Define, communicate, and realize a vision/strategy for innovation, while ensuring that innovation activities are aligned with real and valuable opportunities for the organization. This strategy includes keeping abreast of changes in the business and IT environment, ensuring sufficient absorptive capacity exists, and adapting the innovation strategy to match changes in the environment. Articulate what work needs to be done and by when for governance to make decisions with reduced risk.
Implement a governance system to cover all aspects of innovation, including setting and aligning goals, defining policies and values, prioritizing processes, allocating resources, and assigning roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority for innovation. Define and apply metrics to measure the value of the organization's recent innovations — internal and commercial.
Exhibit leadership support for innovation in support of the business/innovation strategy. Encourage innovation through such things as ensuring that the workforce has relevant competencies (knowledge, skills, and process abilities) to engage in innovation and is provided with appropriate development opportunities.
Develop and maintain a culture of innovation, taking into account such things as the business/innovation strategy, organizational attitude to risk, collaboration, rewards, and incentives, etc.
Understand, shape, and use the networks of connections (i.e. formal and informal, internal and external) that impact or support the achievement of the business/innovation strategy. The scope may include roles, responsibilities, organizational hierarchies, communities of practice, key influencers, and social networks, etc.