There is no perfect model for innovation.
Don’t let anyone tell you that there is only one way to do innovation. That’s like saying there is only one way to cook a meal. Innovation comes from a complex mix of potential ingredients and one of the characteristics of innovation that makes it exciting is simply that you can pick and choose your ingredients and the quantities of your ingredients depending on the desired outcome.
Valve Software, a relatively small computer game company that always 
seems to be one step ahead of the curve, is famous for its lack of structure. Internally, titles are not used; levels of authority and job assignments are worked out dynamically by the employees themselves. Many fans of innovation would hold Valve’s approach as the ideal for creating opportunities for innovation because they see structure as antithetical to change and creative thinking.
Innovation can, however, survive in many climates. In the early days of the internet, a large, highly creative media company in Japan (Hakuhodo) once assigned each employee on a team the task of coming up with 100 ideas for a new online service within 24 hours. Together they culled through the results and the result was a popular online service modeled on a real-world service that combines Japanese new year greeting cards with sweepstakes. A key difference: the online version included brand advertising. The new online version generated fresh revenues for Hakuhodo and solidified its reputation as an innovator.
PepsiCo, too, has systematically sought innovative business ideas. Two years ago, PepsiCo launched PepsiCo10, an incubator program in entertainment, mobile, retail, and sustainability. The mix of categories fits both PepsiCo’s brand and the fast changing industries that affect its ability to do business competitively. Last year PepsiCo10 went to Europe looking for entries and this year (2012) they have added Brazil and India, which shows additional systematic thinking about where and how innovation can help their business.
As it turns out, according to a survey conducted by IDG for CA Technologies, the more innovative IT departments are in companies that plan for innovation and implement programs that support the development and implementation of fresh ideas. Keep in mind, IT is a corporate, line function, not the marketing department or the R&D department where creativity is expected and yet, as structured as the department may be, innovation thrives.
Drawing from IDG’s research, CA Technologies concludes: “Innovative organizations are more likely than their less innovative peers to emphasize experimentation and exploration…. [However,] Counter to conventional thinking, they also place more emphasis on planning and structure, indicating that they take a more mature approach to how innovation projects are managed and measured.”