Foster Performance - Building Your Innovation Intelligence

The Interplay Surrounding Innovation

Innovation should be the primary source of real change. Often when exciting new innovations occur they have the power to significantly change our habits, and choice of product, preferences and ways we set about our daily lives.

Yet why is it we often ignore the power of change when we design innovation?

We often fail to fully appreciate the changes that are occurring from the innovation we produce, it often seems an afterthought, there is this lead and lag effect and needs, firstly recognition and then addressing in how we manage innovation going forward.

In a recent series introduced initially and given a feature of the week prime spot on www.innovationexcellence.com on June 7, 2015, we discussed the importance of the emerging interplays.

This series will be re-produced here as it is an important concept to consider all the aspects within any innovation interplay.

The emerging concept of “interplays” Continue reading “The Interplay Surrounding Innovation”

The "C" change within innovation

We all want innovation but often we take a ‘selected’ focus on the changes we are bringing about.

It is either in the external market place in new products, services and even new business models, yet we often ignore the amount of change we should be considering within our own organization.

As we ‘learn’ to innovate we ourselves change but often we are poor at recognizing these changes and the greater impact this might have on on all that is around us.

We miss opportunities to alter our processes, systems, structures or methods. We often fail to ‘advance’ in all the positive change innovation can bring.

We tend to ignore the change part of innovation
I believe we need to rethink this and evaluate the significant changes that should be taking place within our internal organizations as we expand our innovation activities.
Continue reading “The "C" change within innovation”

The challenge for the CIO is the fusion of business and IT.

Field guide Practicial IT Deloittes 1 — Taken from the Field Guide for Practical IT by Deloittes

In the past twelve months or even more, I think there have been some exceptional reports and thinking coming out of Deliotte’s group on business issues

These have been from their dedicated practice centers, their University Press and the Deliotte Consulting LLP, mainly from the US practice.

I would regard their thought leadership as close to the top or even at the very top of any of the big consulting firms.

I’ve certainly gained some richer understanding as I am sure many others have and for me Deloitte deserve significant praise for investing in their thought leadership thinking. Continue reading “The challenge for the CIO is the fusion of business and IT.”

Delivering the innovation core: building capability, capacity and competency.

Each organization needs to understand its strategic resources to build continuously innovation, so as to sustain and grow the organization; otherwise, it will eventually die, starved of what is vital to sustaining itself.

The resources provide the lungs that give oxygen; they need to constantly be nurtured, too breathe and pump new life into the existing.

For innovation the same applies, we need to consistently build our innovative resources, they give delivery of the healthy living cells to promote and sustain us in new value potential.

The problem is we often are not very good at maintaining our resources and innovation activity. We just simply do not sustain our efforts, we tend to allow them to drift along or become lopsided from one individual team’s efforts, while the others simply ‘wallow’ Continue reading “Delivering the innovation core: building capability, capacity and competency.”

The Connected Art of Selling Outcome-Based Solutions

The typical linear and often siloed mindset that we have for much of our innovation thinking within our business organizations has to rapidly fall away.

We are in the ‘cusp’ of a fundamental change that technology, platforms and connected ecosystems will bring into the mix for connecting and collaborating in dramatically different ways than in the past.

One of the implications will be our need in measuring the metrics within companies. The measurement of inputs, throughout and outputs need to become far more focused on delivering speed and scale potential as the critical points. We are far more needing to focus on the outcomes as our primary point of measurement.

This is a further post on discussing outcomes as the focal point of our innovation measurements, following my recent one of “Shifting to Ultimate Outcomes”

Recognizing the emergence of the outcome economy

The outcome economy which is emerging has many implications within it and how we measure and value these will become increasingly important. Companies will need better data to calculate costs, evaluate its potential value and will be modelling far more the risks and tracking the factors required to deliver within any outcome-based value promised.

Continue reading “The Connected Art of Selling Outcome-Based Solutions”

Walkabouts are needed for learning and testing ourselves

Walkabout picture — photo credit: Walkabout (1971) film by Nicolas Roeg

How often do you pause for thought, testing yourself, questioning even simply for ‘just those few minutes,’ to allow yourself to openly challenge where you are and what you are attempting to do?

We keep relentlessly moving on, like a wandering herd of buffalo, always looking for fresh pasture, those new feeding grounds. It’s not good.

Of course, I often get caught up in this restless pursuit of gathering more, when I spend a growing amount of my time researching innovation. I keep coming across so many things that ‘trigger’ the thinking, pushing me on.

Do you let them go, ignore them, quickly pass over them, or attempt to capture the issue as something well worth investigating further at a later stage, or just get them simply behind you in the here and now.
Continue reading “Walkabouts are needed for learning and testing ourselves”

Eight possible pitfalls or sinkholes around innovation

Why is it we always seem to fail back into the same traps or pitfalls?

Bad habits seem to always reoccur even when we work on trying to eradicate them.

Or we ignore the warning signs that were ‘signalling’ the problem until it is too late?

For me, innovation has eight possible pitfalls or sinkholes that we need to consciously try to avoid. Some are in our hands, others are clearly out of our hands but all we can do is try to be aware of them so we can avoid them as best we can. We sometimes need to be more prepared for these traps based on our judgement and experience.

We need to become more explicit Continue reading “Eight possible pitfalls or sinkholes around innovation”

Moving innovation into our core – Part three

This is the third and final part of this series on the rethinking within the management of the innovation system and how to view the core.

Part three– Technology will drive innovation change.

We are in need of a different sustaining capacity, one build around innovation as its continuous core; constantly evolving, adapting, learning and adjusting, in perpetual motion.

We are heading for transformational change

Digital technology and the cloud are offering us a radically different conduit to achieve a new engagement process within our organizations. Innovation is going to be very much caught up in this transformational change.
Technology and data will be innovation’s catalyst for change.

Continue reading “Moving innovation into our core – Part three”

Exploring the Drivers of Innovation Change

I always show a particular interest in statements claiming to have identified a relevant driver of innovation change, then think through these.

Can these be valuable and be associated to the portfolio situation within an organization’s need, in seeking different viewpoints of product or service change?

Opening up our thinking to change can drive our business offerings very differently.

Often within these drivers, we do need to explore what is the underlying force behind them, it allows us to pause and think. As you think through what these different change drivers on what it might mean to extend your new product or service developments, these can prompt radically different and imaginative solutions to consider..

Using the different drivers can give you new insights into your innovation activities plus also can prompt significant changes to freshen up your innovation portfolio.

They are certainly a good place to start to get the creative juices flowing even more. Continue reading “Exploring the Drivers of Innovation Change”

Are you going all digital on me?

Well then, are you going all digital on me from your innovation activities?

Take care, it does change our view of the world, as we look inside-out or even, outside-in

So there we all were, getting really very comfortable in our open innovation activities, learning to collaborate and co-create outside our organizations.

Even our management has finally got “open innovation”.

We are encouraged and allowed to collaborate outside our four walls of the organization as the penny has finally dropped that “not all knowledge resides within the company”.

We had worked through some of the cultural stuff, shifted around the team who like to collaborate, pushing others less collaborative to the back; the conflict points, we had established the process, practice and tools.

We even have our legal teams on board helping sort out all the conflicting positions that open innovation can mean when it comes to dividing up the IP spoils and even had our leadership tuned in, singing our praises and even (heavens forbid) getting engaged in the process.

When the world shifts, we all need to as well, or we get left behind.
Continue reading “Are you going all digital on me?”