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Innovation rarely fails because of a lack of ideas.
More often than not, it fails because ideas are disconnected from strategy, fall victim to short-term priorities, or get lost in poor portfolio decisions.
In a recent Transformation Talks conversation with Noel Sobelman โ Innovation Strategist, Transformation Advisor, and Head of the Innovation Practice at Accel โ we explored effective growth strategies, their must-haves, and common pitfalls organizations face when executing their innovation goals.
Innovation Without Strategy Goes Nowhere๐งญ
When asked about his thoughts on growth strategy, Noel says, โthe simplest way I like to think of it is the old โWhere to play and how to winโ.โ
Because innovation isnโt just about keeping with the trends or beating your competitors to the punch. Itโs about understanding where your companyโs competencies (your โunfairโ advantage), high growth areas of opportunity, and mega trends meet.
You should be defining opportunities based on important and underserved customer needs, allowing that to dictate how investment is allocated, what ideas are prioritized, and what success looks like.
Noel insists on choosing to build an environment that enables innovation.
โInnovation success really depends on more than just having a great idea or a great product. It requires ensuring that all the interdependent elements in the ecosystem are aligned and ready to deliver value to the end user.โ Noelโs perspective is simple: innovation is not just about coming up with new ideas; it is about building conducive systems that can actually help the ideas grow and deliver change.
Poor Strategy Communication Can Prove to be Costly ๐ข
Although organizations have a strategy in place, it doesnโt always survive the extensive organizational chart.
โIโve gone into large companies, and you interview the executives, and they each tell a different story about their strategy,โ says Noel.
The fact is that innovation doesnโt happen in a vacuum. It lives in the same ecosystem as budget constraints, competing priorities, and delivery realities.
If the people making the decisions arenโt on the same page, the portfolio quickly becomes a mix of compromises. The effect also cascades down to the functional managers and employees.
Ensuring that the strategy is understood at all levels of the organization and establishing clear communication channels is critical to driving change. ย
Recommended Read: 6 Common Challenges in Innovation Management that Leaders Face
The Case for Dynamic Portfolio Management
Making plans annually with static portfolio reviews are no longer enough. If your portfolio management still lives in spreadsheets, relies on fixed review cycles, and slow decision-making, youโre already behind. Because by the time priorities are reassessed, the market has already moved on.
Thatโs why Noel makes the case for dynamic portfolio management: a more responsive approach that ensures better visibility, enables informed decision-making, and the ability to reallocate effort continuously and responsively.
โYou need executives that are constantly pruning the portfolio, cutting the projects that arenโt moving the needle, and reallocating those resources to the higher potential opportunities. Thatโs the dynamic approach,โ says Noel.
Innovation Needs Governance๐
When you hear the word โgovernanceโ, you hear โcontrolโ, โbureaucracyโ, or โprocessโ. But Noelโs take is less awkward, more practical.
He emphasizes the importance of governance structures in innovation. In his opinion, good governance in innovation doesnโt slow things down. It merely ensures that the right decisions are made, at the right levels, with the right information, at the right time.
Without clear ownership and decision-making structures, priorities fragment and progress slows under the weight of competing agendas.
Noel observes that the most effective governance sits at the business unit level, where leaders can align strategies with goals and market realities while making meaningful trade-offs. For most organizations, the business unit is the level where resource allocation decisions are made.
So, robust governance doesnโt really add friction; it orients innovation in the right direction.
He observes that in the strongest organizations, these elements are explicitly connected:
Strategy โก๏ธ Governance โก๏ธ Funding โก๏ธ Delivery โก๏ธ Measurement
Because in these organizations, innovation becomes intuitive, not reactive.
Choosing Value Over Volume๐ผ
Unfortunately, too many organizations still measure activity when they should be measuring impact. Collating ideas and hosting workshops show activity, but they donโt equate to value.
Noel urges organizations to prioritize value realization. Focusing on metrics like new product revenue, vitality, R&D effectiveness, and time to market are far more meaningful than activity-based outputs.
As Noel insists, โestablishing metrics, measuring those, and looking for year-over-year improvementโ. Because transformational work comes down to the willingness to measure learning through experimentation and evidence strength, not just delivery against a traditional plan.
Recommended Read: 10 Project Management KPIs to Track in 2026
Bottlenecks in Innovation
Innovation efforts might seem futile with bottlenecks slowing down progress.
Noel identifies three main challenges: rampant incrementalism, resource constraints, and strategic misalignment.
โWell, if your growth goal is 10% a year, youโre not going to get there if youโre just continuing to maintain an older product line thatโs near the end of its life cycle,โ says Noel.
This โrampant incrementalismโ is a pattern many organizations will recognize, but few correct. Although their strategy sounds bold, their portfolios often tell a more cautious story.
He shares an example of a client spending about 70% of their resources on sustenance and maintenance activities for an ageing product portfolio, choosing to preserve their present over building their future.
Organizations also tend to misjudge their capabilities and overcommit. Plans become overloaded, resources strained, and too many initiatives are โin progressโ. Theyโre left with friction, bottlenecks, and unpredictable delivery, not increased throughput.
Strategic misalignment is another common pitfall. Most organizations set bold, long-range growth targets, but a bottom-up analysis of whatโs actually in the pipeline often reveals a significant gap between ambition and reality.
Noel advocates evidence-based decision-making, an agile approach to combat these constraints. By validating ideas using experiments, businesses can test ideas, reduce risk, allocate resources appropriately, and ensure decisions are data-driven.
Noel Sobelman reminds us that innovation isnโt a creativity challenge. Itโs all about decision-making. The organizations that master strategic alignment, dynamic portfolio management, and evidenceโbased governance are the ones that consistently make the best investments.
Weโd like to thank Noel Sobelman for his time, insights, and thoughtful perspective on what it takes to turn innovation ambition into sustainable growth. You can find Noel on LinkedIn if youโd like to learn more about his work. Get added to the waitlist for Noelโs new book, Innovation Portfolio Management: Linking Strategy to Execution, here.
