Why most innovation departments fail before they start

A few months ago, I received two calls within weeks of each other. Two different people, two different organisations, two different sectors. But the same story.
Both had just been appointed to lead their organisation’s innovation department. Both were sharp, motivated, and genuinely excited. And both had been handed the same task by their directors: develop a vision for what the department should be, what it should stand for, and how it should operate.
Neither knew where to begin.
I was not surprised. Because the moment I heard their situation, I understood the real problem — and it had nothing to do with their capability.
Their organisations had created an innovation department, expecting it to innovate. And that is precisely where everything goes wrong.
Let me explain with something familiar. When an organisation establishes a quality department, nobody expects that department to do the work better than everyone else. The quality team does not manufacture the product or deliver the service. What it does is far more important — it sets the standards, builds the framework, governs the process, and ensures quality is embedded across every function. It supervises. It audits. It holds the system accountable.
The innovation department works exactly the same way. It is not there to generate ideas. It is not there to run the creative sessions or build the prototypes — though it may oversee those who do. Its role is to govern how innovation happens across the organisation. To set the strategy. To define the process. To ensure that innovation activity is aligned with strategic goals and that value is actually realised at the end of it.
Under an innovation department may sit an innovation lab — a space for rapid experimentation and prototyping. Or an innovation centre — a broader hub for collaboration, research, and ecosystem engagement. These are the execution arms. The department governs them. That distinction is fundamental and almost universally misunderstood across our region.
Which is why those two directors, well-intentioned as they were, had unknowingly set their newly appointed leaders up to fail. They had hired someone to lead a governance function and then asked them to present a vision for a creative studio. The brief was wrong before the person even started.
So when I spoke to both of them, my first question was not about structure or headcount or activities. It was this: what is the strategic purpose of this department — what can it deliver that no other function in your organisation already can?
Both lines went quiet.
That silence is not a personal failure. It is a system failure. It happens when organisations appoint innovation leaders without first answering the question themselves. And without that answer, every decision that follows — the team, the structure, the budget, the activities — is built on sand.
Here is what I believe, and I hold it firmly: you cannot design an innovation department until your leadership has agreed on what innovation means for your organisation, what strategic problem it is meant to solve, and what governance role it will play in making that happen.
That conversation belongs in the boardroom — before the appointment is made, and long before anyone starts drawing org charts.
So if you are a leader preparing to establish an innovation function, start with three questions. What strategic problem are we unwilling to leave unsolved? What would success look like in three years — measured in impact, not activity? And what decisions will this department govern that no other function currently owns? Answer those first. Then appoint. Then build.
The organisations that get this right do not have innovation departments that run events and produce reports. They have innovation functions that shape strategy, govern processes, and hold the organisation accountable for turning ideas into impact. The people leading them are not expected to be the most creative in the room.
They are expected to be the most accountable.