Innovation Management
We have a standard
for quality.
ISO 9001. Most organisations know it.
Many are certified to it.
We have one for the environment.
One for safety. One for energy.
For decades, we had nothing for innovation.
The ISO 56000 Family
That changed in 2024.
ISO 9001 Quality
ISO 14001 Environment
ISO 45001 Safety
ISO 19650 BIM
ISO 56001 Innovation
The first global standard requiring organisations
to manage innovation systematically.
Not recommend. Require.
What It Is
Not what you think.
ISO 56001 is not about creativity workshops.
Not about R&D labs or innovation teams.
It is about governance.
How an organisation makes decisions under uncertainty
in a way that creates value rather than waste.
The Logic It's Built On
Same foundation.
Different application.
The PDCA cycle underpins every ISO standard.
ISO 56001 applies it to innovation for the first time.
The Innovation Process
Five stages.
Identify
→
Create
→
Validate
→
Develop
→
Deploy
Identify opportunities. Create concepts.
Validate them. Develop what survives. Deploy what works.
Most organisations skip straight from Create to Deploy.
That gap is where value disappears.
Clause 5 — Leadership
Leadership is not
a chapter.
In ISO 56001, leadership is a condition.
The standard requires leaders to actively govern innovation,
not delegate it and hope.
Who decides what gets validated?
Who sets when learning happens?
The leader. Always.
Where It Stands
Published September 2024.
Barely adopted.
Most organisations have never heard of it.
A handful are pursuing certification.
Fewer still are actually using it to govern decisions.
That gap is either a problem
or an opportunity, depending on where you sit.
To Be Clear
ISO 56001 is not
innovation theatre.
It will not generate ideas for you.
It will not make your teams more creative.
It will not solve cultural problems with a certificate.
What it does is give organisations a structure
for making better decisions about which ideas to pursue,
when to stop, and what to learn.
ISO 56001
A standard for
how you decide.
Not what to innovate.
How to govern it.