BusinessWeek teams up with Boston Consulting Group to bring us the results of their 2007 Most Innovative Companies survey of senior executives.

Innovation may be one of the hottest buzzwords in business today. But at the world’s largest companies, senior executives understand that innovation is much more than an easy-to-achieve management fad du jour.

The world seems to move at an ever-faster rate, but it also increasingly demands accountability. Is it any surprise that risk aversion is the biggest obstacle companies face?

Managing innovation vis-a-vis risk is a battle organizations have faced for the longest time. Peter Senge in the Fifth Discipline refers to this as “creative tension,” and one of the few ways to overcome it is what he calls “systems thinking.” They need a process to see how all parts of the organization systems interconnect. No amount of innovation training overcomes this challenge. This issue has plagued other disciplines like CRM, corporate learning management, etc.

Success depends on process, people/talent then tools.

Executives need:

• A framework that manages risk with built-in accountability that produces results
• A methodology to shorten development times and coordinate activity within the organization
• A process that brings relevant consumer insights to the table (like Intuit’s Customer Driven Innovation)

Do you have process in place?