The 3 KPIs you should measure to start with innovation accounting

Most of us run experiments as part of the validated learning principle. Even more (corporate) startups use the pirate metrics to measure customer engagement. But how can we effectively measure the performance of our innovation activities? How can we compare one corporate startup to another? Is that even possible?

While working with hundreds of startups and corporate innovation labs in the last few years, we started to develop our own innovation accounting framework. Because we started to see patterns and felt the need to make the progress of startups measurable and transparent. We use this framework, for example, as the basis for our Innovation Manager, our software platform to help corporate startups to innovate in a structured and measurable way.

In this article, we dive into how you could start with innovation accounting in practice today.

Levels of Innovation KPIs

What we learned is that there are three types of key performance indicators (or KPIs) each company should be tracking to measure innovation performance:

Reporting KPIs are connected to Innovation Practice. These focus on startup teams, the ideas they are generating, the experiments they are running and the progress they are making from a great idea to…