Month: February 2021

The crucial role Innovation must play in the Energy system

Innovation is vital to the energy system’s integration and operation design, and we need to further recognize its crucial role. I believe we undertake a radical transformation in the way we supply, transform, and use energy. This requires a profound transformation in technologies, systems, and infrastructure.

Innovation is made up of many enabling technologies that support energy. This complexity requires innovative approaches to be built in highly systematic ways. Its ultimate result is to offer innovation that can continually look for re-imagining new market designs and business models to stimulate the changes and solutions for our future energy transformation.

Innovation needs to be transformational, offer greater value than what it is replacing, show the real advantage, set out to achieve competitive gains and offer a higher level of sustainability, value and impact.

We need an innovative mantra for energy.

Energy is a vital part of any country’s ability to be competitive. Today half the world’s capital is invested in energy and its related infrastructure as it is the backbone of any industrial and urbanization strategy.

Our need is to keep pushing for discoveries, for experimentation, for demonstrating. We must nurture innovation, and we must continuously look for ways to facilitate its pathway. Continue reading “The crucial role Innovation must play in the Energy system”

Designing Unique Workshops is hard work

Finding opportunities for Innovation and Growth is hard work. It is the value of having good, interactive, highly participative workshops that breaks much of those initial barriers to allow the hard work to begin more cohesively and collaboratively.

I believe any workshops design must meet your needs, push the thinking, and generate new returns in innovation understanding.

Boilerplate designs might look initially attractive, but knowing your needs, limitations, concerns, and ambitions can transform a workshop into one that lasts in the participant’s minds. They felt it was “clearly” designed for them.

Which end of the innovation spectrum do we need to go to?

  • Workshops can mean different things to different people. Find ones that are 100% focused on engaging with and accelerating innovation. They need a couple of simple rules.
  • Conducting ‘open’ dialogues or focused conversations should always have a sound context, so the contributions slowly build-out and hold real promise.
  • Discoveries can start with different ‘fields of enquiry’ to achieve different connections and deepen our perspectives.

A great book, written by Bill Sharpe, explaining the Three Horizons often comes to mind. I wrote about it here “Three Horizons- fields of future, full of foresight.”

Then I find the Divergent / Convergent approach in thinking as highly valuable.

We need to always challenge ourselves, and taking you through a set of lenses of discovery that go from ‘divergent to convergent‘ is important. Continue reading “Designing Unique Workshops is hard work”

Designing unique innovation workshops is hard work

Finding opportunities for Innovation and Growth is hard work.

It is the value of having good, interactive, highly participative workshops that breaks much of those initial barriers to allow the hard work to begin more cohesively and collaboratively.

I believe any workshops design must meet your needs, push the thinking, and generate new returns in innovation understanding.

Boilerplate designs might look initially attractive, but knowing your needs, limitations, concerns, and ambitions can transform a workshop into one that lasts in the participant’s minds. They felt it was “clearly” designed for them.

Which end of the innovation spectrum do we need to go to?

  • Workshops can mean different things to different people. Find ones that are 100% focused on engaging with and accelerating innovation. They need a couple of simple rules.
  • Conducting ‘open’ dialogues or focused conversations should always have a sound context, so the contributions slowly build-out and hold real promise.
  • Discoveries can start with different ‘fields of enquiry’ to achieve different connections and deepen our perspectives.

A great book, written by Bill Sharpe, explaining the Three Horizons often comes to mind. I wrote about it here “Three Horizons- fields of future, full of foresight.”

Then I find the Divergent / Convergent approach in thinking as highly valuable.

We need to always challenge ourselves, and taking you through a set of lenses of discovery that go from ‘divergent to convergent‘ is important. Continue reading “Designing unique innovation workshops is hard work”

Building competence and capacity to expand capabilities for innovation

A new equation

For innovation to be successful, the bottom line is the commitment and focus made for building the capabilities and competencies in innovation.

It is recognition that people make us the real value and ARE the innovation success equation in my opinion

So we must simply invest in them by focusing on the 3 C’s of developing people, these are Capabilities, Competency and Capability.

As we set about building and expanding capabilities, we need to consider:

  • How we can accelerate the uptake of innovation activity around the conditions provided through investing in them
  • The need to trigger engagement and achieve growing attainment of knowledge acquisition and dispersion skills- essential for collaborative innovation
  • Setting about building practices for greater synergies, relationships and networking conditions, for ongoing learning and absorptive capacity
  • Extracting the right cultural, design, climate and environmental conditions,
  • Placing increasing value on evolving the structures, processes and technology application
  • Investing in lessons learnt through validation and resolutions to challenges to build an ongoing adaptive capacity.
  • Recognizing people solve the critical bottlenecks and find solutions to overcome the constraints, they become increasingly motivated to find solutions and resolve gaps through their ability to be creative and inquisitive.
  • The ongoing building of capabilities and competencies clearly leads to a more sustaining and determined innovation future.

Increasing capacity through coaching

There are many benefits from having an intense course of one-on-one coaching, irrespective of the level of responsibility you have for innovation within your organization. Continue reading “Building competence and capacity to expand capabilities for innovation”

Building Capability and Capacity to Expand Capabilities for Innovation

A new equation

For innovation to be successful, the bottom line is the commitment and focus made for building the capabilities and competencies in innovation as people make us the real value and ARE the innovation success equation in my opinion,

So we must simply invest in them by focusing on the 3 C’s of developing peoples Capability, Competency and Capability.

As we set about to build and expand capabilities, we need to consider:

  • How we can accelerate the uptake of innovation activity around the conditions provided through investing in them
  • The need to trigger engagement and achieve growing attainment of knowledge acquisition and dispersion skills- essential for collaborative innovation
  • Setting about building practices for greater synergies, relationships and networking conditions, for ongoing learning and absorptive capacity
  • Extracting the right cultural, design, climate and environmental conditions,
  • Placing increasing value on evolving the structures, processes and technology application
  • Investing in lessons learnt through validation and resolutions to challenges to build an ongoing adaptive capacity.
  • Recognizing people solve the critical bottlenecks and find solutions to overcome the constraints, they become increasingly motivated to find solutions and resolve gaps through their ability to be creative and inquisitive.
  • The ongoing building of capabilities and competencies clearly leads to a more sustaining and determined innovation future.

Increasing capacity through coaching

There are many benefits from having an intense course of one-on-one coaching, irrespective of the level of responsibility you have for innovation within your organization. Continue reading “Building Capability and Capacity to Expand Capabilities for Innovation”

Achieving Growth and Impact from Business Ecosystems

leading to focusing on how innovation impacts the Business Ecosystem in thinking and designs

Agility is deeply committed to your success for innovation.

“Our objectives are to help identify promising business opportunities, develop innovation expertise and competencies, create value, and grow competitive and profitable businesses alongside you by being 100% focused on providing dedicated innovative support.”

Agility Innovation Specialists offer a real “intensity in innovation and ecosystem building in thinking and design” at its core.

The focus on Ecosystems in design and thinking is central to the offerings made

We constantly aim:

–  To find ways to disrupt the accepted, to reduce the barriers to innovation understanding, to achieve a greater adoption.
–  To constantly challenge your current practices so as to provide a fresh, possible alternative set of outlooks and alter those perspectives that can potentially lead to increased value.
–  Sometimes, we push into uncomfortable territory but always with a clear purpose of searching for improvement, not just for the sake of it.
– We seek out customers’ unmet needs and unexplored opportunities to give new diversity to any idea and accelerate its realization.
– We aim to strengthen your business’s core and extend its potential by exploring its adjacencies and white spaces.
–  To provide clear superior results that will give you fresh growth options and more substantial innovation outcomes.

We welcome enquiries; please contact paul@agilityinnovation.com

Agility’s extensive work in innovative framework-building

In terms of reach and recognition, Agility’s client work has been broad and extensive across business and government sectors and globally.

 Agility’s innovation work focuses on identifying today’s challenges and supporting the changes needed to build a sustainable future based on establishing a solid innovation core.

  • We look to provide leading-edge advice on building innovation capabilities.
  • The focus is all about bringing new forms of innovation competency into the world of everyday thinking through framework designs.
  • We look to deliver a clear impact and returns on the investments made.
  • We deliver a broad, more holistic understanding of what is required in innovation, unique to each client.

Client work, the industry area and geographical focus

We build frameworks that reflect today’s business needs and realities

Sector consulting experience has included advising into:

Electronic Contract Manufacturers, Telecommunications, Utility providers, E-business ventures, Restaurants & Food Service, Retailers, SME service advisors, Executive Recruitment firms, Government Statutory Boards, Publishing, Consumer Products, Alternative Energy providers, Not-for-Profit Institutions, Integrated Facility Management and Logistic & Supply Chain integrators.

Part of the practice has been a subcontractor of choice or consulting associate to other solution providers, often in back-office roles providing the specialised inputs critical parts of innovation, resource development and change management.

Geographic focus:

This has been mainly in Asia and Europe, but working with many US Corporations within these regions as well as large Asian and European organizations. Paul Hobcraft has lived and worked for 15 years in Asia and initially consulted and advised under an associate practice and then moved back to Switzerland to build and develop different networks and experiences all evolving out of the innovation focus.

Today Paul is based in Ticino, Switzerland and continues to work where the client requires their solutions globally to be designed and executed but increasingly recognizes that staying “put” and working more remotely is saving valuable time, money and travel but achieving a new engagement model that delivers, often, a more focused impact through technology touchpoints and targetted outcomes “*on-line” and at clients adaptable needs.

Paul Hobcraft can be contacted at +41 91 751 4350 or by email:  paul@agilityinnovation.com 

Advocating for Change

I am a “transition advocate” for innovation, ecosystems, and sustainability

specifically focusing on the industrial internet of things (IIoT) and energy systems that are radically changing our world

  • Transformational insights are seen at the front end of our transitions that we are all undertaking, these observations are providing the “fuel” and underpin my supportive advisory & mentoring services to a client. This dynamic environment nurtures my understanding of what is evolving, and what impact and growth opportunities this has for a business to explore and exploit, by taking the innovators perspective into the assessment of the need of a clients energy and industrial transition.
  • My primary role is advising and coaching within these areas. The principal focuses then is to support and build internal capacity, competencies, and capabilities to undertake any transformation journey.
  • I break my business out into dedicated focal topics into “big transforming” points of impact, applying understanding and insights that are in my mind complementary, synergistic or clarifying new emerging intersections, for growth potential that has value-adding impact and business model change.
  • The combination of innovation within ecosystem thinking and the design approach has arrived, capitalizing on the value points of digitalisation combined with technology and human ingenuity; both in the Industrial IoT world and finding a growing place and pace in the Energy Transition, each is having, in my view, a very different combination effect for value creation and business impact.

My Innovation intent has been central to this period in consulting, mentoring, coaching and advising business entities, start-ups, not-for-profit and government agencies. This intent has progressively ‘funnelled down’ into recognizing the value of ecosystems as the business design for innovation in the future; to thrive and deliver more significant value creation, especially in the Energy Transition underway.

I run a specialized advisor and mentoring business called Agility Innovation; it has an intensity of focus on its clients’ needs and always looking to contribute to your own specific journey.

https://paul4innovating.com/about/

Agility Innovation Specialists are presently based in Switzerland

Paul writes consistently about innovation, ecosystems and the future of business design, under paul4innovating on his blog www.paul4innovating.com and in different media channels specifically for innovation AND thought leadership, as well as some specialised focus, posting sites shown below.

Paul has been consistently voted in the top innovation knowledge providers since 2011 through his writing, providing different and often novel insights into innovation and the approaches we all need to take. He offers his personal views and experience on the DNA building that is required for innovation.

Related sites

Dedicated sites are my points of reference for others to explore

DNA building of Innovation: https://paul4innovating.com/
Capability Building for Innovation: https://innovationfitnessdynamics.wordpress.com/
Exploring the New Era of Innovation: https://ecosystems4innovating.wordpress.com/
Advisory and Mentoring Innovation: https://guide4innovating.wordpress.com/

With two breakouts of innovation advisory service

Pure Innovation Work: https://thinking4innovators.com/

 
Paul Hobcraft’s profile can be viewed on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-hobcraft-innovation/

Contact Paul Hobcraft on his email:  paul4innovating@gmail.com

Finding Space for Discoveries

Place For Innovation Discoveries

It does not matter what you want to achieve through workshops, seminars, training or innovation dialogues, we can provide the stimulating environment to bring these together.

The workshop or dialogue itself, although important needs commitment and follow up. It has to have clear objectives.
Here are some opening thoughts:

How can we all broaden our perspectives?

What gives us a safe space to think and develop?

What allows us to ‘synthesize’ learning?

What can be a stimulus for new lenses of discovery?

What are we trying to achieve actually?

What do we need to consider before and after any workshop and dialogue?

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Are we looking for a synthesizing space where we can Divergent, Convergent and then Evolve our thinking, deepened the knowledge and strengthen the resolve to move forward?

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Offering different thinking can come through using Agility Innovation Specialists- bringing diverging into converging innovation wisdom together in one place adding new space and potential.

Achieving Innovation Foresight and Seeing A New Core

Firstly we need to achieve Innovation Foresight

It really is about knowing the needs, those that can be seen and articulated but also those that are the unmet needs, the jobs we are all struggling to complete but don’t have the ideal solutions to complete it without a lot of ‘spent’ energy and applying solutions designed for other issues.

When we have foresight we need to look at both the external customer ones and to encourage the organizational ones that need extracting and working upon. Then it is for the leadership to focus their innovation creative energies and attention on these two crucial aspects to find new innovation opportunity, it is pretty simple really! 

Well perhaps it is not that simple. Foresight can be a science unto itself…….but we can help you develop your foresight for innovation? Just ask us.

Moving from your Core

As you work through new business models, mergers and acquisitions you arrive at the question of how close are these to our existing core or do they build up other pools of core value?

Moving from the core needs some considerable thinking through on its potential impact within the organization

How far away and how important does any move become as you then enter the transformational space? Potentially you are committing yourself to considerable change, both in internal and external learning and resource commitments.

Equally ‘how far’ are you prepared to go in future designs of new product and services away from your core? Is the organisation equipped to make such a move? Knowing the pitfalls and dangers of moving too far is important to understand; often there is increased value in asking an external party who has no ‘vested’ interest to make their assessments.

Moving from your core in innovation and what it truly means is vital to think through before you embark on the journey.

Perhaps we can contribute to this thinking through assessment? Having foresight saves so much in lost energy, investments made, time spent.