If you have an account, click here to take the Innovation Acid Test.

For more information about the Innovation Acid Test contact Aquifer Design at info@aquiferdesign.com.

The Innovation Acid Test (Triarchy Press 2008) asks the simple yet provocative question: What cultural attributes and behaviors in firms drive consistent innovation and growth through differentiation? Innovative companies (such as Google, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Shanghai Tang, Innocent Drinks, and Whole Foods) share 5 key ingredients in their cultural DNA:

• They are externally focused on consumer experience;
• They have open communication up and down the company hierarchy;
• They work collaboratively across departments and functions;
• They have an opportunistic relationships with constraints;
• They commit to specific ideas-to-action mechanisms that guide new ideas to product/service launch.

Design thinking is identified as a key methodology used by successful innovators as a source of differentiation.