It is widely accepted that innovation and new product development are key engines of growth in today's competitive environment. However, it is one thing to claim that innovation is a priority, it is something entirely different to execute a program that delivers real results. Successful innovation is much more than the creative spark of invention. It is also much harder to come by. Successful innovators are able to consistently capture those sparks and parlay them into profitable businesses.

Innovation - in new products, in business processes, and in people's ability to be creative - means different things in different companies. For some, it is about defining and implementing the systems to stimulate innovation and increase return on investments in research, new product development and information technology. For others, it is about building the skills, awareness and attitudes needed to achieve successful business outcomes. At MIDIOR, one thing that we know for sure is that innovation depends on a continuous injection of entrepreneurial spirit and accountability into project and product teams.

While it's accepted wisdom today that "innovation is good" and management gurus have written extensively on the advantages that innovative corporations maintain - little is actually known about how to become innovative. At MIDIOR, we maintain a few basic tenets about innovation and the management of change that guide our approach. We believe that:

• Successful innovation is highly dependent on key individuals -you can't have more successful, innovative products than you have excellent product champions. Therefore, you need to encourage and support those internal entrepreneurs by creating rewards, a career path, and supporting tools and systems.

• Successful innovation does not correlate with process-it does correlate with small, cross-functional teams that have strong leadership, are able to communicate with all types, have a high degree of knowledge about the relevant subject matter and most importantly, love what they are doing.

• Product managers are the CEO's of their products and product lines. They maintain a balance of passion and accountability with respect to their product and thrive on their product's success, not on an increasing number of direct reports.

Managing innovation and change is counterintuitive - and in some cases contradictory with standard management theory. Our guiding management principles are:

• Risk is necessary. If there's no risk, then there's no opportunity which means you need to develop a culture that is tolerant of risk.

• Fail quickly, fail often. If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough, and you won't learn anything. There's a lot more to learn from experiments that fail than flukes that succeed.

• Time-to-market is the wrong metric. More failed businesses can be attributed to being "too early" to market than "too late" to market. Time-to-revenue is the metric MIDIOR uses as a leading indicator of success.

• The only thing we know for sure is that the plan is wrong. Business plans, forecasts, etc. are not predictions of the future, they are tools for thinking through and communicating what to do next.

At MIDIOR, we are unwilling to accept the status quo just because it is the path of least resistance. We work with organizations that are actively looking to change on multiple fronts. While it has become a cliché to say that small companies have the advantage when it comes to innovation - we're not willing to accept that as an immutable law of physics.

Are you?