The role for Realness: Turning strategy, insights and ideas into action at speed

Hi, it's Dan here.

I don’t want to write a naive post, underestimating the task of delivering innovation in big companies. Stage Gate / commercialisation processes are obviously and necessarily robust. I guess it’s called ‘the mangle’ for a reason!

However what I too often see or feel is organisations struggling with slow, methodical processes that also bog down the front end of innovation. What used to be the fun, creative, experimental part of brand building begins to feel heavily ‘pro forma’.

It now seems inevitable that there’ll be a ton of data and information to get through before we can get going. Heavy situation analysis, strategy papers and so on. We kick off projects with 100 page pre-reads and expect an exhausted committee to divine the right, specific innovation challenge on a Zoom.

Then we must commit to paper lists of what is feasible, viable, scalable, (sustainable…?), profitable - a mental straitjacket to put on in advance of ‘Exploration’. Speaking of which, we now need spreadsheets with macros and conditional formatting, simply in order to manage seemingly endless consumer screening criteria: God forbid we meet a ‘wrong person’ in a focus group. And we can no longer test any products or physical stimuli in ‘the research’, because interactions are now exclusively conducted online, or because it takes about a year from now to produce a sample of a new flavour concept.

Perhaps I’m exaggerating, or at least taking the worst examples of the kind of overly-restrictive (dare I say timid) risk aversions, process fixations and demonstrably unnecessary bits of bureaucracy that act as a drag on ‘Inventing New Stuff’. But to go back to the first sentence, I don’t want to write a naive post underestimating the task of delivering innovation in big companies. What I’m advocating for is simply the judicious application of Realness, where it might shortcut or work around otherwise vexatious protocols or processes that act as a brake on front end innovation.

What is Realness? For me, Realness is about making strategy / insights or ideas tangible and distinctive — early and often. Realness in an innovation process is simply a set of well timed interventions designed to keep everyone on their toes, driving engagement, momentum and enthusiasm for the workstream. Realness then is the difference between a spreadsheet full of numbers and a single Killer Fact that galvanises senior management. Realness is torpedoing bias or received wisdom with freshly validated data. Realness is the difference between concepts on a page and a good mock-up or prototype we can hold, test, and show. Realness is learning by selling before committing to full quant eval.

The great thing about Realness in these straitened times is that it’s fast, cheap and good. It’s the magic triangle! All it takes is personal effort and gumption, because we - the innovation team - drive it ourselves, using 3rd party resources, tools and techniques that have become crazily cheap. AI, Typeform, Fiverr, Prolific…

Realness examples from real projects:

1. Using a Custom AI (GPT based) to distil 300+ pages of data and information into candidate innovation opportunity hypotheses to be challenged by the team.

2. Coding and self-serving a quant survey to get a robust answer to a pivotal innovation question (in literally a couple of days).

3. Using Fiverr talent to mock up packaging concepts in 3D (ten days plus $800, from brief to delivery of physical samples - not perfect but good enough for the purpose).

4. Testing new shot drink liquid concepts, made by a 3rd party expert in three weeks, a workaround to the quoted 9 month lead time for company-made liquid concepts.

5. Selling products in an open market alongside competitors to refine packaging communication (which proved way off!) and to gauge relative pricing.

This call for Realness isn’t a plea for reckless speed, or a rejection of strategic rigour in favour of theatre and stunts. It’s a reminder of the power inherent in staying connected to the practical, tangible elements that keep innovation fast-paced and relevant (and God forbid, fun). Most basically it’s just a mindset that prioritises actions that fuel genuine momentum, building clarity and engagement through cut-the-crap manifestations of strategy, insights and ideas.

Next time it all feels a bit like wading through mud, maybe have a think, how can a bit of Realness grease the innovation machine?

Dan Read
Doer of innovation

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