If you can't demonstrate value early and consistently, you'll find yourself in a familiar trap: defending your team's existence instead of doing the work that justifies it. This article introduces two connected disciplines: measuring progress in ways that capture early value, and communicating that progress to keep stakeholders committed to what you're building.

Here's a mindset shift that's served me well: treat your innovation team like an internal startup. Startups rarely get their business model right the first time. They test, learn, pivot, and iterate. The model they launch with is almost never the model that eventually works. The same is true for innovation teams.

Through my work with organisations across sectors, I've identified three core orientations for innovation teams. Most successful teams have a primary orientation, even if they do some work in other areas.