My arguments for a common collaborative framework for innovation management

May 9, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Fresh thinking, gaining innovation momentum, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Following the release on Monday, April 25, where we published a Collaborative Innovation Reference Model by Jeffrey Phillips of OVO Innovation and myself, Paul Hobcraft of Agility Innovation, I would like to put forward some further opening arguments for proposing the broad adoption of a common framework for the innovation management process.

You can read more about its background here and you are welcome to participate.

Why innovation does need a common reference point?
When you don’t have a common approach to something, in this case the management of innovation, you can have considerable pockets of inefficiency and a high level of ineffectiveness to deal with.

Critical aspects of the Collaborative Innovation Framework

April 26, 2011Posted inAdvancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Fresh thinking, gaining innovation momentum, innovation execution delivery, Innovation strategy, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation, Uncategorized

This week a collaborative innovation framework venture has been launched by Jeffrey Phillips at http://www.innovateonpurpose.com and myself, Paul Hobcraft at http://www.agilityinnovation.com.

They have opened up a wiki for anyone to join with the intention of building on these frameworks. This is at http://cirf.pbworks.com.

This effort is seeking contributions, we want your engagement. It is deliberately open to be used, to be improved upon and to form a platform for standard thinking through for innovation providing it works under the creative commons license it has.

For far too long innovation has been left to chance. We are interested in explaining the many facets that make up a successful innovation endeavour but it can be extremely tough to capture and explain the complexity of innovation. Innovation is dynamic and throwing open this set of models allows for it to be constantly improved for all to benefit.

Four Critical Slides

A beta version of a Collaborative Innovation Framework

April 25, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Fresh thinking, gaining innovation momentum, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Jeffrey Phillips of Ovo and Innovate on Purpose fame, based in the US and viewed on http://www.innovateonpurpose.com , and I have combined to share a view of an innovation framework that aims to reduce many of innovations mysteries.

We describe and prescribe to a set of innovation methods that we believe can greatly simplify the innovation process. Here we lay out the beta version of a collaborative innovation framework.

Jeffrey has commented on his blog http://bit.ly/eBGKS5, “We believe that framework can help reduce the mystery and develop a “standard” for innovation which enables more firms to innovate and accelerates the adoption of innovation.  This is not to say that the model we are developing will be a “cure-all” for every situation. 

Any firm starting an innovation effort will need to adopt the model, and then adapt it to its needs.  But by exposing the model and examining the different innovation “types” (business model innovation, open innovation, design-led innovation, service/experience innovation, etc) we can establish the validity of the approach and demonstrate that the model is a starting point for any kind of innovation effort.”

Over the next few days, we are unveiling the approach at InnovationManagement.se , with the article opening this discussion at:  http://bit.ly/ee8ID7 and also at InnovationTools.com coming out later in the week.

Open innovation stands at the crossroads- where to next?

March 14, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Foster Performance, gaining innovation momentum, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Although open innovation has been around for some years, it is in the past three to four years the notion of open innovation has accelerated and moved very much and becoming embedded into the structure of many organizations.

Presently most organizations are dealing with the roadblocks surrounding open innovation either internally within their own structures or with the potential partners that they want to work with, for a more diverse innovation portfolio.

Arguably open innovation will merge into simply a way of doing innovation, then into something more specific. For me that is more into a collaboration and co-creation innovative approach I touch upon further in this article

Today we are broadly at an emerging stage of OI. In summary, you could say:

Transform European activities around innovation ecosystems

March 3, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, gaining innovation momentum, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

The challenge today is to transform European activities around innovation. It is the same for the United States as the growth and job mantra will simply come from innovation. In the EU case, Innovation forms a central plank of the 2020 Europe goals.

Regretfully the next Titanic is waiting to happen.

In recent months there has been considerable activity to formulate the new policies to support innovation through EU funding. The EU has been inviting dialogue and offering a mountain of guidelines and suggestions to help us all.  Much of the focus is on streamlining what is already in place.

I’ve called this on some different discussion blogs a little like “reorganizing the innovation deck chairs on the titanic as it heads towards an iceberg”.

There is enormous activity and pressure to perform as the past results of many of the EU initiatives have not delivered on the goals set, and there is this real urgent need to reflect upon the lessons learned from the failures of the Lisbon strategy.

It does seem the present ‘effect’ is put on more steam, lighten the load where we can and let’s try and navigate through these challenges (or icebergs), no time to lose.

Everyone is on high alert in Brussels and around the EU all busy doing their job to contribute to present dialogues on making innovation a success. We need to take really radical action in my view.

Perhaps we should be shouting “all stop”

The beginning of a new era for innovation, truly global.

February 13, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Fresh thinking, gaining innovation momentum, Leading innovation, Polymers, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Braden Kelley wrote an article entitled “Is the era of Innovation Over?” ( http://bit.ly/h9FCr6) which I would like to build upon.

Braden is the author of “Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire” from John Wiley & Sons and is also the editor of Blogging Innovation (http://bit.ly/d2c9aW ).
Braden picked up on an article lamenting the seemingly poor state of Canada’s innovation efforts (http://bit.ly/fdLeI5 ) with the view that “Innovation is literally hitting a wall”.

Braden has also commented about the recent US approach to resolving their innovation approach and believes it is limited in its understanding and appreciation of innovation.

Here in Europe we are certainly going through the same crisis of confidence with innovation, it is not producing the wealth and growth expected and needed to fuel our economies.

The EU commissioner for innovation, Máire Geoghegan- Quinn, the EU’s first innovation commissioner, has started to created a lot of positive energy around some exciting new initiatives but are they enough? My answer is simply no.

For a very thoughtful article on the EU and innovation (http://bit.ly/hCZWdO ) published in www.innovationmanagement.se by Ann Mettler, Executive Director of think tank The Lisbon Council and here she gives her take on policy and innovation.

Orchestrating the new dynamics of innovation fitness

February 7, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Foster Performance, gaining innovation momentum, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

In my work investigating different aspects of innovation activity, one thought tends to dominate my thinking and that is orchestrating the dynamics within innovation: “How do we achieve a better understanding of the dynamics of innovation within our capabilities to be more successful?”

I’ve already written in previous blogs about the need of “constantly checking for the pulse of innovation” ( http://bit.ly/c3G0Ta) and suggesting the way to “open up your thinking to dynamic capabilities for innovation success” (   http://bit.ly/bxTeYO).

I’d like to take this one step further in this blog and outline my thinking on innovative fitness landscapes and why they are essential to understand.

Each organization needs to know its Innovation Fitness Landscape- why?

There is a pressing need for a firm is to consistently build and reconfigure internal and external competencies and capabilities to address rapidly changing environments.

It is the mastering of this ability to achieve new, more innovative forms in rapid changing market conditions that will enable certain organizations to emerge as the winners of the innovation race.

This view requires a more ‘dynamic’ set of capabilities. Often the question becomes one of “which are the critical ones to focus upon to improve the chance of greater success?

Writing off legacy within your innovation systems

February 4, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Antibodies, Foster Performance, gaining innovation momentum, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

You hear constantly the need for greater speed, increased agility, and effective delivery from ideas to implementations for innovation.

Yet we still keep these organizational needs locked into those old structures, systems and processes that have been layered one on top of the other as we learnt about innovation over the years.

We often simply kept  adapting these (often badly) into the existing way we were managing innovation. Isn’t it time we addressed this growing issue of adapting, stopped the compromising and started redesigning our innovation systems from afresh with present-day leading innovation practice thinking?

Managing innovation as a system is no different from managing IT for example. You get to a given point where the costs of running innovations through your existing systems continue to rise. You begin to diminish your innovation performance.

Speed to market seems never to improve the way you want it too, and more importantly delivery against the identified market opportunity seemingly gets more and more compromised.

The risks of cutting corners seemingly grows every day, and you under-deliver on the opportunity first seen.  No wonder eventually leaders begin to question and lose confidence in their innovation abilities.

The results increasingly become suboptimal.
Is there an alternative?

Taking the Open Services Innovation Road.

January 24, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, gaining innovation momentum, Leading innovation, Polymers, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation
Open Road to Innovation

I have been looking forward to this book; it addresses one of the most important areas of innovation that we have, the service sector and discusses open services.

In this last week, I have been reading Professor Henry Chesbrough’s new book “Open Services Innovation: Rethinking your business to grow and compete in a new era”, published by Jossey-Bass, released last week on 18th January.

Services are critical to understand and focus upon, for our continued economic growth, for the ability to offer an often distinct and unique competitive advantage, as well as provide much of our future employment opportunities, especially crucial in the Western economies. Services today comprise roughly 80% of economic activity in the United States, and 60% of economic activity in the top forty economies of the world (source OECD).

Mixed Emotions
After reading this book a couple of times I must admit I had a set of very mixed emotions.

Social will dominate innovation thinking in 2011 and beyond.

January 4, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, gaining innovation momentum, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Polymers, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Putting the word social into our innovation thinking is going to be a really important thing to do in the coming year, if you haven’t already, it will dominate our actions increasingly.

The challenges of ‘social’ is everywhere; within organizations, in all sorts of collective movements, in politics, across government, society, markets, academic institutions and effecting our personal lives in a host of ways.
Society has to face up to some really tough challenges and only innovation can solve these with human beings inventiveness and ingenuity. Regretfully we have still an accelerating ‘creative destruction’ and we are often more Schumpeterian than ever.

Something has got to give and it will be within the broad social domain where it will all come together, many social things are converging or feeding off each other. Let’s take a brief look at all this social orientation going on.