I’m a good enough cook, I enjoy doing it, but I’m not great at baking cakes. It’s just not something I do very often. So that got me thinking, what do you need to bake a cake successfully?

The first thing you need to do is decide what type of cake you want to make. This is interesting because there’s a number of ways you will likely make this decision. If you are a particularly experienced cake-o-file then you will probably just have a favourite, or perhaps a particular cake in mind at that time. Alternatively you will need to take inspiration from other sources. Look online, ask peers or perhaps imagine the scenario the cake will be served in and think about what an appropriate cake might be. The final option is that you could ask someone who has the experience and skills necessary to make a recommendation.

Once you have decided what cake you are going to make you now need to know how to make it and what ingredients are needed. This may actually force you to change your mind. Whilst the Battenberg you chose is a favourite and someone even advised you it was a delicious cake to make, now you’re looking at the recipe and cooking process and you realise it’s beyond your cooking skills to pull this one off. At this point you realise that what would have been useful was a way of filtering your options based on not only what is desirable but what is feasible for you to make. This analogy applies to range of circumstances. It could have easily been that the oven temperature for a particular cake exceeds your ovens capabilities. Or that the ingredients required are scarce, or just too expensive. We have all gone to cook something only to realise we are missing some key items.

At this point we look at our options again. If we have the luxury of time we might persevere and go back through the process armed with the knowledge that we have to set a few more criteria in order to make a successful choice. If we don’t have this luxury and the cake is needed for an important lunch we need to think differently. We could ask a friend to help, one who has the skills and/or the ingredients to overcome our problems. Or we could buy the cake from someone who has these attributes. These don’t of course directly fulfil our desire to bake a cake and of course achieve the satisfaction this entails. But rationally it solves our problems, and importantly means our goal of eating a cake is ultimately fulfilled. And given other pressures forced us down this route we may well be in a better place. How often is it that someone who just knows the right people or resources to help pull off the best dinner parties? Their ability or knowledge has still given them this advantage. And of course we still have the choice in the future to pursue cake baking, this time armed with more knowledge.

It’s also true for me, as I believe it is for others, that when thinking about food preparation for any meal my cooking competency is far better in other areas, and in order to achieve a good meal it’s far better for me to focus on these areas. That way I can have my cake and eat it.

So, if it wasn’t clear already, why is innovation as easy as baking a cake? Because it’s the same process. It might be easy to identify something desirable to achieve or make, but other factors will need to play a part in this process. Equally the objective to achieve an innovation can be fulfilled in many ways. And this is likely to depend on your own core competencies and strategic assets. And along with this other variables will play there part too. Time, budget, resource availability and competitive pressures will all need to factored in. And possibly most importantly of all, there are a lot more choices than ever before. Partnerships, independent internal organisations, hackathons etc. and of course the emerging world of corporate venturing. And making this choice isn’t easy, but there are ways to get there.