I am going to take you on a journey that I hope will help you develop and improve the three elements outlined in the Introduction and inspire and challenge you to stretch your thinking about how you can contribute to bringing new ideas into the world.

Any journey requires guidance to help navigate the unknown terrain. The Six ‘I’s of Innovation^® is the guide that I have created to help simplify what often is seen as a complex, chaotic and unpredictable process.

On the inside cover of the book you will see the image of The Six ‘I’s^® with an overview of the six core stages.

Below are six points to help you interpret the Model.

1. The Six ‘I’s^® is a circular Model. This is because innovating does not follow a clear linear process. It has dead ends, roadblocks and unforeseen challenges. You will need to go backwards and forwards, across The Six ‘I’s^® before you create something that is considered valuable.
2. At the centre of the Model is Purpose (or intent). This serves as an anchor point and, if applied more rigorously in how we think and how we work, would help to ensure that what we are trying to create will have Purposeful value. Here, we can objectively question and revisit what we are trying to do and question why. Here, we can, and must, move backwards and forwards to the other stages of the Model. From investigate back to identify or ignite, for example.
3. There are two coloured triangles, the same colour as their corresponding ‘I’ that link each of the stages with Purpose. These represent process and culture:
   • Innovation process. Each phase of innovation requires processes to support its effectiveness. For example, a process for capturing ideas at the ignite phase.
   • Innovation culture. As well as processes, each phase of innovation requires distinct cultural and environmental capabilities to reinforce certain types of behaviour. Often teams or organisations will fail because they have too much of one type of culture, for example, strong at encouraging new ideas in the ignite phase, but weak on building a culture that is skilled at implementation.
4. Although, from a teaching standpoint, we start with identify, in the real world your role in innovation may start at any of the stages of the Model. It is not always the same starting point. There are also many examples – ideas that are ignited and have no identified opportunity, for example.
5. It mirrors the way that we think. Although some of us may have a tendency to jump a stage, we do not stay neatly in one area; our mind moves backwards and forwards generating ideas, selecting them, improving on ideas and moving them forward into implementation and back again.
6. The Model can be a guide for managing innovation projects that we are working on by helping us to be more conscious of how we are working and where we are at any one point in the innovation journey. It can also be dialled up or dialled down – for thinking innovatively in our day-to-day work, as well as managing a more complex innovation project.

Each of The Six ‘I’s^® requires different skills, capabilities and supporting processes that need to be maximised if you, your team or organisation are to innovate consistently and effectively. Each ‘I’ is also linked to a particular attitude or a mindset that is distinctive to that phase of innovation.

For example, when you are in the investigate phase, you need to be more critical about your ideas than when you are in the ignite phase, where a creative mindset is of paramount importance. If you are too critical in the ignite phase, you will kill off any new ideas before they have time to take root and grow.

On the inside cover, you will see a visual representation of each of these core orientations or mindsets – the primary attitude that is required within that stage of innovation.