Why Your Q1 Innovation Initiative Will Fail by February (And the 52-Week Alternative)

Hey there, innovation champions!
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Before I head to Alabama and Arizona to spend the holidays with family, I wanted to share something that could save your Q1 innovation initiative before it even launches.
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Because here's the pattern I see every single year: In January, leaders roll out ambitious innovation programs. By February, they've quietly fizzled out. By March, everyone's back to business as usual, and the expensive consultant's slide deck is gathering digital dust.
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Sound familiar?
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The Big Initiative Trap

Years ago, when I was a professional artist, I made very little art that wasn't for clients. Almost none, really.
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Given that I'd gotten into the business because of my passion for creating, I was living a pretty miserable life. Not what I'd bargained for.
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Every year I'd make these grand resolutions: I was going to set aside one weekend a month to make art! Or I'd dedicate every Friday afternoon. Or two hours once a week.
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Whatever the plan was, it always failed. Which left me feeling more miserable than ever.
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Here's why those big plans didn't work—and why your Q1 innovation kickoff is headed for the same fate: They require pulling people away from their actual work.
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Your team is already maxed out hitting their numbers. Your engineers, project managers, and analysts don't have time for a two-day workshop, no matter how strategic it sounds. And even if you manage to get them there, what happens the next week when they're drowning in their normal workload again?
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The training doesn't stick because it lives in a different universe from their daily reality.
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The Micro-Experiment Alternative

After years of failed grand plans, I finally tried a radical experiment: instead of going big, I went micro.
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I committed to making art for just 15 minutes a day. That's it.
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This didn't require me to overhaul my schedule or pull myself away from work in some crazy way. After all, anyone can find 15 minutes.
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I honestly didn't think it was going to make much difference, but the results were truly astounding. Not only did I create more art over the span of 11 months than I had in the previous decade, but my creativity was off the charts, because creativity breeds creativity.
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It's like lifting weights or practicing a musical instrument: a little bit, consistently, creates noticeable change. And that noticeable change makes it motivating to keep at it.
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How This Applies to Your Team

When I work with teams at companies like Google, Meta, and Salesforce, or associations like Project Management Institute and American Marketing Association, the same principle holds: sustained innovation capability doesn't come from big initiatives—it comes from systematic micro-experiments integrated into existing workflows.
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Think about your analytical teams—your engineers, project managers, researchers. They're already brilliant at their jobs. But when you pull them out for a multi-day innovation workshop, you're essentially telling them to put their real work on hold.
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Even worse, you're reinforcing the idea that innovation is something special that happens over there, separate from their daily responsibilities.
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What if instead, innovation became part of how they work, not an interruption from their work?
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That's exactly what the 52 micro-experiments in my book Innovation at Work are designed to do.
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Why 52 Experiments Work Where Big Programs Fail

Each experiment takes 5-30 minutes. They fit into existing meetings, sprint planning, project reviews—the rhythms your team already has.
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Instead of requiring a complete culture overhaul on Day One, they build innovation muscle gradually. Week by week. One small win at a time.
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Your engineers learn to embrace productive failure not through a lecture on psychological safety, but by running a 15-minute "Learning Autopsy" experiment during their retrospective.
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Your analysts discover creative problem-solving not through mandatory "innovation time," but through a quick "Ask the Opposite Expert" conversation with someone from a completely different function.
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Your project managers build adaptive thinking not by leaving their work, but by integrating an "Assumption Audit" check-in at the start of sprint planning.
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The best part? Because these experiments deliver immediate, tangible value in their actual work, people want to keep going. The change becomes self-reinforcing rather than requiring constant executive push.
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What This Means for Your Q1 Planning

Right now, as you're finalizing Q1 plans before the holiday break, you have a choice:
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You can launch another big initiative that requires pulling people away from their work, investing heavily in facilitation, and hoping it somehow sticks after everyone returns to their desks.
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Or you can equip your leaders with a playbook of 52 micro-experiments they can integrate into the work that's already happening—building innovation capability systematically, week by week, throughout 2026.
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The book includes everything you need: complete experiment instructions, remote adaptations, scaling guidelines for different team sizes, integration strategies for existing processes, and even a tracker to monitor what's working.
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Innovation at Work launches January 16 with all 52 experiments organized into the Create the Impossible™ framework: Play Hard → Make Crap → Learn Fast → Create the Impossible™.

If you're planning Q1 right now and want a resource that actually fits how analytical teams work, join the waitlist at innovationatworkbook.com/waitlist.
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You'll be the first to know when the book launches, and special launch pricing.
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One More Thing

If you're reading this and thinking, "This is exactly what our Q1 needs, but I need to talk through how to implement this strategically for our specific situation"—let's talk.
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I work with organizations to help their analytical teams unlock systematic innovation capabilities. Sometimes that's through keynotes at annual conferences, sometimes through strategic consulting on innovation capability development.
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​Send me an email or message me on LinkedIn, and let's have a conversation about what 2026 could look like for your team.
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For now, I'm headed off to enjoy some holiday time with family. I hope you get some well-deserved rest too.
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Enjoy the rest of 2025, and here’s to a Happy New Year—when your Q1 innovation approach could be completely different from every failed January initiative that came before.
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Happy holidays!

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Next week: My New Year's resolution for innovation leaders—and why 2026 might be the year your team finally cracks the innovation code. Plus, a behind-the-scenes look at why I spent a good chunk of this year writing this book.

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Creatively yours,
Melissa

​P.S. When you’re ready to build a culture of thriving innovation, so your team can Create the Impossible™, here are three ways I can help:

1) Download my FREE Innovation Culture Assessment to evaluate where your team stands

2) Download the first 50 pages of my book, The Creative Sandbox Way™, to reconnect with your creativity

3) Click here to schedule a complimentary Innovation Strategy Session

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