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Do you avoid that essential Sense of Renewal or attempt it in small incremental steps? Renewal needs to occur constantly; it needs to be embedded into your core activities.

Are you looking for a structured approach to renewal and then being able to sustain it through innovation?

How receptive are you to making the necessary changes demanded by difficult times, and can you really change?

Taking a systematic and structured approach can re-equip you for a more innovative future by working through a step-by-step approach that enables clarity and understanding so everyone involved can see the problems, the challenges and emerging solutions. This certainly calls for a very structured, comprehensive approach that we offer:

Taking 12 critical steps equips you to know where the future lies through this diagnostic structure. These are:

1. Assessment of your present position through a range of evaluation tools.
2. Benchmark quickly your competitors to begin to build the momentum for change.
3. Seek out pockets of resistance that are constantly just below the surface or deep-seated through various methods and techniques with a real sense of urgency.
4. Making a battery of tests to assess the readiness for change necessary to structure a new momentum.
5. Approach solutions with a greater understanding of different style options, adopt different techniques, and respect diversity across the organization.
6. Learning the techniques of facilitation to mobilize latent energy, provide encouragement, revitalize and respond to the multiple layers within your organization
7. Focus upon the business’s critical aspects that assess, realign, restructures, and redeploys around the three critical aspects of knowing and leveraging your core business required to meet the new market needs.
8. Managing change needs a clear, dedicated focus in clarifying plans, thinking through the building blocks of commitment and shared identification.
9. Knowing where the levers are to revitalize requires a range of techniques and dedicated change champions to clarify objectives, giving a sense of renewed urgency.
10. Regeneration needs setting new visions, directions and building the communication plans to cascade these throughout the organization.
11. Provide clear solutions that define the goals, structure, systems and processes and invest in the design considerations and cultural shifts that identify and promote emerging opportunities.
12. Place innovation at the heart of generating new growth with a structured process and corporate sense of engagement.

Taking this structured approach takes that ‘sense of renewal’ commitment deep inside the organization. We need to recognize the future is not waiting for us and simply ‘seizing the initiative’, and knowing destiny is in our hands and on our terms, we can be better equipped to move back ahead.

A structured approach to renewal is not an easy journey; it takes dedicated time and incredible determination. The rewards come through an organization that emerges from today’s ‘recession’ in a stronger form to sustain and grow its-self to travel down a more innovative path, equipped to be more resistant and flexible.

Onee positioned to seize emerging opportunities quicker, at innovation speed and with a clarity of thought and a real sense of purpose.  Positioning for an upturn in fortunes does not come just by luck or chance; we have to create the right environment to enable it to happen.

We at Agility Innovation Specialists see renewal as essential in so many cases. This methodology helps you work through a clear structure towards solutions.

Balancing Risk & Opportunity

Innovation is about two sides of the coin, risk and opportunity. You need risk and opportunity in different measures. We often like to call this the “yin and yang” of innovation.

Some thoughts as you look at risk and opportunity for innovation to consider:

1. Recognize each side of the ‘coin’ enables better decisions

2. You seize better opportunities with confidence by balancing these two

3. Recognition means you allocate money more wisely

4. You achieve better deliver on an improving scale

5. You anticipate problems far earlier

A quote “We cannot eliminate risk, we have to live with it and manage it” (Blair 2004)

Finally, we should celebrate the opportunities that risk and innovation can generate, we must constantly ‘shine’ both sides of the coin.

Find out about our view of risk and opportunity within a broader context for innovation

Intrepreneurship or Entrepreneurship is all about getting the right environment to prosper and grow, to experiment and learn, to pivot and advance.

The internal agent of change within an organization needs to be more an entrepreneur, ready and willing to champion and push for innovation so the organization succeeds.

The difficulty for this to happen is often bound up in different organizational aspects that all need addressing including the culture, environment, the appetite for risk and reward.

How can you cut through these multiple inhibitors and encourage this greater spirit of risk-taking needed to push innovation through to commercial success?

So what is the approach we take?

• Knowing the many multiple factors of entrepreneurial energy within larger organizations needs a roadmap to follow, it needs structuring and supporting. This framework looks to provide this so this culture is seen and built into the very essence of innovation capability needed to succeed.

The elements include:

• Transmission of vision and strategic intent in clear ways to form the mandate
• Building the supporting mechanisms that give momentum to the entrepreneurial spirit
• Knowing the boundaries for tolerance for risk, mistakes and dealing with failure and being comfortable with these
• Setting the ‘working’ conditions for this spirit to thrive across perceptions, boundaries and norms
• Healthy questioning of the factors that inhibit and promote entrepreneurial spirit and then addressing these systematically to actively reduce down or build up
• Knowing what the limits and possibilities of innovation are (cultural, resources, history, market place etc.)

Building the Environment for Entrepreneurship to Grow

This is one of the main challenges in larger organizations, to avoid the premature stifling of ideas, to break down the barriers and resistance to change. The adding into the mix the entrepreneurial energy you promote the intensity of purpose.

By actively promoting the values and knowing the underlying needs to allow the entrepreneurial activity to thrive, needs a sound investigation and framework that builds into a set of conditions that promotes the identification, encourages involvement and gains individual desire to be part of something fresh and exciting.

Find out more then please contact us.

Seeking out an Innovation Culture

Knowing what constitutes an innovation culture is hard to define; it is always unique to the organisation.

We believe we have some clear views to share with you on this.

What do you want to achieve’ in creating a greater innovation culture?

It is one of the most important areas to understand for innovation to thrive and be sustaining,

We can really help on this through a structure approach

It is a very different innovative world out there

It is all Search, scope, speed and scale

The call today is for far more ‘search, scope, speed and scale’

We need to answer questions that are hard without access to external insight and knowledge:

– The demand today is for ‘faster and leaner’ but we are still having it executed really well.

– How can we accelerate, stimulate and coordinate within an increasing complex environment?

– What helps sequencing investigation and implementation of our innovations?

– Where do you apply appropriate diagnostics to identify and fix ‘troubled’ spots?

– How do we apply and adapt different growth methodologies and practices across a diverse business?

– What limits ‘scaling’ and what needs changing to allow this to work in different situations?

– What gives more ‘stretch’ for the investments we make, where will these come from?

Establishing the new often means moving beyond the known, to experiment with the untried so as to achieve faster results and this needs fresh

Can we help you think and work these or many others of those tough questions organizations are seeking answers too?

How do you find ways to best describe and articulate your innovation challenges

So what are your innovation management challenges?

How can we help you?

Let us offer you a ‘classifier’ of the type of challenges we most often come across

Why don’t you rank your top five that you see as having the greatest interest to talk to someone about?

What are your Innovation Management Challenges?

Please give either a ranking or grouping indication of 5 areas that would be of greatest interest as they can begin to form the opening discussions between us and allow the conversation to quickly grow and deepen between us.

Just be more innovative
Better understand our customers’ needs
Get management buy-in
Balance the portfolio
Evaluate an acquisition
Beat competitors
Choose ideas to pursue
Shape an idea for disruption
Find new market space
Speed market penetration
Have changing customer needs or are in changing markets
Face a challenge in changing the corporate culture
Need new ways to transform their business
Are ready to implement an enterprise-wide innovation process
Want to build their Innovation portfolio
Need to know how to use innovation cost-effectively
Create a culture of innovation
Measure our innovativeness
Creating market opportunities
Detecting and engaging Customers to discover their needs
Need to build a network for innovation exchange
Change in technologies- understanding the threats to us
Opening up in new geographical markets
Assessing market failure and responses
Achieving new approaches to implementation roll-out
Concepts to commercialisation- at higher speed
Building a total commitment to continuous innovation
Seeking out techniques to capture new opportunities (scanning etc)
New ways exploration of going to market
Attracting funding for new innovation concepts

Through the clear classification of these can drive your business and provide new impact- they begin to ‘articulate’ the challenges you are facing and help us ‘form’ the opening discussion around..

Building a Toolbox

Today we are still stuck with the traditional strategic models and they are inadeguate to do the fast changing jobs of today and tomorrow.

We still rely on the analysis of the business on increasingly ‘dated’ tools and methods for today’s business purpose and climate.

We are still far too comfortable and reliant on using models that were built for a different era, most still from the last century.

Many of these older tools tend to lead us down the route of competitive imitation, not a healthy place to go in today’s world.

Tools are needed increasingly to be more outward looking to see change, more clearly focused upon open innovation opportunity, outward focused not inward thinking.

We at Agility Innovation Specialists are building “Innovation Tool Time”- a toolbox to delve into and find the appropriate tool to meet the circumstances. We will be happy to explain our approaches to this Innovation Tool time with you.

A Unique collection of over 200 tools and methodologies that deal exclusively with the processes associated with innovation. This growing compendium offers an innovation tool box to support and deliver better solutions to our clients 

Root Causes of Innovation Failure

So what are root causes of poor innovation performance?

Following a series of surveys by BCG ( www.bcg.com ) a few years back, they argued there was a clear emerging need to resolve specific ‘weaknesses’ in the innovation practices of clients that are impacting the ROI and driving down innovation performance.

How can you fix the root causes of these? We have some clear thoughts and would be happy to discuss these with you.

Here are my thoughts on the root causes of failure

Key concerns that impacted innovation provided from these surveys were:

1. Lengthy development times
2. A risk-adverse culture
3. Difficulty selecting the right ideas to commercialize
4. Lack of internal and international coordination
5. Poor enforcement of time lines & milestones
6. Limited measures and metrics to understand performance
7. A lack of organizational alignment
8. Dissatisfied with return on spending

Squandered opportunities need targeted improvement

1. Learning to balance risks
2. Focusing on time frames more
3. Seeing returns across the portfolio of projects
4. Earmarking sufficient funds
5. Partnering effectively with suppliers and others
6. Fostering a climate of innovation that promotes.
7. Deepen the understanding of customers

Outcomes needed to be resolved

1. Moving quickly
2. Enforcing time lines and milestones
3. Balancing risks and returns across the portfolio
4. Obtaining input from across divisions and geographical areas
5. Securing early commercial involvement
6. Earmarking sufficient funds and appropriate resources
7. Providing strong support to the project teams  

Hurdles tend to lie at different stages of the innovation process (industry specifics examples but certainly not exclusive to these only)

1. Idea selection (mainly technology and telecoms)
2. This lack of clear insight into customers (manufacturing)
3. A shortage of great ideas (consumer products)
4. Inability to get across, market and publicize innovation (Auto)
5. Moving ideas to cash
6. Time-to-market, time to volume

The triple bottom line: speed, discipline, enforcement

What’s sits in the CIO’s Role? What makes up the Chief Innovation Officers agenda?

The setting of the principal innovation officer’s agenda is critical. This checklist provides the platform to build from. Interested to hear our views more on this?

I believe we have the ‘content’ that fills this out from an agenda into a activity and action orientated building process.

We conduct this in a mentoring, advising stance so it is paced to the person and the unique challenges they face

Within the CIO’s role are structuring the activity around:

Organizational capabilities: evaluate and access the company’s innovation capabilities, working through the culture needed for innovation; removing the barriers to innovation

Competencies: make everybody’s job to grow the organization for innovation and renewal

Breakthrough strategies: develop insights and fresh thinking, tools and techniques that enable the creation of strategic innovation

Business models: explore business model design; build the business case to accelerate, change and (radically) alter the existing state

Opportunities for growth: create new value, disruptive and radical innovation; identify new markets and products; hone incremental value; build bigger and better ideas that solve customer need

Catalytic thinking: Innovation can be the catalyst to a set of strategic questions, providing new perspectives; making different connections that lead to growth opportunities

Best practices: have the latest insights on trends and approaches that can alter existing thinking

Lifecycle management: organize around different platforms, portfolio’s and approaches to enhance the value of the investments made. Pinpoint, verify and improve the impact that innovation can bring to the different stages of development

Accelerate change: critically explore speed-to-market,   execution, alignment, stretching and scaling; create more fluid structures, asset utilization to enable innovation

Enhance intellectual thinking: leverage the intellectual assets and the intangibles by enhancing knowledge sharing and conversion strategies for improved deliverables and worth

Strengthen collaboration: enable new forms of networking, collaboration and relationship management techniques that can broaden possibilities, reduce tensions and accelerate agreement on projects

Lead clearly: develop insights into the role of top management and how innovation processes can be developed and embedded through coaching, championing and facilitating; turn aspiration into reality

Source: Paul Hobcraft, Agility Innovation

The building always the Innovation Business Case offers a unique approach to tackle one of the real problem areas within innovation- making the case compelling.

One of the toughest aspects within Innovation is making the Business Case. Much of the information is imperfect, the returns are often fuzzy and the doubters ready to block and deter new ideas from entering the commercialization process.

Knowing the issues, reducing often the ‘noise and distractions’ and making the professional case is what we need to do to attract commitment to the projects we are working upon.

How can you reduce down uncertainty? By ensuring the innovation business case takes a clear methodical approach to this and builds the arguments up in a sound structured way, that shows the areas of clear discussion and conclusion and reduces down the more ’emotive parts, so as to allow the ‘idea or concept’ to firm up and be seen for its real merits.

So what is the approach taken?

A systematic model that you go through, that takes the business case through a structured step-by-step approach, enabling arguments based on facts to build and grow, to lay out challenges and uncertainties, so everyone involved can see the same steps of approach in making the case.

The business evaluation obtained provides a consistency of approach to all cases irrespective across the organization to build a compelling comprehensive case building technique that provides all stakeholders their essential information through a clear transparent process.

• Offering different creativity tools to start the process, structuring project information on a comparable basis, clarifying often different definitions of success, providing suggested guidelines to individuals making the case, exploring different aspects of ‘getting ready’ to make the case and what that means and points to where to go to resolve these.
• Then we move into building the business case preparation, cost and benefit analysis, clarifying opportunity need, factor analysis, assessing stakeholder interests, clarifying uncertainties.
• The next group of factors to consider is making the clear assessments of competition, outlining the tactical moves to be considered market attractiveness, the ability to execute and what business model does the business case take to provide the fit and attract the commitment.
• Lastly to go back through the Business Case elements check-list to present a format that builds up and breaks down the case logically with the best available inputs, the unique selling proposition and the future resources needed to translate this case into a winning commercial prospect, with clear time lines and milestones and the projected financial and commercial value it would provide.
• Moving an idea into a mainstream activity is one of the hardest aspects to achieve. Making the innovation business case a winning one is not down to luck, it is down to a systematic approach to building up the compelling case for this. Making the innovation case in a well-structured process gives greater opportunity for identification and realization.

This approach we take offers a comprehensive solution to the innovation business case and its methodology and it belongs to its owners Agility Innovation Specialists. To find out more contact us on

 

Examination Mapping gives different perspectives vital to the innovator to appreciate and map the value aspects of those expectations.

So getting to know the health of anything usually requires some rigorous examination and the potential within the new innovation concept needs some evaluating.

It is no different for understanding your innovation fitness. We explore fitness in many ways and some of these approaches are unique, exciting and ‘dynamic’.

Any examination needs to follow a ‘routine’ methodical check up. In our view any initial innovation examination requires to explore four key ‘health’ indicators

1. The ‘fit for purpose‘ in strategic and innovation intent, definitions of success, the core values, sense of mission .
2. What are the expectations and the environment you chose to compete in3. What condition of ‘readiness’ in design, capabilities and capacity4. Have the critical processes for creating success been laid in or still have critical gaps

The outcome are your initial examination results? These form the ‘way forward’ in discussions, resolution and design.

So what is the approach taken?

A systematic model that you go through, that takes the business case through a structured step-by-step approach, enabling arguments based on facts to build and grow, to layout challenges and uncertainties, so everyone involved can see the same steps of approach in making the case.

The business evaluation obtained provides a consistency of approach to all cases irrespective across the organization. one to build a compelling comprehensive case-building technique that provides all stakeholders with their essential information through a clear transparent process.

This should include consideration for the following within the preparation and assessment:

• Offering different creativity tools to start the process, structuring project information on a comparable basis, clarifying often different definitions of success, providing suggested guidelines to individuals making the case, exploring different aspects of ‘getting ready’ to make the case and what that means and points to where to go to resolve these.
• Then we move into building the business case preparation, cost and benefit analysis, clarifying opportunity need, factor analysis, assessing stakeholder interests, clarifying uncertainties.
• The next group of factors to consider is making the clear assessments of competition, outlining the tactical moves to be considered market attractiveness, the ability to execute and what business model does the business case take to provide the fit and attract the commitment.
• Lastly to go back through the Business Case elements check-list to present a format that builds up and breaks down the case logically with the best available inputs, the unique selling proposition and the future resources needed to translate this case into a winning commercial prospect, with clear time lines and milestones and the projected financial and commercial value it would provide.

Moving an idea into a mainstream activity is one of the hardest aspects to achieve. Making the innovation business case a winning one is not down to luck, it is down to a systematic approach to building up the compelling case for this. Making the innovation case in a well-structured process gives greater opportunity for identification and realization.

This approach we take offers a comprehensive solution to the innovation business case and its methodology . To find out more contact me.