The Fantastic Five
The core components of your Intelligent Innovation System.
Innovation is exciting, but it’s also messy. Many organizations face fragmented efforts, misaligned priorities, and wasted resources. Get ready to break through the noise and drive real outcomes with The Fantastic Five.
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Innovation doesn’t have to be a chaotic, unpredictable mess.
Common Innovation Challenges & How The Fantastic Five Solve Them
The Next System’s Fantastic Five provide a strategic framework for navigating uncertainty, making smarter decisions, and turning innovative ideas into scalable success.
Challenge 1.The Chaos of Unfocused Innovation
The Problem:
Without a clear innovation strategy, organizations end up with scattered projects that don’t align with business goals. Teams chase trends, but these efforts fail to deliver meaningful impact.
The Solution:
Next Portfolio Management
Align and evaluate every innovation initiative across multiple forms of capital (human, intellectual, political, reputational, social, financial). With AI-driven insights, prioritize initiatives that build serious capital and drive long-term value.
A critical first step is adopting a portfolio management approach. This involves categorizing innovation efforts into different portfolios based on their objectives.
Optimized Portfolio:
Enhancing current performance.
Growth Portfolio:
Expanding reach or offerings.
Renew Portfolio:
Reinventing or reframing existing solutions.
Maximize Portfolio:
Extract maximum value from assets being phased out.
Challenge 2. Innovation Efforts That Stall in Uncertainty
The Problem:
Organizations often launch initiatives without fully testing assumptions, leading to high failure rates and wasted investments. Traditional methods miss the uncertainty of innovation.
The Solution:
Next Development
An iterative, learning-based approach that reduces uncertainty over time. Continuously test and refine ideas, making smarter decisions based on real evidence before committing large resources.
This component is often referred to as the Next Cycle. A roadmap from ideation to execution, guiding teams through stages of discovery, experimentation, and validation. It ensures that ideas are systematically evaluated and developed, reducing uncertainty and increasing the probability of successful outcomes.
The Problem:
Innovation projects fail due to misaligned funding. Organizations either overcommit too early or underfund promising ideas, stalling progress.
The Solution:
Next Funding
Allocate financial and non-financial capital strategically using AI decision support to assess risks and returns. Invest incrementally, ensuring only validated initiatives move forward.
Challenge 3. Funding That Doesn’t Match Your Innovation Needs
Challenge 4. Decision-Making Based on Gut Feelings
The Problem:
Leaders often rely on instinct, leading to wasted resources and misalignment with strategic goals. Without a clear framework, balancing creativity and market readiness becomes difficult.
The Solution:
Next Decision Criteria
The Next Decision Maker ensures every innovation opportunity is rigorously evaluated before advancing. Using the Super Seven framework, it assesses strategic fit, feasibility, and impact—helping you determine whether to move forward, refine, or stop.
Challenge 5. Lack of Governance Leads to Risk and Waste
The Problem:
Innovation governance is often either too strict or too lax, leading to wasted investments and misalignment with business strategy.
The Solution:
Next Operating Principles
Balance agility with oversight. AI-powered governance tools track progress, assess risks, and ensure compliance, helping teams innovate confidently while staying aligned with business goals.
Clearly, articulated operating principles help prevent friction between the Now and Next systems, ensuring smoother transitions and greater cohesion.
Bringing It All Together
Building a culture of innovation requires more than visionary ideas; it demands a structured system that supports continuous development and execution. By focusing on the Fantastic Five components you can create a robust framework that drives sustained innovation and capital growth.
Ready to dive into the Fantastic Five? Tune into our podcast episode, it’s a real masterclass.
Curious where your organization stands on the innovation scale? Take the Innovation Readiness Assessment and find out in just a few minutes.
Innovation that works isn’t magic or luck—it’s an Intelligent System.
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Implementing the Next System
Whether you’re assessing your current framework, designing a new approach, or seeking ongoing support, Solve Next’s philosophy centers on merging human ingenuity, AI insights, and structured governance to drive sustainable, multi-capital growth.
Our mix of advisory, professional development, and high-energy facilitated sessions ensures your organization seamlessly integrates the Fantastic Five using our Intelligent Innovation System framework.
Advisory &
System Design
Get expert help tailoring the Intelligent Innovation System to your organization’s unique challenges and strategic goals. We’ll align decision-making, funding, and governance so your innovation engine runs smoothly alongside your day-to-day performance system.
Next
Academy
Empower your teams with the right tools and mindsets to make the Next System shine. From the creative energy of Agents of Next to the strategic leadership focus of Leaders of Next, our training ensures everyone can confidently drive innovation that delivers lasting value.
High-Energy
Blasts
Confront key challenges in establishing or operating your Next System—fast. Our intensive, facilitated sessions push teams to solve pressing obstacles, from bridging organizational silos to unlocking AI-driven insights, ensuring each step leads to immediate traction and lasting impact.