Innovation is a corporate imperative and probably the most discussed topic in management today. Sadly, many of the lackluster or failed innovation efforts are a result of a cookie-cutter approach to the subject. If a large part of innovation management literature and advice today were a farmer’s almanac–it would prescribe the same agricultural techniques for growing potatoes, corn and oranges.

At Verea Group LLC we believe that successful innovation companies develop and manage a system of diverse, but interconnected, portfolios of innovation projects. Each project portfolio tackles different short-, medium- or long-term product research and development (R&D) or parts of the company’s value chain and logistics. Each portfolio has different requirements and necessitates a tailored management approach.

For companies, management of their strategic innovation portfolios can prove most challenging. Limited resources force hard project selection choices. The probabilistic nature of future benefits makes comparison of competing projects difficult. The high technical risk and probability of failure also have to be taken into account. Once selected, projects have to be managed actively and with discipline.

Verea Group LLC helps companies with the design, valuation and management of high risk/high impact innovation projects and portfolios.Our approach enables companies to select projects with the highest strategic potential and to manage them with rigor, based on success of execution and changing market conditions.

Innovation projects by their nature are risky, as they often require significant expense and have highly uncertain outcomes. A project’s failure could negatively impact its participants, and a project’s success could also negatively impact other employees by making existing products and practices obsolete. For these reasons, what we call “innovation politics” is the inevitable by product of, and often key impediment to, innovation in a corporate setting.

At Verea Group LLC we believe that the true measure of innovation leadership is the ability of senior management to recognize and successfully manage innovation politics. For us, the greatness of innovation leaders like Steve Jobs is not primarily in their vision and imagination, but in their ability to successfully minimize innovation politics in large organizations.

Verea Group LLC helps management strengthen a true culture of innovation by explicitly tackling and mitigating the negative impacts of innovation politics.

Verea Group LLC works with clients on specific innovation management questions and projects, and on building strong and ongoing innovation management capabilities.