As we continue to bump along through the ongoing economic turbulence, innovation -- your company's ability to create and deliver new forms of customer value -- is increasingly important to driving growth.

Yet finding new technology-related opportunities is, perhaps, the easy bit.

If you really want to help drive innovation across your business you must also work with your executive colleagues to address the strategic, organisational and attitudinal inhibitors of innovation that exist in most companies.

I call these the innovation-killers, and you must eradicate them before your new ideas for growth can have a chance of succeeding.

Below are my top five innovation killers. How many of them exist in your business, and what actions are you taking to eradicate them?

1 An intolerance of failure.
According to Silicon Valley's top entrepreneurs, their number one reason for success is their ability to experiment fearlessly.

Conversely, many organisations become averse to prudent risk-taking and see any from of failure as a catastrophic event for which someone must be to blame, rather than a natural side effect of experimentation, learning and growth.

2 An excessive customer focus.
Customers are poor predictors of their own future behaviour. Simply asking customers what they want is not enough.

You need to be alive to your target customers' hopes, frustrations and compromises, but you cannot necessarily expect to identify them by asking.

Sometimes you just have to put something out there and gauge their reaction.

3 A desire for a magic pill, not a daily exercise regime.
The old golfing adage, the more I practice the luckier I get, is not only relevant on the links, it is also true for innovation.

I have repeatedly found that it is quantity of ideas that primarily drives success.

You can't do everything, and you need to be disciplined and focused in deciding which ideas you back with resources, but the more you can create a system to encourage and drive ongoing innovation, the greater your chance of ultimate success.

4 An unwillingness to cannibalise sales.
Market leaders, in particular, can persuade themselves to forego future sales in order to protect current sales.

But, if you were to ask Kodak's current board, I think that they would have welcomed greater innovation in digital technologies -- at the expense of traditional film processing -- 15 or 20 years ago.

5 A reliance on a small cadre of innovators.
Not only should you look for ideas across your organisation, the most innovative companies are also working with other businesses to develop new customer value and solutions.

Today's markets are too turbulent and fast-paced for you to take the risk of new projects on your own, and you are often better placed to access other companies' complementary capabilities.

P&G, the giant consumer brands business, for example, has, in recent years, sourced 50 per cent;or more of its new product innovations in partnership with external organisations.

Personally, I don't think that this would be such a bad idea.

In my experience many IT solutions are needlessly implemented and are simply a right answer to the wrong question.

Consider these three examples from my clients in 2011:

• The customer service team of a manufacturing business is struggling to meet its call management targets. External consultants are appointed and they recommend the implementation of a new call management system.
• A high street retailer is seeking to turn its loss-making on-line business into a profitable channel. The internal team believes that new customer-facing systems that enable 'click and collect' are the way to make this happen.
• A retail business is looking to manage a portfolio of major strategic initiatives more effectively than it has achieved in the past. The new head of programmes recommends that new project management systems should be used across the business to improve disciplines and performance.

In each of the cases new systems were, at best, only part of the answer. The manufacturing business, for example, implemented the new system but failed to see any performance improvements.

As the -- increasingly exasperated -- CEO investigated further, he realised that the real reason for the poor performance was not the systems, but the management and leadership of the team.

He replaced the team leader and performance improved almost overnight.

The high street retailer did benefit from implementing new customer-facing systems, but the key reason its on-line business is now profitable is as a result of improvements to its fulfilment processes.

Finally, the retail business that was struggling to deliver its strategic initiatives merely needed to raise the profile of these projects.

A monthly review meeting chaired by the CEO has step-changed levels of accountability and ensured that key milestones are delivered in line with the plan, in ways that new systems could never have achieved.

If you don't have this in place already -- and not many of clients do -- my recommendation is for you to have a small non-technical team that can work with your business clients and partners to help develop and deliver non-IT solutions to the issues and opportunities they raise.

Only in instances where non-IT solutions have been exhausted should you look to create IT-based responses.

In smaller businesses this role may take only part of someone's time, whereas in larger organisations you may need a small, rapid response team.

Not only will this approach save your technical teams from wasted time and effort, but it will also demonstrate to your business colleagues that you and your team have a real understanding of their issues and can deliver rapid, pragmatic solutions, whether or not new systems are required.

A plan, on the other hand, focuses on how you allocate critical resources over a period of time to achieve agreed performance targets.
Both are important, but they are different.

Critically, it is strategy development, not planning, that generates the insights and ideas that can propel your business forwards. Indeed, while the currency of plans is budgets, the currency of strategy is ideas.
Nobody understands the technology opportunities for your business as well as you. Consequently, as CIO you should have a significant role to play in the development of your organisation's strategy, and not just its execution.
Here are five questions you can ask yourself, your team and your colleagues to shift your focus from planning to strategy:
1. What is the 'next big thing' in your industry? When Steve Jobs returned to the troubled Apple business in the late 1990s he was asked about his strategy. "I'm waiting for the next big thing," he replied. For Jobs and Apple, the next big thing was the iPod and iTunes. What is it for your markets?
2. What key customer needs are likely to remain important over the next 5-10 years, and how can technology improve your ability to meet those needs? Amazon.com, for example, have focused its innovation on three key needs: greater range and choice (e.g. new categories, such as health and beauty, and DIY); lower prices (e.g. Amazon Marketplace); and faster responsiveness (e.g. Kindle).
3. How could technology enable your business to enter and succeed in adjacent markets? For instance, the clothing and homewares retailer, Next, has decided to focus its international expansion through its web-based business, rather than building physical store chains, for instance, and UPS's technologies and know-how in mail delivery has enabled it to also build a sizeable supply chain management business.
4. What technological innovations can you see in other markets and industries that could give your organisation a competitive advantage? Admiral Insurance took the idea of price comparison websites and launched its own home and car insurance comparison website, Confused.com, which not only sells Admiral's insurance products but also those of its rivals.
5. Where is your business competitively disadvantaged, and how could technology address this weakness? A consumer goods client of mine, for example, reduced its relatively high cost base by moving from having sales representatives visiting all their independent retailers, to a new, more efficient telesales team.

The ongoing recession has led business leaders to continue to cut areas that aren't adding value. IT remains one of the areas under threat in many organisations, as commercial managers struggle to understand the true value of the department.

At the same time, CEOs continue to invest in the services of professional service firms. Rather than becoming cynical about these investments, I think that there are five key lessons for many IT departments to learn from these organisations.

1 Become client-focused. McKinsey and other professional service firms are able to develop client-focused solutions because, in some ways, they get to know their clients and prospects better than their clients know themselves. You and your team need a similar focus. This doesn't mean that you do anything your colleagues ask, but it does mean that your team's starting point should be focused on understanding their needs, what makes them tick and what they are trying to achieve.

2 Develop peer-level relationships. Your ability to get anything done is directly related to the quality of relationships you have with your key partners and stakeholders. Professional service firms recognise this, and that is why they put so much effort into developing and managing these relationships. Critically, though, a peer-level relationship is not simply saying "yes" when being told what to do, but is about genuinely seeking to understand the needs and objectives of your clients, offering new ideas and insights, and pushing back when you genuinely disagree. Peers are partners, not subordinates, and that is how you, and your team, should act.

3 Become thought leaders. The McKinsey Quarterly has become one of the leading business periodicals for senior executives, helping build demand for the firm's services. McKinsey managers and partners also speak at events, and write books and articles for other publications. What new ideas and insights have you and your team developed and how do you share them across your organisation?

4 Constantly propose new ideas and solutions. After several meetings with a prospect I asked him what it would take for us to work together. "Stuart" he replied, "Look at Goldmans and the investment banks. They are always bringing new ideas to me. I know 90 per cent of the ideas won't work, but it's worth seeing them for the 10 per cent chance that they'll be onto something. If you want us to work together, offer me some specific ideas and reasons to do so." It's the same for you. What new ideas and solutions are your putting forward to your clients and partners?

5 Build your talent pool. The CTO of a major plc was complaining to me about the lack of progress his team were making in delivering his department's strategy. It became clear that the key barrier was the team itself. Most of the team were technically excellent, but many simply have the business understanding or the interpersonal skills required to deliver complex cross-functional projects or influence commercial stakeholders. As with professional service firms, you must recruit talented people who demonstrate a mix of technical and interpersonal capabilities. How well do your managers and teams stack up?