Many intrinsic tensions manifest themselves when IT leaders seek to become more innovative. There is, for example, the question of economy: How long will management tolerate endless whiteboard-wielding brainstorming sessions until the realities of opportunity cost come to the fore? And there are also the inherent problems that arise in trying to create an “innovation culture” when the terms innovation and culture seem so indefinable and subjective on their own.
Although innovation is the goal of nearly every organization, a majority of IT leaders (56 percent) believe that there is no fixed definition for innovation whatsoever, and that malleable definitions change based on the situation, according to the results of the CIO Executive Council (CEC) 2016 IT Innovation Survey (see Figure 1).
