There is a wonderfully quirky English word that deserves a place in innovation management: coddiwomple.

It means travelling purposefully towards a destination that is not yet fully known.

That may sound like a strange way to describe innovation. After all, many organisations prefer roadmaps, milestones, KPIs, steering committees, and clear decision gates. And to be clear, those things matter. Innovation without direction quickly becomes noise.

But innovation with too much route control can become something else: a traffic jam.

I was reminded of this during a family holiday many years ago. We were driving south through France in the middle of summer. It was 14 July, France’s national holiday, and the highways were packed. The autoroute had become one long line of cars, impatience, and restless children in the back seat.

So we made a decision.

We left the highway.

Not with a perfect plan. Not with a new optimised route. Just with the simple idea to keep moving south, away from the congestion.

And then something unexpected happened.

We arrived in a small town celebrating 14 juillet. Music filled the square. Brass bands and accordion tunes spilled into the streets. There was food, local wine, laughter, children running around, and long wooden tables where people gathered under string lights.

It was never part of the plan.

But it became one of the best memories of the journey.

Later that evening, we returned to the highway. The traffic had disappeared, the children fell asleep in the back seat, and the rest of the drive was calm.

We still reached our destination.

But the detour gave us something the planned route never could.

Innovation rarely follows the autoroute

Many innovation projects start with a strong desire for control.

We want the shortest route from idea to result. We define the roadmap. We translate ambition into work packages. We create milestones. We agree on KPIs. We ask everyone to stay on track.

That makes sense.

But innovation does not happen in a static world.

Markets shift. Technologies evolve. Partners change priorities. Funding conditions create constraints. Users respond differently than expected. What looked like the fastest route in the proposal phase may no longer be the best route when execution starts.

This is where many projects get stuck.

Not because the ambition is wrong.

Not because the partners lack expertise.

But because the collaboration was designed like a highway: efficient when everything flows, frustrating when reality creates traffic.

Coddiwomple innovation offers a better image.

It is not about wandering without purpose. It is about moving forward with direction while staying open to routes that create more value than the original plan.

Coddiwomple innovation is purposeful progress without route obsession.

Purpose without rigidity

Good innovation needs direction.

Without a sense of destination, teams drift. Discussions become vague. Partners optimise for their own priorities. Energy gets lost in exploration without progress.

But direction is not the same as rigidity.

A strong innovation strategy should answer questions such as:

• Where do we want to create value?
• For whom should this matter?
• What kind of success or growth are we trying to enable?
• Which boundaries should we not cross?

These questions create direction. They give teams a shared compass.

But they should not dictate every turn.

When innovation leaders confuse direction with route control, they reduce the ability of the team to respond to reality. The roadmap becomes more important than the learning. The milestone becomes more important than the insight. The KPI becomes more important than the value it was meant to create.

That is when innovation starts to feel efficient on paper, but slow in practice.

A roadmap is useful. Worshipping the roadmap is where innovation gets stuck.

Coddiwomple innovation is not improvising without discipline. It is a structured way of moving forward when the exact route cannot be fully known in advance.

Boundaries are helpful, handcuffs are not

Coddiwomple innovation does not mean removing structure.

In fact, detours only work when people understand the bigger direction.

If we had left the highway without knowing we still wanted to go south, we would simply have been lost. The detour worked because the direction was clear, even though the route changed.

The same applies to innovation management.

Teams need boundaries. They need to know what is in scope and what is not. They need clarity about strategic ambition, value expectations, roles, responsibilities, and decision logic.

But boundaries should create freedom inside a useful space.

That is why innovation systems matter. A good innovation system does not force every project into the same predefined route. It creates the conditions in which teams can make better decisions when reality changes.

This is also why strategy gives innovation direction. It should not close down every possible path. It should help teams recognise which detours are useful and which ones are distractions.

Strategy should give direction, not handcuff the journey.

The village fête moments of innovation

The most valuable part of our travel detour was not that we avoided traffic.

It was the village fête.

That unexpected stop created a better journey than the one we had planned.

Innovation projects have similar moments.

An unexpected partner brings a perspective you had not considered. A user points out a friction you did not see. A failed prototype reveals a stronger use case. A side conversation uncovers a hidden assumption. A constraint forces the team to simplify the concept and makes it stronger.

These moments often look like interruptions at first.

But they can become the turning points that make the innovation more relevant, more usable, and more valuable.

The problem is that many innovation projects are not designed to notice them.

When the project plan is too rigid, unexpected insights are treated as scope creep. When KPIs are too narrow, useful learning feels like delay. When governance is too focused on compliance, teams hesitate to propose route changes.

That is a missed opportunity.

The real skill is not to chase every shiny detour. The skill is to recognise which surprises deserve attention because they can strengthen the outcome.

The real issue is not whether teams follow the plan. It is whether they keep serving the value the plan was meant to create.

Collaboration needs room to adapt

This becomes even more important in innovation partnerships.

In a single organisation, changing route can already be difficult. In a consortium, an ecosystem, or a research industry collaboration, it becomes even more complex.

Every partner has its own priorities, language, deadlines, risks, and internal pressures. If the original plan starts to lose relevance, partners do not automatically adapt together.

Some continue executing their assigned tasks.

Some quietly disengage.

Some protect their own interests.

Some wait for the lead partner to decide.

That is how collaboration drift starts.

Coddiwomple innovation requires a different collaboration mindset. Partners need to co-own the direction, not just deliver their part of the route. They need enough shared understanding to discuss when the plan no longer fits. They need trust to say, “This road is blocked. Shall we look for a better way?”

In those moments, the quality of the partnership matters.

• Can people speak up without feeling difficult?
• Can they admit that the route no longer works without being blamed?
• Can they trust each other enough to explore another way?

In strong innovation collaborations, adapting the route is not seen as failure. It is part of the work.

That is where detecting and correcting drift becomes essential. If teams can spot early signals of misalignment, they can adjust before frustration becomes disengagement.

In strong collaborations, changing route is not failure. It is part of the work.

What this means for innovation leaders

For SME innovation managers, coddiwomple innovation can be liberating.

You often work with limited resources, high expectations, and pressure for fast results. The temptation is to define a tight route and push hard. But when a better opportunity appears, the ability to adapt can be the difference between a small project output and real market relevance.

For corporate innovation managers, the lesson is equally important.

Large organisations often create approval cycles that reward certainty too early. By the time a project is approved, reality may already have shifted. A coddiwomple mindset helps you build enough flexibility into governance, so teams can stay aligned with strategic value instead of blindly executing an outdated plan.

For researchers and postdocs working with industry partners, this is also a useful lens.

Research industry collaboration rarely follows a straight line. Industry needs may evolve. Scientific questions may deepen. New applications may emerge. The strength of the collaboration depends on whether partners can keep moving with purpose while learning together.

In all three cases, the goal is not more chaos.

The goal is better movement.

Teams that can adapt without losing direction move faster when uncertainty hits. They waste less energy defending outdated plans, spot better opportunities earlier, and turn unexpected insights into stronger results.

Three questions to test your own innovation route

If you want to apply this idea to your own projects, start with three simple questions.

First, are we clear about the direction, or only about the route?

A route tells people what to do next. A direction helps them make smart choices when the route no longer works.

Second, where are we currently stuck in traffic?

Look for delays, repeated discussions, silent frustration, rigid KPIs, or partners who are technically present but no longer truly engaged. These are often signs that the plan needs adjustment.

Third, which detours could create more value?

Not every detour is useful. But some reveal new partners, stronger user insights, better concepts, or faster routes to impact. Make space to examine them before dismissing them.

Sometimes the smartest innovation move is not another steering committee. Sometimes it is admitting that you are stuck in traffic.

Think about one innovation project in your organisation. Where is the team still following the route because it was agreed earlier, even though everyone quietly feels the context has changed?

Coddiwomple with discipline

The word may sound playful, but the management lesson is serious.

Innovation success does not come from controlling every turn. It comes from combining direction, structure, curiosity, and adaptation.

The best innovation leaders do not dictate every kilometre of the journey. They create clarity about the destination, define the boundaries, build the conditions for collaboration, and help teams recognise when a detour is not a distraction but a better route to value.

That is how innovation creates stronger results and sustainable growth.

Sometimes the plan hits traffic.

When it does, do not abandon the journey.

Coddiwomple.

Keep your direction, change your route.

If you recognise this tension between direction and flexibility in your own innovation projects, you are welcome to get in touch via the contact page. I am happy to think along with you about how to create enough structure to move forward, without closing the door to valuable detours.