kill the portfolio — funding rules, incentives, information flow, capacity, and leadership attention.
- Connect to change capacity — an innovation strategy that ignores how much change people can absorb becomes a hard landing by design.
Write the strategy so a middle manager can tell which bets to protect — and which to stop pitching.
How Do You Know an Innovation Strategy Is Working?
- Can leaders name the domains and types without opening the deck?
- Does the portfolio match the stated mix — or is everything labeled “transformational”?
- Do weak bets get killed on evidence and dates, not on politics alone?
- Do strong bets leave the pilot with a named operating owner?
- Are barriers visibly coming down — or does every idea still die in the same place?
When innovations keep failing at adoption, the strategy may be a slogan sitting on top of an unchanged system — see Why Do Most Innovations Fail?
A working innovation strategy shows up in what gets funded, stopped, and adopted — not in how inspiring the offsite felt.
FAQ: What Is an Innovation Strategy?
What is an innovation strategy in simple words?
An innovation strategy is how an organization decides where to create new value, which kinds of innovation to pursue, how ideas will reach adoption, and which barriers it will remove. It is a set of choices — including what not to fund — not a lab or a slogan.
What is the difference between an innovation strategy and an innovation process?
Strategy chooses where to play, which types of bets to run, and what success requires. Process is how individual bets move from insight to evidence to adoption. You need both: strategy without process is aspiration; process without strategy is busywork.
How do you create an innovation strategy?
Agree on a definition of innovation, choose domains and types based on customer jobs and capacity, design a mixed portfolio with clear metrics, name owners and decision rights, and remove organizational barriers that would block adoption. Write what you will stop as clearly as what you will start.
Does every company need an innovation lab as part of its strategy?
No. A lab is one possible structure. Many strategies work better by embedding innovation roles and capacity in the core business. A lab without connection to customers, funding, and adoption often becomes theater.
How do you know an innovation strategy is working?
Leaders can name the focus areas, the portfolio matches the stated mix, weak bets get killed on evidence, strong bets transfer to business owners, and known barriers are actually coming down. Inspiration without those outcomes is not strategy in action.
Image credits: Gemini
Content Authenticity Statement: The topic area, key elements to focus on, etc. were decisions made by Braden Kelley, with a little help from Cursor to clean up the article, add images and create infographics.
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