What are the skills necessary for becoming an innovation consultant? Well, for over 20 years I've been doing just that. So here are a few things I think that you need to have.

1. Number one is curiosity, and that is the skill of being able to ask questions and investigate why. Why does someone have a problem? Why does someone have a need or frustration, or why has this become an emerging trend that we could be capitalising on? Or what behaviour on its own enables us to generate great insights.
2. The second thing that I think would be a really good skill is ideation. The ability to generate ideas on demand and that's by being able to look at possible alternatives and solutions and having a flexible mind. So the skill is around ideation, but the behaviour is around flexibility and looking at alternatives.
3. The third thing is around the ability to be rigorous around validating, and that is the skill to be able to look at. Proving whether something is gonna work and proving whether a market is willing to pay for a solution.
4. The fourth most critical component of being an innovation consultant, the skill would be about knowing how to commercialise that idea and build it. So whether it's manufacturing it or getting it out there to the market, promoting it, and selling it. And making sure that it's actually landing in the customer's hands and it's working, and then continuing to build on that, making it cheaper to produce, and cheaper to get out the world to create a great return of investment.

I reckon they're the four key skills you need to have to become an innovation consultant.

Cheers,
Nils

Nils Vesk
Innovation Author, Keynote speaker, Trainer, Consultant