Jeffrey Phillips has a great article out on his blog, Innovate on Purpose, about the frustrations of being an Innovation Consultant in today's environment. 

Like Jeffrey, I've experienced a number of clients who needed to face reality before being able to establish their innovation program.  And while it can be extremely frustrating working with short-term focused people, the only thing that really keeps me going is having the chance to work with the organizations that DO get it. 

Honestly, educating clients on effective innovation management never stops, but not having to continually "sell" an organization on the benefits of innovation management systems allows all of us to focus on making the necessary changes to the culture that will support an effective and efficient innovation and/or idea management program.

So...to avoid the kind of frustration Jeffrey shares in his post, here are some basic recommendations on starting innovation programs off on the right foot:

1. Secure senior management support and active engagement
• The very most important item on this list
  
2. Understand that innovation is a long journey and process based, not a weekend retreat or one-time brainstorming meeting
• Did your continuous improvement program yield immediate results, not require any training or have multiple process iterations?
  
3. Successful innovation programs are properly resourced with people, money and time
• Does any program starved of people, money, time and attention work?  Seriously...
  
4. Using the old adage that "what gets measured gets done," it makes sense to establish some innovation-related metrics.  
• And no...that doesn't mean positive ROI right away...sheesh...
5. It takes a different mindset to grow than it does to cut
• Encourage people to take calculated risks, seek variance and learn from fast failures
  

Just remember, during these tough economic times, just about everyone is cutting back, playing it safe and putting growth-focused programs on hold.  Notice how I said, "just about everyone?"  Yep...not everyone is taking a wait-and-see attitude.  They are talking to your customers to find out what you aren't delivering.  They are asking their employees, customers, suppliers and just about everyone else for new product/service ideas.  They are prototyping new products and services that will be ready to hit the market when consumer spending starts back up.  They are going to hit the accelerator while you, sadly, will be trying to restart that rusty old product/service development engine.  Good luck with that!