Why Does Innovation Take so Long?

Innovation is the process of developing something new that has not been developed before. It may either be something unique or it could be a recombination of different elements to find new interpretations. Sometimes these innovations come from incremental increases while at other times it could completely transform the market.

At the least innovation moves through four steps. I term these steps 1.) Knowledge Integration, 2.) Ideation and Conceptual Formation, 3.) Validity Testing 4.) Development for Consumption. Within each steps are many other steps. Products and good ideas don't appear out of no where and generally rest on a large backdrop of knowledge.

Researchers spend years blurry eyed trying to understand a particular phenomenon. They read, study, understand and integrate knowledge. At some point they have accumulated enough knowledge to develop a new idea but that requires a strong foundation of previous knowledge. It may be in their field of study or a related field.

That "Aha" moment eventually develops into a conceptual vision of the product that is tested. If it works well then it will be further refined for consumptions. The development process should consider the market needs of consumers in product design and development. Innovation takes a long time because information must be integrated and synthesized to come up with a new way of solving problems.