Last Updated on 18 June 2009
This post is no longer up-to-date as the Think Smart site no longer exists. But the questions are still relevant
You’re thinking Intelligence Quotient… I’m talkin’ Innovation Quotient. 
Joyce Wycoff at Innovation Network has had a simple on-line guide, which allows you to measure how innovative your company is.
You’d answer ten questions, with answer ranging from “never” to “always.” You would then be presented with a score and practical advice.
Here are the questions she posed…
- Does at least 25% of your revenue come from products and services developed in the past 5 years?
- Do you consistently outperform your competition in things like customer service, quality, time to market, ROI, and profitability?
- Do you routinely solicit, listen to, and act on suggestions from people from every level and function of your organization?
- Do you encourage and stimulate interaction between departments and promote cross-functional projects?
- Have all of your improvement processes (TQM, reengineering, excellence, etc.) been as effective as you hoped?
- Do you regularly train people at all levels and in every function how to think and work together more effectively?
- Do people in your organization regularly have time available to think through situations, look at the big picture, bounce ideas off of peers, and experiment with possibilities?
- Is information freely and readily available to everyone in your organization rather than on a need-to-know-basis?
- Does your organization regularly review and update its assumptions, mission and goals and encourage everyone in the organization to do so also?
- Is ownership, rewards and risks, distributed widely through your organization through stock ownership plans or profit sharing plans?
If your company thinks it’s more innovative than it actually is – a common situation, by the way – this might be just the tool to show your boss… or your boss’s boss… Take the first steps to helping your organization be more innovative.