Corporate Innovation and Failure: A Short Survey

1. Name and company (optional)

Name and company (optional)

2. What is the size of your organization?

What is the size of your organization? 0 – 250 people

251 – 1000 people

1001 – 5000 people

More than 5000 people

3. What is your role with regards to innovation in your organization?

What is your role with regards to innovation in your organization? I work with innovation on a full-time basis in a senior leadership position

I work with innovation on a full-time basis in a middle-manager position

I work with innovation on a full-time basis without leadership or management responsibility.

I work with innovation from project to project or on an ad-hoc basis

I am not really involved with innovation in my organization

4. To what level is failure acceptable in your innovation team?

To what level is failure acceptable in your innovation team? Failure is acknowledged as an inevitable part of the innovation process.

Small failures are accepted, but not big ones.

Failure is not acceptable here.

5. When an innovation effort fails, what is the attitude of the top leaders of your organization?(check all that apply)

When an innovation effort fails, what is the attitude of the top leaders of your organization?(check all that apply) They accept failure in a constructive way.

They encourage us to learn from the failure.

They appreciate the effort that went into the effort, even though it failed.

They assign blame and seek to punish those who have failed.

They sweep the failure under the rug.

They distance themselves from the failure.

They spin a failure as a win.

6. Does your innovation team have a process in place to capture learnings from failures?

Does your innovation team have a process in place to capture learnings from failures? Yes, we do this each time.

We do this some of the time.

We rarely focus on this.

No, we do not focus on this at all.

7. What levels are most often responsible for innovation-related failure in your organization? (Click all that apply)

What levels are most often responsible for innovation-related failure in your organization? (Click all that apply) Personal (internal factors)

Team (internal factors)

Business unit (internal factors)

Organization (internal factors)

Industry (external factors)

Macro (external factors)

8. To what extent do the same problems occur again and again in your innovation efforts?

To what extent do the same problems occur again and again in your innovation efforts? Almost always

To a high degree

To some degree

Rarely

9. To what extent are innovation-related failures made public in your organization?

To what extent are innovation-related failures made public in your organization? Always

To a high degree

To some degree

Never

10. To what extent do you feel your innovation team is learning from its failures?

To what extent do you feel your innovation team is learning from its failures? Yes, we are definitely improving and learning more each time something goes wrong.

We are improving to some extent but not as much as we could if we took a strong approach to learning from failure.

We are not improving. The same types of failures keep occurring.

11. What are the most common causes of innovation failure in your organization?
(check all that apply)

What are the most common causes of innovation failure in your organization? (check all that apply) Inadequate resources (budget, people, infrastructure)

Lack of innovation strategy

Poorly defined innovation strategy and goals

Lack of quality ideas in our organization and/or industry

Wrong personnel in place to make innovation happen

Lack of a formal innovation process

Poor management of the innovation process

Lack of training in innovation

Unrealistic expectations from top management regarding the resources and time required to achieve innovation

Lack of appropriate external partners

Company operates in silos instead of taking a team approach to innovation

Too much focus on idea generation rather than execution

Too much focus on products and technologies rather than considering all aspects in bringing innovation to market

Other reasons:

12. Do you have any suggestions on how companies can improve their learnings from failures? (optional)

Do you have any suggestions on how companies can improve their learnings from failures? (optional)