Tag Archives: innovation audit

Start 2021 with a Free Innovation Audit

Free Innovation AuditNow in Portuguese or English

Are you struggling to identify why your innovation efforts are failing to achieve their desired results?

Identify your areas of opportunity with my FREE 50 question audit in one of two ways:

1. Get immediate feedback with the online version

2. Download the Microsoft Excel worksheet (in English or Portuguese)

  • have people across your organization fill it out and collate your results
  • OR purchase the Innovation Diagnostic Service for my help setting up a study and analyzing results

The innovation audit is most powerful when answers are gathered at multiple levels of the organization across several groups and several sites.

I created my FREE Innovation Audit for buyers of my first book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire, but it’s now available for global use.

NOTE: If you’d like to translate the audit into another language, please contact me.

In addition to helping you identify areas of potential improvement and the strengths/weaknesses of your innovation culture, it will also help you see your level of innovation maturity.

Innovation Maturity Model

Image adapted from the book Innovation Tournaments by Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich

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What is your level of Innovation Maturity?

Innovation Maturity Introduction

When it comes to innovation, no two companies are likely to be pursuing innovation in the same way, and they are also likely to be at different stages of innovation maturity. Because of this, even if you found out what your competitor’s innovation strategy was, it would be of no use to you. It is necessary for an innovation strategy to be tailored to your organization’s level of innovation maturity, your corporate strategy, and your innovation vision.

Free Innovation Maturity AssessmentAn organization’s innovation maturity level is important because you must first master a certain set of basic innovation capabilities before implementing more advanced innovation approaches into your strategy. For example, an organization just getting started on their innovation journey would be foolish to try and implement open innovation in their organization. Every organization should get their idea generation (including evolution), idea evaluation, and idea commercialization policies and processes working well with their employees first before opening themselves up to the outside world. Your organization’s innovation strategy must be appropriate to your level of innovation maturity for your innovation efforts to be successful.

I developed the graphic below to explain the different levels of innovation maturity based on some thinking from Wharton professors Christian Terwiesch and Karl T. Ulrich, and I think it allows executives to determine at a glance where their organization is across the spectrum. I hope you find it useful.

Free Innovation Maturity Assessment

Special OfferTo help people evaluate their level of innovation maturity against the above graphic, I am sharing the 50 question innovation maturity assessment I use with clients. The assessment is most powerful when answers are gathered at multiple levels of the organization across several groups and several sites, but you can also fill it out yourself and get instant feedback – for FREE.

To get even more out of the innovation maturity assessment, for a nominal fee, I can help you organize a multiple group and/or multiple physical location survey of people in the organization to capture not just your level of innovation maturity, but also to provide preliminary innovation diagnostics on the areas of innovation challenge and opportunity in your organization.

I can set up a research study to capture a baseline innovation maturity level and analyze the data to unlock insights about the relative health of your innovation efforts. For a limited time, I will provide this service for the special introductory price of $499.99.

Click here to purchase the innovation diagnostic service
(Get help using the innovation maturity assessment across multiple sites and job functions and analyzing the results)

Innovation Maturity Model

Innovation Maturity Assessment Scoring Key (showing level of maturity)

Point totals are translated to the innovation maturity model as follows:

  • 000-100 = Level 1 – Reactive
  • 101-130 = Level 2 – Structured
  • 131-150 = Level 3 – In Control
  • 151-180 = Level 4 – Internalized
  • 181-200 = Level 5 – Continuously Improving

Click here to access the Innovation Maturity Assessment

Innovation Maturity Assessment Instructions

1. Read each statement and determine how much you agree with each one, using this scale:

  • 0 – None
  • 1 – A Little
  • 2 – Partially
  • 3 – Often
  • 4 – Fully

2. Select the answer for each question that is most appropriate.

The form will score the innovation maturity assessment and return a result to you via email along with the SCORING KEY and the Innovation Maturity Model graphic. Store the result as a baseline and come back annually and re-take the assessment to measure your progress!

Click here to access the Innovation Maturity Assessment

Click here to purchase the innovation diagnostic service
(Get help using the innovation maturity assessment across multiple sites and job functions and analyzing the results)

* Graphic adapted from the book Innovation Tournaments by Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich

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Latest Radio Interview with The Health Maven

LeAnna J Carey - The Health MavenI’m proud to share with you the link to my latest radio interview. This time I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with LeAnna J. Carey (@LeannaJCarey), host of the popular radio program The Health Maven – Innovation Talk.

We spend the 30 minutes talking about The Nine Innovation Roles and how organizations around the world are increasingly utilizing The Nine Innovation Roles to help them build more effective innovation teams. Curious which ones I think LeAnna fills or that I see myself typically filling?

Tune into the broadcast to find out! 🙂

Click here to listen to a recording of the interview


Build a common language of innovation on your team

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How healthy are your innovation efforts?

How healthy are your innovation efforts?As organizations become more mature in their process excellence efforts, an increasing number of organizations are turning their attention to try and achieve innovation excellence.

So where should your journey of a thousand innovation steps begin?

As your organization begins its innovation journey it is helpful to know where you are starting from in terms of your innovation maturity level and where the strengths and weaknesses of your innovation culture lie.

In my popular book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire, that many organizations are buying in bulk and using to help establish their organization’s common language of innovation, I promised to share my 50 question innovation audit on this web site, and so here it is.

The audit is designed to examine many different areas of your innovation culture and help you identify both what your level of innovation maturity is, but also the areas where you have a strong base to build from and where you need to invest more effort.

Innovation Maturity Model

To properly use my innovation audit, you should have large sections of your employee population fill out the survey (both in management and operational roles) across several different business specialties and office locations. The data can then be looked at by department, business specialty, office location and other groupings that make sense to identify both commonalities and differences.

If you would like assistance interpreting the results, please contact me to see the different options for engaging my services. Many companies combine this with an innovation speaker engagement or some innovation training for their employees.

I hope you find this innovation audit of use, and I thank you for buying the book (or considering doing it now)!

Download my FREE innovation audit


Build a common language of innovation on your team

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