Take Baby Steps to Innovate in a Resource-

Constrained or Risk-Averse Environment

Published: 3 February 2020 ID: G00463992

Analyst(s): Jackie Fenn, Erik Van Ommeren, Tsuneo Fujiwara

“Fail fast” may work in Silicon Valley, but what if CIOs need to innovate with
no time or budget, and everyone’s afraid of failure? This roadmap combines
tactics for low-cost, low-risk innovation with a long-term strategy for an
innovation-friendly culture that drives higher-impact business change.

Key Findings
■ Many organizations believe they cannot achieve their innovation goals because of resource
constraints or a risk-averse environment.
■ Commonly cited constraints are time and staffing, funding, credibility and experience, risk
appetite, and executive support.
■ The feeling of constraint arises from a mismatch between an ambitious goal and a low level of
organizational commitment, which manifests as a lack of resources or low risk tolerance.
Success is achievable by initially targeting less-ambitious goals, elevating the level of
committed resources and risk tolerance, or both.

Recommendations
CIOs leading innovation and strategic business change:

■ Use Gartner’s customizable innovation framework to determine your business and innovation
goals, and to assess organizational context and principles. In this way, you can identify where
goals and context may be misaligned.
■ Work within the constraints by temporarily lowering the goals and expectations to align with the
currently available resources. This will result in a stream of small-scale wins that provide value in
their own right and pave the way to remove the constraints and achieve more-ambitious goals.
■ In parallel, work to remove the constraints by persuading and inspiring executives and other
stakeholders that the more ambitious goals are worthwhile and achievable.

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 Table of Contents

Analysis.................................................................................................................................................. 2
Five Constraints to Innovation Present Challenges to Organizations..................................................3
Constraints Arise From Mismatched Goals and Context............................................................. 4
Two Parallel Paths Align Goals and Context...................................................................................... 5
Working Within the Constraints...................................................................................................5
Working to Remove the Constraints............................................................................................6
Get Started on the Baby Steps Innovation Pattern............................................................................6
Assess Goals and Context With Gartner’s Innovation Framework..................................................... 7
Develop Activities to Address Each Identified Constraint................................................................... 8
Design Your Baby Steps Innovation Roadmap................................................................................13
Gartner Recommended Reading.......................................................................................................... 14

List of Tables

Table 1. Recommendations to Increase Time and Staffing...................................................................... 9

Table 2. Recommendations to Increase Funding...................................................................................10
Table 3. Recommendations to Increase Credibility and Experience....................................................... 11
Table 4. Recommendations to Increase Risk Appetite.......................................................................... 12
Table 5. Recommendations to Increase Executive Support...................................................................13

List of Figures

Figure 1. Gartner’s Customizable Innovation Framework.........................................................................3

Figure 2. Constraints Arise From Mismatched Goals and Context...........................................................4
Figure 3. Path to Work Within the Constraints........................................................................................ 5
Figure 4. Parallel Paths to Work Within Constraints and Work to Remove Constraints............................ 6
Figure 5. Baby Steps Context.................................................................................................................8
Figure 6. Baby Steps Innovation Roadmap...........................................................................................14

Analysis
This research is part of a set that helps CIOs design their innovation program or activities through a
customizable innovation framework. CIOs and innovation leaders can tailor their innovation
approach to yield the best result, using the framework to take stock of their situation, identify
business objectives and goals, and frame the context and principles. Goals, context and principles

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 act as filters for the CIO to select the most appropriate innovation activities (see Figure 1 and
“Jump-Start Your Innovation Journey With a Customizable Innovation Framework”).

Each organization’s approach to innovation will be unique, based on its goals and organizational
context. However, we have observed common patterns that many organizations identify with and
that can offer starting points for prototypical innovation program designs. This research defines a
pattern of “Baby Steps,” involving an environment with limited resources or high levels of risk
aversion.

Figure 1. Gartner’s Customizable Innovation Framework

Five Constraints to Innovation Present Challenges to Organizations

Many CIOs and other innovation leaders feel that a lack of resources and a low tolerance for risk
constrain their ability to drive innovation. Executives may state that innovation is needed to drive
growth, improve operational efficiency, deliver citizen services or create other desirable outcomes.
But leaders trying to implement change find that the organization’s investments and environment
are not supportive.

In particular, organizations struggle with five common constraints that can be categorized as
resource constraints or risk aversion.

Resource constraints include:

■ Lack of time and staffing

■ Lack of funding

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 ■ Lack of credibility and experience

Risk aversion includes:

■ No appetite for risk

■ No executive support

If these constraints sound familiar to you, use the approaches, activities, roadmap and
recommendations in this research as a starting point to design your innovation program. Follow up
by having conversations with innovation analysts to further customize the recommendations to
meet your needs.

Constraints Arise From Mismatched Goals and Context

Constraints are not absolute, but rather, are highly context-dependent. For example, a group of
college students receives an investment of $50,000 to create an app. They may feel highly
empowered and motivated to innovate. Let’s say the same $50,000 is the total funding for a
multinational organization’s efforts to transform its industry. It would clearly be met with a very
different response.

The feeling of constraint arises, because resources, risk tolerance and other aspects of an
organization’s environment (that is, an organization’s innovation context) are out of alignment with its
goals. Specifically for this Baby Steps scenario, there is a mismatch between an ambitious goal and
the commitment level with low resources or risk tolerance. Ultimately, the desired end state is to
remove the constraints such that the resources and risk tolerance are well-aligned with the ambition
of the innovation goals (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Constraints Arise From Mismatched Goals and Context

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 Two Parallel Paths Align Goals and Context
For organizations to achieve this alignment, the Baby Steps innovation roadmap recommends
pursuing two parallel paths: one that works within the constraints, and one that works to remove the
constraints.

Working Within the Constraints

Although the long-term goal is to remove the constraints, organizations can still start innovating in
the meantime. There are ways to innovate effectively to drive value, even for organizations with
limited resources. In addition, demonstrating small-scale successes will inspire the organization to
greater ambitions to help achieve the longer-term goal.

To achieve these small-scale successes, organizations must temporarily lower their goals and
expectations to align with the currently available resources (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Path to Work Within the Constraints

Even after success that leads to a relaxing of the constraints, striving for small wins is a worthwhile
path to continue for three reasons:

■ Most organizations find value from the collective impacts of an ongoing stream of small-scale
improvements.
■ Very few people or organizations feel that they have all the resources, time and money they
need. So finding creative ways to use available resources is a valuable skill set.
■ Constraints can actually enhance creativity. Setting stretch goals or working within highly
constrained budgets or time windows forces people to fundamentally reconsider approaches,
rather than being trapped in incremental thinking. “Jugaad innovation,” an approach to frugal
innovation originating in India, is celebrated and imitated in many companies. It can generate
solutions that consume a fraction of the resources (such as power consumption and production
costs) demanded by traditional approaches.

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 Working to Remove the Constraints
The fact is, there are always resources if one knows where to find them. Clearly, organizations do
have money and people — otherwise, they could not function. The challenge is that executives and
other decision makers are not allocating those resources to the innovation activities that CIOs
believe will be valuable.

In parallel with working within the constraints, CIOs must tackle the longer-term goal of removing
the constraints to pursue more-ambitious innovation opportunities (see Figure 4). This involves
persuading and inspiring executives and other stakeholders to increase their desire and
commitment level for the original goals. Without appropriate levels of commitment, CIOs will likely
see innovation initiatives fail and lead to wasted resources and a loss of credibility that can damage
support for future attempts.

Figure 4. Parallel Paths to Work Within Constraints and Work to Remove Constraints

Get Started on the Baby Steps Innovation Pattern

The following sections present a three-stage process for innovating within a resource-constrained or
risk-averse environment:

1. Use Gartner’s customizable innovation framework to determine your business and innovation
goals, and to assess your organizational context and principles. This will identify where they
may be misaligned. Such a framework plays an important role in reducing risk and making it
more likely that innovations will be adopted.
2. For each of the five types of constraints that impact you (time and staffing, funding, credibility
and experience, risk appetite, and executive support), identify tactics from the lists of
recommendations provided.
3. Create your own roadmap, using the one provided as a starting point, to achieve your
innovation goals.

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 Assess Goals and Context With Gartner’s Innovation Framework
The first step in designing any innovation program or initiative is to determine the desired business
goals. These may range from incremental improvements in operations, productivity, customer or
employee experience, or existing revenue streams, to creating significant new products, services or
business models. A successful Baby Steps innovation roadmap is likely to initially target
incremental, operationally oriented or customer experience goals, while keeping more-ambitious
goals in mind for the future.

In addition to the business goals, CIOs will want to develop innovation goals for improving
innovation capabilities. For Baby Steps, a key focus is likely to be on creating a steady pipeline of
quick wins (rather than occasional or ad hoc wins) to establish credibility. Plus, some focus will be
on increasing the pace of innovation and developing a culture where a broader range of employees
can contribute.

While the business and innovation goals determine where an organization is headed with innovation,
the context is the set of internal and external conditions that innovators must work within. The
context includes organizational context, such as how and where decisions are made and how risk-
averse the organization is. The Baby Steps pattern is primarily defined by the context shown on the
left-hand side of Figure 5, with highly constrained resources and risk aversion. In contrast, the other
common patterns are mostly defined by their goals (for example, IT Instigators has a goal of making
IT more proactive in bringing ideas to the business, and Rock the World has a goal of game-
changing innovation). Note: An organization may not be constrained in all of the areas shown, so
CIOs should assess the reality of their own situations and position the sliders accordingly. CIOs
should also assess how far to the right they aim to move, and in what time frame.

The context also includes innovation portfolio and planning decisions, such as the balance between
quick wins and longer-term goals and the staffing of the program (see “Use 7 Dimensions of
Innovation to Create Your Innovation Perimeter and Portfolio”). These decisions may reflect the
context for the entire company (for example, what an appropriate balance of investment is in
incremental innovation vs. radical innovation). Or the decisions may reflect the level of individual
innovation initiatives (for example, an IT-led innovation group may focus primarily on technology
innovation, while a risk-averse organization may launch a bottom-up idea suggestion program to
solve some immediate business problems).

An example for a Baby Steps profile is shown on the right-hand side of Figure 5. Note: This is not
the “correct” allocation, just an example, as each organization’s situation is different. For additional
contextual factors that may influence approaches and activities, see “Your Context and Principles
Are Key When Starting an Innovation Journey.”

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 Figure 5. Baby Steps Context

A final area to define is the set of principles that guides people’s behavior at key decision points in
the innovation process. A common principle for a Baby Steps profile relates to the need for
business support prior to embarking on an opportunity — for example, “We innovate only if there is
a clear business sponsor.” More-ambitious principles supporting speculative experimentation may
take over as maturity and resources grow, such as, “We aim to challenge incumbent thinking and to
bring new ideas to business leaders.”

Develop Activities to Address Each Identified Constraint

CIOs now understand where the biggest mismatches are between the goals and the context. Next,
they should use the recommended tactics in Tables 1 through 5 to address the most problematic
constraints. CIOs should select activities and approaches that make the most sense for their goals
and in their context. They should experiment with multiple tactics (at a sustainable pace — that is,
not all at once), and continue with the ones that prove most effective in their environment.

CIOs should use a mix of elements from the “working within the constraints” sections, as well as the
“working to remove the constraints” sections. This ensures that they are pursuing the parallel paths

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 that will achieve their innovation goals — that is, driving short-term successes, while preparing for
longer-term impact.

Table 1. Recommendations to Increase Time and Staffing

Time and Staffing: Working Within the Constraints

1 Work in short bursts of dedicated attention where possible, as this is more effective than trying to find small
amounts of time mixed in with other priorities. For example, use the first two-week sprint of every quarter. Plan a
hackathon or innovation day. Or even set aside an extended lunchtime to deliver two paper prototypes in two
hours.

2 Plan ahead for innovation activities and resources, so that other commitments can be planned around them. For
example, plan three months ahead for a hackathon.

3 Find and motivate inexpensive or enthusiastic resources. For example, the resources could be students, recent
hires, interns or contractors.

4 Use existing committees for idea generation, prioritization or governance. Supplement with other approaches for
hands-on evaluations.

5 To use 10% or 20% time effectively (that is, allowing people a half-day or one day a week to work on innovation
projects), establish worthwhile targets, or award time to the winners of hackathons or “Shark Tank” or “Dragons’
Den” pitches.

6 To drive results, hold people accountable for time spent on innovation activities. Set deadlines for people to share
their findings and recommendations.

Time and Staffing: Working to Remove the Constraints

1 Develop networks of part-time local innovation champions to share innovative ideas and ways to improve
innovation practices.

2 In the absence of permanently allocated resources, commit to a certain number of innovation projects each year.
At the beginning, you may not know what the topics will be, or who will work on them, but you can set aside virtual
resources for when the opportunities arise.

3 Build slack time into resourcing plans for project and product development, to allow for experimentation as a part
of ongoing activities.

4 Identify a mechanism to backfill critical resources (for example, through external consultants) when their support is
needed for innovation activities.

5 Work with other departments to build bridges and find common problems, in order to share and maximize
resources.

6 In environments where employees are “chargeable” to clients or projects (for example, law firms or other
professional services), create a virtual fund that people can charge to when supporting approved innovation
projects.

Source: Gartner (February 2020)

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 Table 2. Recommendations to Increase Funding

Funding: Working Within the Constraints

1 Tie efforts to existing and approved projects or transformation initiatives.

2 Use the tools already in place, which often offer many unused capabilities at no additional cost. Also, watch for
enabling technologies that are available as free trials.

3 Formulate under-the-radar skunkworks projects that show value and reduce risk to a point where the organization
may be more accepting.
Focus on experimentation that requires people and brainpower effort (for example, mockups and design thinking),
rather than technology investment.

4 Seek out external grants, particularly in Europe and other regions where the governments sponsor emerging
technology collaborations between industries and academia.

Funding: Working to Remove the Constraints

1 Bootstrap funding based on successes. This requires patience, but based on expanding successes over two to
three years, organizations can grow significant innovation teams or practices.

2 Create a network of startups or academics looking for corporate partners to work with on real-life problems.

3 Frame the funding discussion around, “How much is right for our company or organization to spend on
innovation?” rather than asking for a specific budget. It is unlikely that anyone will say, “We shouldn’t be spending
anything,” when in fact, that is how the organization is behaving.

Source: Gartner (February 2020)

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 Table 3. Recommendations to Increase Credibility and Experience

Credibility and Experience: Working Within the Constraints

1 Use annual training budgets to teach employees innovation-related skills, such as growth mindset, design
thinking, lean startup, creative problem solving, critical thinking or agile approaches.
Also, train people how to use the organization’s existing innovation approaches if there are any (for example, how
to enter an idea into the corporate ideation portal).

2 Find an enthusiastic stakeholder who is willing to work with you. It just takes one to start.

3 Gather success stories, and share them to show that the organization is already innovating, which will build
confidence and a sense of identity as innovators.
Use examples from multiple sources, not just those labeled as innovation projects. Even better, ask other leaders
and executives to publicly share their innovation successes, including the role that the innovation team played.
Create newsletters, videos, podcasts and so on.

4 Source skills and experience from external resources as needed to fill skills gaps to get projects and initiatives
started.

5 Run an event focused on solving a problem (for example, a hackathon), and pick a solution to move into delivery.
Completing the process is important, even if there may be better solutions out there.

Credibility and Experience: Working to Remove the Constraints

1 Ensure coaching and “train the trainer” are included in contracts with external service providers, to build internal
skills.

2 Learn about different approaches to innovation and the innovation process. Experiment to see what works best in
your environment.
Focus explicitly on dealing with failures, pivoting and abandoning bad ideas.

3 Take on more responsibility for decision making and governance to select innovation opportunities, based on early
successes.

4 Learn how the organization responds to change — for example, find out who is receptive to change and who is
not.

5 Work specifically on the brand, positioning, communications and leadership network of innovation teams or roles.

Source: Gartner (February 2020)

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 Table 4. Recommendations to Increase Risk Appetite

Risk Appetite: Working Within the Constraints

1 Target innovation ideas where change is important, yet accessible. For example, focus on innovations concerned
with safety, compliance, cost reduction and customer experience.

2 Run minimum viable experiments to prove one thing at a time (for example, “Will customers like it?” and then “Is
the performance good enough?”), rather than pursuing a single, vaguely defined proof of concept.
Build in clear criteria regarding the results needed for the idea to continue to the next experiment.

3 Create a steady stream of low-risk wins, emphasizing that the innovation process is a way to reduce the risk of
trying something new.

Risk Appetite: Working to Remove the Constraints

1 Balance your innovation portfolio by exploring a few more-ambitious ideas, alongside the incremental ideas.

2 Introduce culture hacks to enable innovation without the fear of failure.

For example, ask, “What did we learn from that experiment?” rather than, “Did that experiment succeed or fail?”

3 Build safe spaces for exploration and experimentation, with clear boundaries.

4 Acknowledge the risks involved in each new idea, but couch the risks in relation to the benefits and always include
the risk of inaction.

Source: Gartner (February 2020)

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 Table 5. Recommendations to Increase Executive Support

Executive Support: Working Within the Constraints

1 Recruit executives to act as judges in innovation competitions.

2 Solicit challenges from executives and business leaders to target ideation, and ensure there are willing recipients
for successful ideas.

3 Gather data and evidence from other industries regarding the impact of specific innovations.

4 Show how specific innovation opportunities will align with existing key performance indicators (KPIs).

5 Watch for new executive appointments. New staff coming in from outside the organization may have experience of
more friendly innovation environments and can act as executive champions for change.

Executive Support: Working to Remove the Constraints

1 Focus innovation on the strategic goals and major organizational initiatives to garner the highest levels of interest,
support and commitment.

2 Create and share a desirable future vision or scenario.

3 Consider how to approach and influence each key stakeholder as an individual — for example, through visuals, a
narrative, data, fear of missing out or hard business cases.

4 Pursue a “two-stage sell.” First, obtain buy-in to the overall innovation goals, approach and process, including
what you will be asking each executive or business leader to contribute. Then when you approach them with
specific opportunities, they will have a context and understanding of the bigger picture.

Source: Gartner (February 2020)

Design Your Baby Steps Innovation Roadmap

Now that CIOs have identified the set of activities and approaches that are most relevant to their
goals and context, the next step is to develop a roadmap that forms a plan of action. Figure 6 gives
an example of a roadmap with activities drawn from the tables above and other patterns (for
example, a technology scan if the organization has a goal of being an IT Instigator). This sample
roadmap provides a starting point that CIOs can adapt to their own situations. The timing should be
used as an approximate guide — the organization may progress significantly faster or slower than
this example, depending on priorities and other commitments.

We have found it helpful to divide innovation activities into two layers:

■ The “organize” layer (above the blue time arrow) contains activities to design the innovation
program and mature the innovation competency from accidentally innovative to intentionally
and continuously innovative.
■ The “execute” layer (below the blue time arrow) contains activities to take an idea from
inception to delivering business value.

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 In this Baby Steps roadmap, the organize layer is further divided into the two streams of working
within the constraints, and working to remove the constraints (shown inside the orange box).

Figure 6. Baby Steps Innovation Roadmap

Gartner Recommended Reading

Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.

“Jump-Start Your Innovation Journey With a Customizable Innovation Framework”

“Use 7 Dimensions of Innovation to Create Your Innovation Perimeter and Portfolio”

“Successful Innovation Begins With the Business Strategy: Use Business Objectives and Goals to
Start Your Innovation Journey”

“Your Context and Principles Are Key When Starting an Innovation Journey”

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 “Organizing for Innovation: Maturing From Accidental to Intentional Innovation”

“Executing on Innovation: Design the Process From Idea to Value”

“Digital Leadership Fundamentals for Japanese CIOs, Part 2: Start Innovating for Digital Business”

“IT Instigators: Design Your Roadmap for Proactive IT Innovation”

“Culture Crush: Design Your Roadmap for a Culture of Innovation”

Evidence
This research is based on analyst and expert discussions with clients across a range of industries
and company sizes.

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