Sometimes, we need to go back to our original roots of thinking to remind ourselves and sometimes refresh the areas of focus we need to emphasise. Today, I focus increasingly on how innovation and ecosystem thinking and design need to combine in the Energy Transition.
I believe Ecosystems in design and thinking must form the future path to travel for innovation, collaborations, invention and growing cooperation. We need to think through more demanding challenges today that are highly complex and to do this with a higher degree of success in valuable outcomes. We need to open our thinking and minds and share knowledge to learn from each other.
A fundamental question to ask: “What do I need to consider for entering into an innovation ecosystem design?”
Firstly, setting an innovation ecosystem into context.
Ecosystems in a business setting have tremendous potential when they coalesce around a complex challenge, attracting and drawing in all potential players who can collectively contribute to sharing and relating to the challenges/goals and solutions. One individual’s contribution can’t solve many of the more complex challenges we face today; we need this collaborative environment.
Ecosystems are networks of interconnected organizations organized around one focal point, firm or platform, with producers, researchers, engineers (that add intellectual value) and user-side participants (that add their experience and need), all wanting to focus and advance new value through innovation. It is the network effect where relationships form and exchange that gives the dynamism of an Ecosystem.
It is working in ecosystems that through interactions, recognize the value of having both upstream (producing) and downstream (consuming), as the combination effect, as these can provide greater sustaining value in this ecosystem design approach.
The advantages and benefits of participating and building an innovation ecosystem
- The competitive positioning potential
- A greater ability to transfer new knowledge and build on these exchanges
- It takes thinking outside existing own borders to accelerate learning
The factors that need addressing in any current ecosystem evaluation
- Organizational Cultural Differences
- Common Identification of the Success Factors for progress, outputs, and outcomes
- Recognizing Internal Barriers and Constraints must be open, honest and transparent in their assessment.
Stakeholder Evaluations
- What will nurture, sustain and protect investments
- What level of people (diversity) needs to be involved?
- What type of partner, their contributions, and expectations
- The levels of technology maturity and skills available and needed
- What becomes a going in a cluster design that can enable a working frame?
- What architectural considerations need to be considered?
Considerations and principles for measuring vibrancy within the Innovation Ecosystem
- Building competencies to know and build your ecosystem of the present and the future
- Extract as much value of diversity and network effect
- Receptiveness to interactions and co-collaborations
- Keep revisiting this by constantly establishing the shared interest, purpose and value understanding.
- The abilities to spot patterns, making connections, sense-making and discovering needs
- The ability to recognize failure or roadblocks and have a mechanism in place to address these.
Building a common understanding, language, and shared belief
- What are the resources needed for this to make it happen and then be added at different stages
- What are the considerations for the cultural design and environmental factors?
- What protocols need to be in place for knowledge-sharing value?
- What levels of Governance are needed, and what factors will trigger and escalate oversight and different levels of judgment?
- How will the strategy evolve, and will the vision and mission adapt and adjust to new learning?
- What different levels of leadership need to be involved, and what is the mechanism for engaging
- High levels of project management skills and commitment need to be constantly updated.
- The Human Resource Management needs to separate this and treat it specifically to its needs.
- The different levels of technology understanding, engagement and skills required must be high.
- The concept of merging jobs to be done with experiences-to-be-explored is highly relevant.
Robust decision framework – applying evolving thinking
- Pragmatic migration pathway
- Slowly and systematically evolving the ecosystem
- How each seeks to influence others through some advantage to them
- The ability to change perspectives, looking at the same issues with different lenses
- The constant reinforcing of trust and transparency, of evaluating and exploring
- Openness to bring in others that can help advance the thinking and progress
In summary
For me, ecosystems will challenge how we undertake innovation and how it is being managed today. We need to take it out of pockets of experts and silos of specialized knowledge and pool this.
Achieving a working framework for thinking this through requires more significant development and thought.
I provided these as my building blocks and have been building on them by strengthening my knowledge and insights and applying these in advice, support or provision of services I offer
