How would you establish an experimentation mindset?

Every year companies deal with countless inventions and innovative concepts, but in the end, they adopt less than 1% of cases. This is mainly because the identified opportunities are not aligned with the company goals. Assessing a new technology concept is not easy - to properly understand its maturity you need the right insights, but, for new technologies and novel concepts, obtaining these insights is expensive and complex. Most of the companies lack a smooth and effective ‘concept assessment’ methodology – they use evaluation methods that are not suitable for innovative products - and often, they don’t have the right culture for experimentation.
No doubt about it: it is important to understand the feasibility and the potential of a new concept before making investments in product development. But are you assessing too much? How deep must one dig before jumping on a proof of concept? A common mistake is overthinking the issues instead of taking the right actions to address them. You need the right balance between the time spent for the assessment of a concept and the time dedicated to a first implementation - to verify that this would work according to your needs. It is essential to introduce a "proof of concept" phase during the assessment of concepts – this would allow you either to ‘fail-fast’ and ‘fail-safe’ or to find the right path to success. Running a few small experiments in collaboration with the right stakeholders allows teams to understand the possible solutions deeper, examine its different aspects, and identify its strengths and weaknesses.
In terms of methods and tools, there are several different experimental approaches available - like Rapid Prototyping or Design Sprints. But the most crucial thing you must do to succeed is to engage with people from different departments (in particular R&D), throughout the entire project – from goal-setting to scouting, implementation, and validation. It is important to frequently communicate with your stakeholders, to test if the concept addresses their problems and meets their expectations. Involving different departments in the innovation process creates momentum around novel solutions and eventually helps to grow and boost the experimentation mindset [ ... ]