building capacity for innovation - Innovation Thinking and Resources

Defining Innovation Capital

By @paul4innovating June 21, 2018Capabilities and Capacities, Dynamic capabilities, Outcomes & Expectancies

My definition of what makes up innovation capital:

“Innovation capital is the sum of all that promotes the development and changes required for achieving innovation outcomes, within one organization or its broader networked environment, for marketplace advantage”

“These are made up of the resources, processes, knowledge, and capabilities, that are constantly evolving and highly dynamic to build greater innovating capacity.”

“These build upon the capabilities of ‘sensing, seizing and transforming’ to build new capital that focuses more upon the dynamics within innovation, that provide the true value creation in successful outcomes in the final product, services or executing within business models”

We need to value both “stocks and flows” in equal attention to build innovation capital

The ‘stock’ of innovation capital can render different productive value outcomes, is a bundle of the firm’s resources/assets and holds the renewal capabilities and they possess attributes that make it a “strategic asset”

Innovation capital is made up of many different assets that are often context specific, and interconnected and this makes it hard to build without taking a broader, more holistic approach to developing your capabilities, capacities, and competencies to innovate. You ‘map’ and align these to fit your strategic goals and aspirations.

Understanding that innovation capital becomes your new core

By @paul4innovating June 11, 2018Absorptive Capacity, Capabilities and Capacities, Dynamic capabilities, Outcomes & Expectancies

Much of my focus within my work is to move organizations towards recognizing and expanding their innovation capital or stock.

The hard part for many organizations is that many of the key elements of innovation capital consist of many intangibles as well as tangibles and this needs deeper understanding and appreciation. These intangibles are in most cases non-technological and embodied in the organizational routines and thinking of the employees.

It is focusing on building the stock of this innovation capital as well as making the flow more dynamic, ever evolving, adapting and changing to the different conditions being presented to the company.

Some of the critical elements that need to be considered can be described as follows:

Peeling away the terrain of innovation reality

By @paul4innovating April 21, 2017Capabilities and Capacities, Dynamic capabilities, Fitness Landscaping Regimes, Impact & Scale, Mapping & Rugged Terrains

So do we have a clear understanding of where we are in our current innovation capabilities?

We have to establish a way to map our ‘terrain of reality’ in not just how we are performing but what lost opportunities have slipped through, simply because we lacked the awareness to seize on these opportunities when we first spotted them.

We have significant gaps in our innovation capabilities and competencies. Have you ever really audited them? Taken them through a structured examination?

We do need to achieve a ‘reality’ check or we stay in a state of, forgive me, ignorance. We don’t see the possibilities we only see the possible and in today’s world that is a losers mentality. We need to push ourselves but before we do, we do need to know where we are.

Through my work on building the Innovation Fitness Landscapes that are relevant to you today and then structuring the place you want to be by starting to address the questions: are we focusing on the right ones to deliver on the challenges we are facing?”, “what can we do differently?” and “how can we identify those critical ones”? and “how can these be structured to clearly move us to the new capabilities we require?”

My role here is to be the guide towards building improved innovation capabilities and capacity

My role is to help in this task by identifying the opportunity spaces on where you need to focus your efforts‐ and apply the appropriate understanding and identify what resources are needed, so my job is to help you to navigate the terrain. Here is my journey outline described as a typical story that we all need envision and go through.

Through an innovation fitness landscape plan, you can access where you are and what needs to be achieved to get you to the desired point you see as where you need to be.

The New Game Or Is It? Asset Orchestration

By @paul4innovating February 15, 2017Interests3 Comments

In a recent post over on a dedicated website for discussing ecosystems and platforms, I was discussing the differences between Amazon and Alibaba. I quote “I’d say Amazon are “asset heavy” whereas Alibaba remains “asset light”.

They might be operating at the two ends of the current internet trading spectrum and are coming from different market maturity positions but it is the asset management that is becoming critical for delivering the profit or dragging performance.

Now Amazon is far from “asset heavy” when you compare them to the Industrial companies like GE but asset orchestration is seemingly getting far greater management time for all companies it seems. The lighter you are, the more likely you are to be more flexible and adaptive to respond to more disruptive challenges being faced by industries that are undergoing the shift to being more “digitally enabled”. Alibaba is very much a good asset orchestrator.

The role Human Resources can play in Innovation and its needed Design

By @paul4innovating July 1, 2016Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Interests

The management of human resource (HRM) needs to be replaced with the management of human creativity and ingenuity, as this is the triggering point to innovation success and delivering longer-term sustaining success.

The critical role of innovation is without question needed for the future growth, wealth creation and organisations potential survival.

Who is to drive the human change required here within our business organisations?

I believe within our human resource groups they must provide the people solution to building innovation capacity, they should contribute to providing lasting design impact and central engagement role in building innovation into the core fabric of the organisation. They become central to helping deliver, distinctive, radical, even game-changing innovation and that needs clear, distinct capabilities, capacities and competencies to be design into and innovation management system.

Are we playing snakes and ladders with innovation?

By @paul4innovating March 28, 2016Achieving innovation engagement, amplifying the innovation signal, Antibodies, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, gaining innovation momentum, Leading innovation, Molecules1 Comment

Have you ever played snakes and ladders? Called chutes and ladders in the US. A number of “ladders” and “snakes” are pictured on the board, each connecting two specific board squares.

The object of the game is to navigate one’s game piece, according to dice rolls, from the start (bottom square) to the finish (top square), helped or hindered by ladders and snakes respectively.

Originally from India the game is a simple race contest based on sheer luck and I am beginning to wonder if we are playing a new version of this with innovation? This is called “bust or boom” or “success or failure” or even “maybe or maybe not,” or even “will we, won’t we.” It just all depends on our luck in rolling the dice, a serendipity with a darker twist that many companies seem to be playing with their innovation capability building.

The game came to mind as I read through a recent survey on Innovation

I have just been reading an Innovation report / survey from Accenture called “Clear Vision, Cloudy Execution” and I really do think we are playing with innovation as a game, it has some really serious implications within it that need more drawing out than possibly offered in my view. We should be getting worried that many bigger companies are losing the innovation game.

Achieving Innovations Capability Coherence

By @paul4innovating October 20, 2015Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, gaining innovation momentum, innovation execution delivery, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation

Innovation often fails to align to the strategic needs. This is often not the fault of the innovator.

Many innovators are simply happily working away with no specific guidelines, apart from the general remit of “we need to be more innovative”, it lies in the boardroom that is not communicating the board’s needs clearly enough down the organization.

Building up our capacity to innovate does need to understand and reflect the organization’s business activities, as innovators need to grasp the value creation aspects that will deliver the necessary capital-efficient and profitable growth, and then ‘go in pursuit’ to achieve their contribution to these goals.

Even the basic questions often remain unclear, those of how are we looking to grow revenue, save costs, reduce working capital or improve our fixed capital? Managing our innovation activities can help in all of these. Actually if you ask I expect the CFO would say “all of them” but each does have implications on understanding of the fit and eventual role of innovation’s contribution.

Continue Reading

Defining Innovation Capital

By @paul4innovating February 3, 2015Capabilities and Capacities, Dynamic capabilities, Outcomes & Expectancies3 Comments

My definition of what makes up innovation capital:

“These are made up of the resources, processes, knowledge and capabilities, that are constantly evolving and highly dynamic to build greater innovating capacity.”

“These build upon the capabilities of ‘sensing, seizing and transforming’ to build new capital that focus more upon the dynamics within innovation, that provide the true value creation in successful outcomes in final product, services or executing within business models”

We need to value both “stocks and flows” in equal attention to build innovation capital

The ‘stock’ of innovation capital can render different productive value outcomes, is a bundle of the firm’s resources/assets and holds the renewal capabilities and they possesses attributes that make it a “strategic asset”

Innovation capital is made up of many different assets that are often context specific and interconnected and this makes it hard to build without taking a broader, more holistic approach to developing your capabilities, capacities and competencies to innovate. You ‘map’ and align these to fit your strategic goals and aspirations.

Understanding that innovation capital becomes your new core

By @paul4innovating January 30, 2015Absorptive Capacity, Capabilities and Capacities, Dynamic capabilities, Outcomes & Expectancies

Much of my focus within my work is to move organizations towards recognizing and expanding their innovation capital or stock.

Some of the critical elements that need to be considered can be described as follows:

Developing talent to drive innovation

By @paul4innovating March 2, 2014Achieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, gaining innovation momentum, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

I recently participated in a survey for APQC that was looking to identify the hot topics within product development and innovation. One or two hot spots surprised me, others less so.

In the round-up of results almost two-thirds of survey respondents have placed refining the identification of customer needs and remaining competitive in terms of profit at the top of their product development agendas. I like the increasing emphasis on identifying customer needs

Among the potential research areas respondents were asked about, they felt that developing talent to drive innovation was the most important. The second one was around rapid product development: How to Move Products to Market Faster.

The one that really caught my eye was organizations have allocated the most funds to improvement in developing talent to drive innovation. This is heartening but also a worry.