The lack of staff skills is the single biggest impediment to innovation success. Services and service delivery processes do not lend themselves to development by a separate unit. All staff need to be actively involved and to have an innovation mindset. One of the most common management errors is to underestimate the skills training needed so that staff can participate constructively in innovation. Investment in training will benefit the firm in the long run by eventually reducing the time needed to identify new opportunities and increasing the degree of certainty in the solution selected.
Creativity is the ability to make unexpected connections and realign ideas into new relationships.
Breaking set, or the ability to think outside conventional or traditional assumptions. This skill is premised on there not being only one right answer. The most common technique for breaking set is brainstorming. Lateral thinking, or the ability to make connections between seemingly unrelated areas. This skill is premised on the synergetic process, which assumes that insights in one area can be used in another.