The Four Categories of Innovation

Assess the innovativeness of your organization:

1. Incremental Innovation – Doing more of the same things you have been doing with somewhat better results.

2. Additive Innovation – More fully exploiting already existing resources, such as product lines extensions, and can achieve good results. These opportunities should rarely be treated as high priority efforts. The risks should be small – and they should not take resources away from complementary or breakthrough opportunities.

3. Complementary Innovation – Offers something new and changes the structure of the business.

4. Breakthrough Innovation (Radical Innovation) – Changes the fundamentals of the business, creating a new industry and new avenues for extensive wealth creation.