How can you build an invincible organization? Keep reinventing yourself? Building an ecosystem for innovation..? Alex Osterwalder, the inventor of the Business Model Canvas wants you to focus not on the ideas, but on the process. Here is how.

Lesson 1: Ideas are cheap

Are you investing in ideation platforms and hackathons thinking you are innovating? Think again! You need to stop building sh*t and start following the process to build something you actually want. How you do that is by following the right processes and metrics. Testing and adapting are key.

Lesson 2: Stop playing innovation theatre

To innovate or not innovate? Do you think you can innovate? Answer these three questions: 

1. How much time is your CEO spending on innovation (spoiler: should be at least 40%).
2. Where in your organization sits innovation (spoiler: not in a council).
3. Can you kill 9 out of 10 projects (spoiler: if not, you’re doomed).

Lesson 3: Collect the evidence

And not just evidence, but the right evidence. Make a difference between exploring and exploiting. If you are exploring, should you focus on KPI’s? Yes, but not on ROI but rather, the % of projects you killed. Don’t make a business plan and build your excel, but test, adapt and test again. What is your return on portfolio?

So, if you want to know how to innovate, stop pretending and start doing. Throw away your ideas and trust the process.

The visual summary of Alexander Osterwalder:

Written by Ashmita Krishna Sharma