What skills are needed to innovate?

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By definition, creativity involves finding new insights and ideas. Innovation extends this to using processes to develop, judge and act on ideas. Creativity is primarily an individual pursuit. The vast majority of new ideas come from insights generated by an individual faced with everyday challenges. Group processes are used when individual effort is not sufficient to meet a challenge (or when a deliberate attempt is made to generate new ideas).

These competencies comprise insights, skills and experience that can be gained through training and learning activities. These skills are refined and enhanced when used daily.

1. Ability to Generate New Ideas
• Defining a problem or challenge.
• Searching for options for a solution.
• Ability to use tools to "brainstorm" stronger and more sophisticated options.
• Ability to refine and reduce options, to recommend a solution.
2. Ability to Develop Ideas
• Understanding the need to manage ideas through stages of development.
• Ability to use processes to generate enhancements to an idea.
3. Ability to Judge Ideas
• Understanding that ideas are not equal and they need to be judged, evaluated or measured.
• Ability to judge, through intuition and by use of tools, between ideas (e.g., which one is better) and to evaluate the wholeness of an idea (e.g., is this a good idea or a great idea?).
• Use of models to enhance personal insights, to judge the value of ideas.
4. Ability to Communicate New Ideas
• Recognizing the marketing potential of an idea.
• Ability to articulate an idea, to convert something conceptual for presentation.
• Ability to define the value of an idea and present it to earn the commitment of others.
5. Ability to Translate Ideas into Actions
• Ability to translate a workable idea into a series of stages, phases or steps.
• Understanding of planning - Distinguishing between goals, strategies and actions.

There are further competencies for managing and leadership related to the need to nurture and support people using these skills.

Attributes - Qualities of Innovative Thinkers
The competencies or skills for innovative thinking go hand in hand with the qualities, attributes and attitudes necessary for innovative thinking. These qualities reflect the inner motivations of people to use these skills:

• Challenge the status quo
• Sense of enthusiasm and passion
• Curiosity and questioning
• Visionary, to make connections others miss
• Willing to experiment and learn from the experience
• Limit criticism of their own ideas
• Flexible and adaptive
• Reflective
• Recognize patterns and systems
• See the big picture along with the details
• Tolerate ambiguity
• Committed to learning and knowledge
• Balance intuition and analysis
• Collaborative yet individual thinkers