This is something that has been playing on my mind since I started looking at innovation and was asked to define what innovation means. Fundamentally is there a difference between innovation and strategy?

Innovation by its very nature is dealing with new untested ideas. Due to the unruly and unpredictable nature of innovation it would be wrong to set ground rules, however there are three core ingredients your organisation needs to tap into when innovating:.

Recently I’ve been in the situation at a couple of clients where an IT Strategy was needed, yet there was distinct lack of an agreed Business Strategy. Either the business strategy was too vague, or it did exist but work was under way to radically change in over the next 6-12 months. In these situations when I tried to facilitate the creation of the IT strategy I hit the obstacle of IT managers not feeling they could define the IT Strategy without a clearer Business Strategy, even though the CIO was asking for them to do so.

More and more companies are looking to events like hackathons to drive innovation and tap into the entrepreneurial flair from their people. Having shaped and run hackathons for my clients, here are my top 5 tips for ensuring you get maximum value from your organisation’s hackathon investment.