Given our current failure rate, estimated by even the most modest commentators at more than one in three, managers should be aiming to see a better flow of innovative ideas generated and be smarter about implementing and sustaining them.

The computer adage “garbage in, garbage out”, is also appropriate to innovation. If you’re short on ideas, stale or disheartened, then upgrade your inputs.

Start with existing best practices and solutions. Seek out reputable figures from public life – from contemporary business moguls and sports managers through to explorers and inventors of old – and soak in their experiences. Examine “alternative worlds”, concepts and experiences. Use various tools, techniques and templates to stimulate and structure your ideas.

Select seasoned facilitators to allow heated debate among your colleagues, and invite rank outsiders to challenge your ways of thinking. Draw in radical thinkers (to include your service users) and entertain the off the wall comments that take your breath away.

Give attention to the timid and even seemingly foolish suggestions of those around you. When challenged, shocked, insulted or annoyed with a proposal, stop. Invest a moment to question the seeming antagonist a little further before dismissing their notion. Let people tell their stories, express concerns and dreams, appreciate differences and co-design solutions.

Before implementation, test schemes to avoid abandoned projects, wasted resources and demoralisation. Benefits must be justifiable: increased value for patient, public, staff or other stakeholder. Outcomes must be consistent with your goals and values. The scale of improvement must warrant the investment and the level of disruption.

Convinced your proposals serve your purpose, assess the barriers to implementation. Unearth and make explicit the assumptions you have made in arriving at your solutions.

Do not underestimate the pull of organisational culture and heed operational hurdles. Calculate the likelihood and impact of failure then generate ideas to inform your implementation plan, illustrating how each is to be handled.

Finally, keep your implementation programme proportionate to the innovation. Select the right people to get the job done. Enable each to interact as needed with minimal formality.

Keep the programme on track: set realistic timeframes, hold regular check points, maintain motivation, feed back on deliverables and take remedial actions to prevent drift.

Be ready to take responsibility if things go wrong. Be ready to share success. Report on milestones met. Use organisational mechanisms to recognise and reward the efforts of those who lent support.

Innovation is critical whether you are leading an organisation, improving a service, or simply doing your job. However confident we may feel, the good news is we can all develop skills to innovate.