Lauchlan Mackinnon highlights four aspects of an organisation’s innovation initiative:
http://www.think-differently.org/2007/03/4-major-risk-points-in-implementing/
Mackinnon argues that the success or otherwise of our attempts to enhance our organisational innovation depends on all four factors. Clarity of the drivers and brilliance of strategy won’t be sufficient if the process of implementation and evaluation is flawed. Conversely, efficiency of process management won’t compensate for a misguided view of the role that innovation should play within the business model.
Line up the ducks from initial logic to the measurement of outcomes to ensure you optimise the odds of a successful innovation.
Adi Alon identifies four key dynamics for a better return on innovation:
http://www.innovationmanagement.se/2011/12/07/4-key-success-factors-that-can-enable-a-higher-return-on-innovation/
Most organisations recognise the importance of innovation, but often fail to appreciate how innovation applies to the entire enterprise. This is innovation not simply about great products and services, but innovation as a way of improving everything it does.
Innovation requires:
Scott Berkun analyses the high number of innovation efforts within established organisations and ask why they often struggle to make an impact: http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2006/why-innovation-efforts-fail/
Task forces and committees represent retrofit innovation that becomes detached from real teams who do the work.
Suggestion schemes end up with ideas that go to the same people who "vetoed the last five good ideas".
The assumption that magic dust can be sprinkled when the reality is that innovation takes time to become part of the culture, and only when employees are comfortable with risk and when managers are rewarded for their support of creativity.
Allowing political dynamics to stop innovation. Rather than attempting to introduce greater creativity it may be better to start by eliminating the real blocks to innovation.
What does work?
Pilot projects to give a new team some big goals and allowing them to get on with it.
Shifting risks and rewards to encourage experimentation, learning and failure.
Recognising that not everyone needs to innovate. Only innovate in the key areas where innovation will make a business difference. "One of the dangers of placing too much emphasis on innovation is that a company can end up devaluing the work of the "merely competent."
Culture and environment to make it safe and supportive for those employees who pursue ideas.
"Where all think alike, no one thinks very much." Walter Lippmann
If we bring together people from different backgrounds with varying aspirations, experiences and abilities to work together, conflict is inevitable. Conflict can be constructive; it creates a dialogue in which ideas battle and the competitive process fosters creativity. At worst, conflict within the work group is a destructive force that fosters resentment, holds back innovation and delays decision making.
When creative conflict looks like it is spiralling into destructive behaviour, our options are:
Different tactics can be deployed at different times, depending on the nature of the conflict, the maturity of the team and your own preferred leadership style. But destructive conflict can’t be avoided.
As Gregg Fraley commented, "If innovation were easy, everyone would be doing it." Umair Haque suggests why innovation is an organisational challenge: http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2009/05/how_not_to_manage_innovation.html
Focus on short-term numbers. Innovation needs space and time to develop.
Apply surface economics. Successful innovation requires more than the quick fix of a new product or service concept but a fundamental insight into how the dynamics of an industry are shifting.
Be strategy blind. This is to ask how the balance of power shifting across the different players (customers, distributors and suppliers).
Fail to see the right context. Is this an innovation about immediate revenue gains or a step on the way to redefining the rules of the industry?
Never have an ideal. Is innovation a novelty to gain interest in the market place? or is it part of a bigger purpose to make a sustained impact?
Scott Belsky argues that "great ideas don’t happen because they’re great - or by accident":
http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/69.01.MakingIdeasHappen
In a poll of over a thousand creative professionals, only 7% claimed to feel "very organised" and 14% reported operating in a state of "utter chaos". Creative people feel that organisation, and its association with procedures, restrictions and process, is detrimental to genuine innovation.
The reality is that Impact = Creativity X Organisation, an equation which explains why some innovative thinkers never realise their ideas, and why their less gifted peers generate more creative output.
Organisation means:
Managing workflow to avoid becoming inundated with the stream of information through emails, texts, Twitter and the rest.
Managing projects with a bias towards action. Here we differentiate Action Steps (clarity of key activities), Backburner Items (ideas that aren’t yet actionable but may someday be) and References (the stuff that accumulates and we store over time).
Fostering an action oriented culture to establish discipline about accountabilities and the processes of coordination and meeting management.
Surrounding ourselves with progress. When we see concrete evidence of progress, we build momentum for further action. Find ways to track activity and outcomes.