Impact

The impact of innovations falls on a spectrum from sustaining innovations on the left-hand side to disruptive/path-bending innovations on the right-hand side.

Sustaining Innovations

  • Leverage existing value-creation models
  • Represent continual improvement
  • It’s what most of us tend to do best when we innovate
  • Examples: continual improvements, adopting a new best practice, implementing and improving new products/technologies/process others are finding successul

Path-Bending Innovation

  • Establish new value-creation models
  • Are disruptive – you never go back – they set a new baseline
  • They’re very hard to conceive and achieve – but when you do, there’s a huge impact
  • Examples: Smartphones (iPhone), self-driving cars, on-demand marketplaces (Uber), driving directions (Waze), vacation rentals (AirBnB)

Both ends of the spectrum are important – neither is better or worse than the other.  As referenced later, most organizations tend to be more effective at one end of the spectrum than the other, and it’s rare to be good at both.  For reasons that may become clearer to you as you review this site, OIT tends to be better at achieving sustaining innovations – and that’s something to understand, recognize, be proud of, and promote.

Think about innovate ideas you’ve had or innovations you’ve experienced and reflect on where they might fit along this spectrum and why.