If someone asks you to name 3 innovative companies, the companies you will name will most probably be the ones that go about doing innovations as a continuous process. Less of strategy and more as way of life, they are the ones who have escaped from the trap of planning for the innovation long ago and have got down to doing it.
You will also notice that these companies do not invent big every day, however they make sure they do it continuously. The small innovations get the due acknowledgment which paves the way for big. Innovation does not need to be always radical.
On the other hand some companies are accidental innovators, nothing wrong, except that the probability of unintentional innovation is slim.
The top management has a reason to be not happy with one-off innovations. Try this,
1) Have intention to move towards innovative culture, make it as visible as possible, part of your every communication.
2) Do previous step often
3) And when you do this often, you and others in your team will figure out the how part, yes it just happens!
The most important things are the simplest, just that they are not the most obvious. While you are figuring out the how part, do check out the following
a) Your employees and customers who are NOT part of your R&D team are also well placed to provide the ideas.
b) Find a way to reach outside your enterprise boundary, the latest trend has got all the top companies initiate collaborative innovation in some form or other.
c) Invest in collaboration software which enables innovation management
Process enablement promotes perseverance, perseverance brings sustainability … building sustainable innovation culture itself needs innovation.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Get the ball rolling
That word – ‘innovation’, usually finds its place in organizations’ strategy either directly or indirectly as a non linear initiative, budget thrown in and going back to business as usual.
Not so surprisingly, there is a huge gap which gets created between the strategy and what eventually happens on the ground.
What can one do to get the ball rolling in the right direction?
1) Do one simple check as a first step, see that the strategy involving the word ‘innovation’ is not done just to make your annual presentation look good but is aligned to a business objective.
2) Leave lot of room for change on the way, having a direction is good when it comes to innovation, but don’t get stuck with it.
3) Conflict of opinion is a biggest killer of innovation, and dropping the project is more often the way out to avoid the disagreements.
For a strategic objective to increase the sales, you will find things like better branding, advertisement, and new geography in the operations plan. Similarly the pillars of your innovation operations plan should be a) Platform conducive for innovation b) Encouragement - be it reward or recognition c) Non political transparent process to evaluate ideas.
You have the pins lined up; and you have the ball.
Not so surprisingly, there is a huge gap which gets created between the strategy and what eventually happens on the ground.
What can one do to get the ball rolling in the right direction?
1) Do one simple check as a first step, see that the strategy involving the word ‘innovation’ is not done just to make your annual presentation look good but is aligned to a business objective.
2) Leave lot of room for change on the way, having a direction is good when it comes to innovation, but don’t get stuck with it.
3) Conflict of opinion is a biggest killer of innovation, and dropping the project is more often the way out to avoid the disagreements.
For a strategic objective to increase the sales, you will find things like better branding, advertisement, and new geography in the operations plan. Similarly the pillars of your innovation operations plan should be a) Platform conducive for innovation b) Encouragement - be it reward or recognition c) Non political transparent process to evaluate ideas.
You have the pins lined up; and you have the ball.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Utilize the latent talent
Every organization has talent, which is more diverse than the roles available and assigned to an individual employee.
Every organization has a purpose to fulfil and obviously the roles are derived from that end purpose in mind and assigned top down. Though there is nothing wrong in this approach and nor does it need to change, this approach does not utilize the hidden talent of your employees, at times it could be a wrong assignment of a role; which is difficult to get rid overnight, and sometimes it is the absence of right encouragement which stops the employee from opening up.
Bigger problem though is the lack of realization, both on employers and employees part, that the talent is right there. Organizations constantly are trying to reduce the existence of this problem and many have succeeded to some extent. It is a quest to leverage what they own and pay for, pick the brains of their employees and convert that non time consuming sparks into revenue generation offering or a cost saving process.
“Obviously, the highest type of efficiency is that which can utilize existing material to the best advantage” - Jawaharlal Nehru
Every organization has a purpose to fulfil and obviously the roles are derived from that end purpose in mind and assigned top down. Though there is nothing wrong in this approach and nor does it need to change, this approach does not utilize the hidden talent of your employees, at times it could be a wrong assignment of a role; which is difficult to get rid overnight, and sometimes it is the absence of right encouragement which stops the employee from opening up.
Bigger problem though is the lack of realization, both on employers and employees part, that the talent is right there. Organizations constantly are trying to reduce the existence of this problem and many have succeeded to some extent. It is a quest to leverage what they own and pay for, pick the brains of their employees and convert that non time consuming sparks into revenue generation offering or a cost saving process.
“Obviously, the highest type of efficiency is that which can utilize existing material to the best advantage” - Jawaharlal Nehru
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Get rid of that label
Some of us get bogged down by what interests we showed in our early childhood, a teacher or a parent would have called us sporty, artistic, numerate or systematic. If one escapes from there, then the waiting corporate world would do something similar and assign us a 'role'!
An individual more often has an ear for only what labels others have assigned, or what she has assigned for self, more often in the areas we are supposed to earn our bread from. Similarly our creative instincts also get aligned to this mindset, though capable, we end up raising self designed hurdles against creative possibilities.
Labels play equally negative role in collaborative innovation.
1) Expecting a research engineer to shorten the duration on a car assembly line.
2) Expecting a productivity improvement unit of your company to improve productivity of your team.
3) Expecting a security guard at your premise to protect you from all security related threats.
As you see the labels are nothing more than anchors, the desired “outcome” however does not necessarily need to come out of the labels.
Don’t run to facility management for a facility improvement idea. Don’t congregate only the experts on subject for the innovation at hand.
A little story I read sometime back. A teenager, while going through the list of school sports he could participate on a sports day, wished there was ‘fishing’ in the list, as that is what he has done most in last few years. But then his eyes stopped on the 'long jump', a sport he has never attempted. It was while fishing he started jumping from one side of the stream to the other, at times he got wet while not making it to the other side, but the distance he jumped increased as he became more proficient.
As an individual your most promising expertise may not be in the domain of your work.
Get rid of that label; try a mask – the transient!
An individual more often has an ear for only what labels others have assigned, or what she has assigned for self, more often in the areas we are supposed to earn our bread from. Similarly our creative instincts also get aligned to this mindset, though capable, we end up raising self designed hurdles against creative possibilities.
Labels play equally negative role in collaborative innovation.
1) Expecting a research engineer to shorten the duration on a car assembly line.
2) Expecting a productivity improvement unit of your company to improve productivity of your team.
3) Expecting a security guard at your premise to protect you from all security related threats.
As you see the labels are nothing more than anchors, the desired “outcome” however does not necessarily need to come out of the labels.
Don’t run to facility management for a facility improvement idea. Don’t congregate only the experts on subject for the innovation at hand.
A little story I read sometime back. A teenager, while going through the list of school sports he could participate on a sports day, wished there was ‘fishing’ in the list, as that is what he has done most in last few years. But then his eyes stopped on the 'long jump', a sport he has never attempted. It was while fishing he started jumping from one side of the stream to the other, at times he got wet while not making it to the other side, but the distance he jumped increased as he became more proficient.
As an individual your most promising expertise may not be in the domain of your work.
Get rid of that label; try a mask – the transient!
Saturday, June 13, 2009
“But in our business, we don’t need to innovate a lot”
… said a new friend I made at a recently concluded Silicon India conference, he was responding to my explanation on ‘open innovation’ term.
Opening up obviously provides more ideas, more resources, more everything. However ‘more’ is only an approach, not the end result. When you open up for innovation, what you are after is the right idea and the right skills to orchestrate the innovation you are after, at the right time and for a right price.
The right innovation, ground breaking or just common sense, is what you need, and you may not need too much of it, or too frequently. Open innovation can get you that just one innovation with the help of magnitude of resources around the world. One doesn’t need to be a bulk buyer! But why mind a wider option to choose from!
On hearing the word “buyer”, the next question my new friend asked … “Isn’t it like open source software … free?”
Open innovation might be little like open source software when it comes to the making of it, but not the same when it comes to usage. You might still get few ideas for free, but not forever. Easier way is to not compare it with the open source software, because open innovation gets the word ‘open’ for crossing your walls and opening it up to wider resources for getting your innovation done, and not for distributing or using it for free.
Cheap maybe, but not free is open innovation.
Yes, your business may not need to innovate lot, or at least that’s what you think for now! either way innovation can become addiction and this one is a good one.
Just as innovation is the lifeline for multinationals, it is for a one person business, a newly found means “open innovation” walks the same path.
Opening up obviously provides more ideas, more resources, more everything. However ‘more’ is only an approach, not the end result. When you open up for innovation, what you are after is the right idea and the right skills to orchestrate the innovation you are after, at the right time and for a right price.
The right innovation, ground breaking or just common sense, is what you need, and you may not need too much of it, or too frequently. Open innovation can get you that just one innovation with the help of magnitude of resources around the world. One doesn’t need to be a bulk buyer! But why mind a wider option to choose from!
On hearing the word “buyer”, the next question my new friend asked … “Isn’t it like open source software … free?”
Open innovation might be little like open source software when it comes to the making of it, but not the same when it comes to usage. You might still get few ideas for free, but not forever. Easier way is to not compare it with the open source software, because open innovation gets the word ‘open’ for crossing your walls and opening it up to wider resources for getting your innovation done, and not for distributing or using it for free.
Cheap maybe, but not free is open innovation.
Yes, your business may not need to innovate lot, or at least that’s what you think for now! either way innovation can become addiction and this one is a good one.
Just as innovation is the lifeline for multinationals, it is for a one person business, a newly found means “open innovation” walks the same path.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Groupthink – Please agree!
The Meeting or a brainstorming session is a well accepted technique to come together in a room for idea generation. I have participated in these sessions many times and have come out of it feeling ‘time well spent’, I am sure you too have.
Of many observations, I want to talk about the small problem of ‘herd mentality’, and how it might affect the outcome in a big way.
a) An idea put on the board blocks others to think in different direction.
b) Pressure to generate idea might make one agree of someone else’s idea.
c) A wrong belief might set in - if most of us are thinking in one direction then that must be the correct direction.
“Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” – Half the world believed so at one point of time.
“Kashmir is root for the India Pakistan problem” – All the Pakistan rulers say this as part of their swearing in.
“The foam rupture is too small to create any problem for NASA’s Challenger” – The statement issued by the top management, engineers on the ground kept mum.
Back to our professional world, many of you must have overcome challenges in groupthinking.
What if everybody can contribute their ideas privately, then everybody gets a peak into everybody else’s ideas privately; say everybody has to support two ideas, one of that could be their own. Brainstorming happens for the top supported ideas, for additional ideas, to take the top ideas to the next level of details, and on how it needs to be executed. Doing this might eliminate the issues of herd mentality mentioned above.
“Individuality into the group thinking” is better than plain “individual thinking” or plain “group thinking”.
Check it out; your group may not think that groupthink is a problem!
Of many observations, I want to talk about the small problem of ‘herd mentality’, and how it might affect the outcome in a big way.
a) An idea put on the board blocks others to think in different direction.
b) Pressure to generate idea might make one agree of someone else’s idea.
c) A wrong belief might set in - if most of us are thinking in one direction then that must be the correct direction.
“Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” – Half the world believed so at one point of time.
“Kashmir is root for the India Pakistan problem” – All the Pakistan rulers say this as part of their swearing in.
“The foam rupture is too small to create any problem for NASA’s Challenger” – The statement issued by the top management, engineers on the ground kept mum.
Back to our professional world, many of you must have overcome challenges in groupthinking.
What if everybody can contribute their ideas privately, then everybody gets a peak into everybody else’s ideas privately; say everybody has to support two ideas, one of that could be their own. Brainstorming happens for the top supported ideas, for additional ideas, to take the top ideas to the next level of details, and on how it needs to be executed. Doing this might eliminate the issues of herd mentality mentioned above.
“Individuality into the group thinking” is better than plain “individual thinking” or plain “group thinking”.
Check it out; your group may not think that groupthink is a problem!
Saturday, May 30, 2009
ECONOMICS of open innovation
What ROI at what RISK? – every investor’s top question! With respect to open innovation, the same question gets rephrased as below …
a) What is the cost of doing ‘open innovation’ vis-à-vis strictly ‘in-house innovation’?
b) Opening up for innovation is new for me, and new things carry more risk, can I predict my return-on-investment?
c) How can I have a control over people not on my payroll? Will I loose money?
d) We already have an internal R&D, will opening up be an additional cost?
So how are the various aspects of collaborative innovation fair when it comes to the all important, COST?
COST FACTOR 1: By far the most favorable advantage open innovation carries is ‘Pay for real outcome not for trial and error.’
This is a huge cost saving, and a simple logic. Assuming there is a 20% chance of an average innovation effort to succeed, in open innovation you pay only for the favorable outcome and not for the effort which does not yield desired results.
A must ask question is “Then who pays for the effort which does not yield desired results”? The rule of averages comes into play, the so called huge cost of yielding no result is distributed among many people, making it most of the times insignificant for an individual. Broad talent pool increases the chances of finding the right fit for you and at the same time increases individual’s chances of finding an opportunity where her talent can fit. As you see it’s a solid win-win situation.
COST FACTOR 2: Benefit from what is yours, in-house.
Opening up to outside of your group but within your organization can also be treated as a type of open innovation.
Leveraging what you have – by connecting the exiting talent of your organization (part time, full time or even coffee time) with the existing challenge of your organization.
Utilizing what you anyway paid for is a cost saving. Garage sales never hurt.
COST FACTOR 3: Avoid risk of not completing the first, fifth or the last mile of your idea just because you do not have a person who can travel that mile for you.
Some great innovative ideas don’t see the light of the day during the execution resulting in financial losses. Fill in the gaps by bringing just-in-time talent. Just as there is a cost of innovating, there is a cost of not innovating, more so when you abandon a worthy idea.
Cost of doing collaborative innovation, internal and/or external, is not more compared to strictly in-house innovation. Though relatively new phenomenon, open innovation provides more control and is less risky. While you won’t have control over the people, you will have a control over paying only for what you get. Open innovation does not need to be a either /or with in-house innovation, nor does it need to make an addition or reduction in your innovation budget – considering open innovation as ‘just another means’ is by far the best way to avoid any cost related roadblocks.
a) What is the cost of doing ‘open innovation’ vis-à-vis strictly ‘in-house innovation’?
b) Opening up for innovation is new for me, and new things carry more risk, can I predict my return-on-investment?
c) How can I have a control over people not on my payroll? Will I loose money?
d) We already have an internal R&D, will opening up be an additional cost?
So how are the various aspects of collaborative innovation fair when it comes to the all important, COST?
COST FACTOR 1: By far the most favorable advantage open innovation carries is ‘Pay for real outcome not for trial and error.’
This is a huge cost saving, and a simple logic. Assuming there is a 20% chance of an average innovation effort to succeed, in open innovation you pay only for the favorable outcome and not for the effort which does not yield desired results.
A must ask question is “Then who pays for the effort which does not yield desired results”? The rule of averages comes into play, the so called huge cost of yielding no result is distributed among many people, making it most of the times insignificant for an individual. Broad talent pool increases the chances of finding the right fit for you and at the same time increases individual’s chances of finding an opportunity where her talent can fit. As you see it’s a solid win-win situation.
COST FACTOR 2: Benefit from what is yours, in-house.
Opening up to outside of your group but within your organization can also be treated as a type of open innovation.
Leveraging what you have – by connecting the exiting talent of your organization (part time, full time or even coffee time) with the existing challenge of your organization.
Utilizing what you anyway paid for is a cost saving. Garage sales never hurt.
COST FACTOR 3: Avoid risk of not completing the first, fifth or the last mile of your idea just because you do not have a person who can travel that mile for you.
Some great innovative ideas don’t see the light of the day during the execution resulting in financial losses. Fill in the gaps by bringing just-in-time talent. Just as there is a cost of innovating, there is a cost of not innovating, more so when you abandon a worthy idea.
Cost of doing collaborative innovation, internal and/or external, is not more compared to strictly in-house innovation. Though relatively new phenomenon, open innovation provides more control and is less risky. While you won’t have control over the people, you will have a control over paying only for what you get. Open innovation does not need to be a either /or with in-house innovation, nor does it need to make an addition or reduction in your innovation budget – considering open innovation as ‘just another means’ is by far the best way to avoid any cost related roadblocks.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Learning from the collaborative innovation cases
While most of us are trying to understand and incorporate the collaborative innovation in our organizations, there are some people and organizations that have experienced it already, it makes lot of sense to understand these cases and learn from it.
I am starting a sister blog http://spotopen.blogspot.com/ which will act as a repository of the success and failures in open innovation, collaborative innovation, co-creation from across the world.
Though the information going in these case studies is already available at various places on the internet, I am trying to achieve following.
1) Single point for reference.
2) Classify the case study information in a predefined format. (E.g. Industry, extent of openness etc.)
3) Uncover the finer and otherwise hidden aspects of these success or failure cases.
The format for the case study along with the first case study is posted at http://spotopen.blogspot.com/
Please feel free to suggest any changes or additions in the format.
You can also suggest a case study or point me to the case study.
I am starting a sister blog http://spotopen.blogspot.com/ which will act as a repository of the success and failures in open innovation, collaborative innovation, co-creation from across the world.
Though the information going in these case studies is already available at various places on the internet, I am trying to achieve following.
1) Single point for reference.
2) Classify the case study information in a predefined format. (E.g. Industry, extent of openness etc.)
3) Uncover the finer and otherwise hidden aspects of these success or failure cases.
The format for the case study along with the first case study is posted at http://spotopen.blogspot.com/
Please feel free to suggest any changes or additions in the format.
You can also suggest a case study or point me to the case study.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Metrics for Open Innovation – “what’s my open innovation quotient”
[One slightly disconnected thought! – Can percentage of people quitting from a particular organization and becoming an entrepreneur provide any kind of metric? More the better or less the better?]
Metrics have always amazed me, be it for how different people perceive it differently or for the conviction with which it can drive one away from facts! It has amazed me equally for its subtle power to steer one to the goals at hand..
This post is for you and me to come up with measurement criteria for an open innovation effort in an organization.
Thinking aloud for the pointers … a) Is my organization doing enough to promote open innovation, b) Where and how much to invest, c) Am I utilizing all possible resources, d) Metric can’t help me remove any mental blocks, but how can I keep the open innovation in say top 5 priorities e) What is the Return on investment, f) How much is the open innovation productivity, g) How much Risk I can take for how much return?
With this laundry list, let’s create the metrics, in no particular order.
Metric A: Open innovation budget allocation proportionate to the profitability hotspots.
First I need to track and arrive at the hotspots which have potential for open innovation. Then rank them according to the profitability per unit and volume it can fetch. Allocate the open innovation budget in the similar proportion while maintaining the hotspot diversity.
Overly simplified example - For a consumer durable product, the hotspots could be the pricing or psychology of a first time buyer, the yield per unit could be low and volume high. For a new techno yacht, yield per unit could be high and volume low.
Metric B: Extent of talent utilization from outside the core team.
Measure how much non core team individuals contributed from rest of the organization and/or from outside the organization.
Example / Pointers - How many idea-bar-camps my organization organized this quarter. Someone should be telling - we received 30 ideas from the core team, 70 from rest of the organization and another 50 from outside the organization for a given hotspot. In 2006, P&G’s 50% of the product and process ideas came from outside of P&G.
Metric C: Extent of Leadership involvement.
This one is bit difficult, but open innovation won’t take roots without it.
How much effort the leaders putting to leverage the opportunity of open innovation?
Example / Questions - How many times employees hear about the genuine support for open innovation from leadership? How much time does the leadership spend on open innovation vis-à-vis overall routine work. How recently your leaders heard and discussed the idea which came from outside the core team or from outside the organization.
Metric D: Percentage of skin
% of risk taken with respect to the investment in last one year. A conscious strategy to analyze and make Proactive + Reactive investment in future.
Example/ Questions – Was my TV ad budget for the existing service line far bigger than the innovation budget? Does my organization invest for short, medium and long term innovation outcomes or is there an imbalance?
Metric E: Percentage of fresh footprint
% of number of product, service, process or business model launched in last one, two, three year(s) which were not similar to the existing ones and had an open flavor.
Example/ Pointers – The ones where we changed the color and packaging may not be counted here, repurposing the same product for a new user group might. Still better is the one where you incorporated the end user feedback.
(A fair process to decide what is genuinely ‘open’ i.e. if the contribution came from outside the core group or not, and how much, is a different topic altogether and we will discuss this in subsequent posts.)
Metric F: Percentage of fresh dollars
% of revenue generated from NEW product, services, and processes launched in last one, two and three year(s)
Example / Pointers – Revenue from a really innovative product launched 5 years back be better kept off, and if it takes effort to associate the dollars as fresh dollars, its probably a wrong association!
Metrics are a very personal thing, each organization need to derive the ones which suites them. But as a rule of thumb, the metrics which resemble the simplicity of GPS, gives you the X, Y and Z coordinates of your current open innovation state, are more likely to take you where you intend to go.
Metrics have always amazed me, be it for how different people perceive it differently or for the conviction with which it can drive one away from facts! It has amazed me equally for its subtle power to steer one to the goals at hand..
This post is for you and me to come up with measurement criteria for an open innovation effort in an organization.
Thinking aloud for the pointers … a) Is my organization doing enough to promote open innovation, b) Where and how much to invest, c) Am I utilizing all possible resources, d) Metric can’t help me remove any mental blocks, but how can I keep the open innovation in say top 5 priorities e) What is the Return on investment, f) How much is the open innovation productivity, g) How much Risk I can take for how much return?
With this laundry list, let’s create the metrics, in no particular order.
Metric A: Open innovation budget allocation proportionate to the profitability hotspots.
First I need to track and arrive at the hotspots which have potential for open innovation. Then rank them according to the profitability per unit and volume it can fetch. Allocate the open innovation budget in the similar proportion while maintaining the hotspot diversity.
Overly simplified example - For a consumer durable product, the hotspots could be the pricing or psychology of a first time buyer, the yield per unit could be low and volume high. For a new techno yacht, yield per unit could be high and volume low.
Metric B: Extent of talent utilization from outside the core team.
Measure how much non core team individuals contributed from rest of the organization and/or from outside the organization.
Example / Pointers - How many idea-bar-camps my organization organized this quarter. Someone should be telling - we received 30 ideas from the core team, 70 from rest of the organization and another 50 from outside the organization for a given hotspot. In 2006, P&G’s 50% of the product and process ideas came from outside of P&G.
Metric C: Extent of Leadership involvement.
This one is bit difficult, but open innovation won’t take roots without it.
How much effort the leaders putting to leverage the opportunity of open innovation?
Example / Questions - How many times employees hear about the genuine support for open innovation from leadership? How much time does the leadership spend on open innovation vis-à-vis overall routine work. How recently your leaders heard and discussed the idea which came from outside the core team or from outside the organization.
Metric D: Percentage of skin
% of risk taken with respect to the investment in last one year. A conscious strategy to analyze and make Proactive + Reactive investment in future.
Example/ Questions – Was my TV ad budget for the existing service line far bigger than the innovation budget? Does my organization invest for short, medium and long term innovation outcomes or is there an imbalance?
Metric E: Percentage of fresh footprint
% of number of product, service, process or business model launched in last one, two, three year(s) which were not similar to the existing ones and had an open flavor.
Example/ Pointers – The ones where we changed the color and packaging may not be counted here, repurposing the same product for a new user group might. Still better is the one where you incorporated the end user feedback.
(A fair process to decide what is genuinely ‘open’ i.e. if the contribution came from outside the core group or not, and how much, is a different topic altogether and we will discuss this in subsequent posts.)
Metric F: Percentage of fresh dollars
% of revenue generated from NEW product, services, and processes launched in last one, two and three year(s)
Example / Pointers – Revenue from a really innovative product launched 5 years back be better kept off, and if it takes effort to associate the dollars as fresh dollars, its probably a wrong association!
Metrics are a very personal thing, each organization need to derive the ones which suites them. But as a rule of thumb, the metrics which resemble the simplicity of GPS, gives you the X, Y and Z coordinates of your current open innovation state, are more likely to take you where you intend to go.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Best Time, Team and Technique for Innovation …
... do they exist?
Time …
I get some of my best ideas when I am not trying to get one, while not at my desk, during a casual walk. One probably does not innovate on 25th Avenue, at 3:00 p.m. Sometimes, the harder one tries to sleep, more difficult it becomes, same with ideas.
However, on a broader level, if one does not have an innovation agenda, innovation probably doesn’t happen. So it is a good idea to create a placeholder for innovation, meet to take stock; meet to elaborate the ideas.
Time boxing does not help in innovating; however the other extreme - time pressure gets amazing output, sometimes!
Team …
Focus groups, Innovation councils, R&D teams, Centre of Excellences, apart from doing innovation are better suited for doing equally important tasks of managing innovation. They are better equipped to provide the anchor for an organization’s innovation agenda, anchor for ideas from across the organization and optionally from outside the organization.
There is no such thing as idea team, there shouldn’t be.
Techniques …
Six Thinking Hats, or TRIZ are great techniques to ideate and innovate, however I believe that if one has a Six Thinking Hats or TRIZ mindset then it is far more productive than having a round table discussion for innovation using these techniques.
I read that some people are successful in submitting their problems to their mind, sleeping over it, and the subconscious mind coming up with clues, if not the solution the next morning.
I believe in something similar – our minds have an incredible capability in parallel imagination for the problems we have at hand. Leverage this, submit the problem to yourself, don’t start working on it.
Organizations should have capability to manage ideas and innovations just like an ERP manages inventory or General Ledger.
Don’t ignore non-techniques like gut feeling and intuition.
One old fashioned thing, record your ideas, however stupid or great. Instead of remembering idea, sometimes I only remember that I had a good one!
In a nutshell … ideas during after hours, at a lab, in the bathroom or on a treadmill … Innovation teams more as an anchor across and beyond organization … Innovation techniques with processes diluted … is probably the best time, team and technique for the innovation.
Time …
I get some of my best ideas when I am not trying to get one, while not at my desk, during a casual walk. One probably does not innovate on 25th Avenue, at 3:00 p.m. Sometimes, the harder one tries to sleep, more difficult it becomes, same with ideas.
However, on a broader level, if one does not have an innovation agenda, innovation probably doesn’t happen. So it is a good idea to create a placeholder for innovation, meet to take stock; meet to elaborate the ideas.
Time boxing does not help in innovating; however the other extreme - time pressure gets amazing output, sometimes!
Team …
Focus groups, Innovation councils, R&D teams, Centre of Excellences, apart from doing innovation are better suited for doing equally important tasks of managing innovation. They are better equipped to provide the anchor for an organization’s innovation agenda, anchor for ideas from across the organization and optionally from outside the organization.
There is no such thing as idea team, there shouldn’t be.
Techniques …
Six Thinking Hats, or TRIZ are great techniques to ideate and innovate, however I believe that if one has a Six Thinking Hats or TRIZ mindset then it is far more productive than having a round table discussion for innovation using these techniques.
I read that some people are successful in submitting their problems to their mind, sleeping over it, and the subconscious mind coming up with clues, if not the solution the next morning.
I believe in something similar – our minds have an incredible capability in parallel imagination for the problems we have at hand. Leverage this, submit the problem to yourself, don’t start working on it.
Organizations should have capability to manage ideas and innovations just like an ERP manages inventory or General Ledger.
Don’t ignore non-techniques like gut feeling and intuition.
One old fashioned thing, record your ideas, however stupid or great. Instead of remembering idea, sometimes I only remember that I had a good one!
In a nutshell … ideas during after hours, at a lab, in the bathroom or on a treadmill … Innovation teams more as an anchor across and beyond organization … Innovation techniques with processes diluted … is probably the best time, team and technique for the innovation.
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