Often organizations are weighed down by legacy; it chokes off innovation and much of the potential creativity. This comes in many forms; in its culture, in its history, its core markets or products, in its systems, structures, and processes built around innovation practice.

Today, we are confronted with a very different global marketplace than in the last century. National borders and regulations built to protect those that are ‘within’ in the past have rapidly become a major part of the ‘containing- restraining’ factors that are rendering many previously well-respected organizations as heading towards being obsolete and not in tune with today’s different world where global sourcing determines much.

They are increasingly trapped in declining markets, starved of the new capabilities and capacities to grow a business beyond ‘traditional’ borders, so this means they are unable to take up the new challenges that are confronting them. They see themselves as reliant on hanging on to the existing situation as long as they can, often powerless to make the necessary shifts, failing to open up, finding it increasingly more than difficult to find the ways of letting go, of changing. They are trapped in legacy.

Legacy can choke an organization in so many ways to limit expansion. 

How can we break out of this and rethink? When we begin to investigate legacy to cut loose and design differently, it begins to infringe, it challenges, it simply attacks what has taken often years to build and those most involved become defensive and fit to hang onto what has been established, as it feels familiar.

It feels like ‘their’ legacy is being destroyed and what they have fought hard to gain now needs protecting. Most organizations never feel fully capable to address legacy, they even will deliberately design duplication into their operating model, they will recognize they are far from optimal and more often than not, live with the consequences. In today’s world, this is a real mistake.

The world is changing

You can’t afford to keep heads buried in the sand like an ostrich, although that’s actually a myth stating when ostriches are faced with an attack by predators they bury their heads. New global adversaries are altering our landscape and forcing us to become increasingly competitive, forcing us to often reluctantly alter our established ways.

We can’t afford not to refresh and renew on a constant basis. We need to not just adapt, become more agile but we must think through what, where and how we manage. We need to build a more dispersed network of innovation connections within and outside our organizations to gather and synthesize knowledge that has potential value and future worth.

To allow this to happen, for knowledge to flow into, within and across organizations we need to strip away many of the constraints built into our structure that are designed to ‘contain’ knowledge, whereas today we have to ‘spread’ knowledge far and wide, so we can make the new connections to build int this existing knowledge the  new value points where innovation resides.

Today we have solutions to make a real change and address those legacy systems.

Today we have a solution, we can migrate our current systems into the cloud, breaking them up and building some unique APIs that can ease the transition to cloud services by decoupling critical parts of a company’s cumbersome legacy infrastructure.. These become microservice architecture, providing modular and improved flexibility with the aim of decreasing time to market for example. Or building a suite of small services that allow more external people to contribute, a greater agility in response and build greater independence but can still be internally managed.

So we break down some of those legacy systems into vital chunks that can benefit from external partnering, so as to speed up innovation-to-market. These are driven far more by the business perspective not the technology aspect alone. You are looking to find increased business value by breaking out of some of your legacy problems.

Any journey starts with ‘letting go’

Control gives comfort; we constantly design this into the system. The larger we are, the greater the controls built into the system it seems but somehow, controlling for control sake, does need replacing; we need to let go of more than we realize to reduce the constraints placed on our business. We need to replace ‘command and control’ built up over numerous years with something different. The cloud offers a way forward by finding points of value that can be broken out to accelerate innovation performance.

We need to begin to ask a range of strategic questions that question our legacy so we can be released to move forward.

The post Organizational legacy so often chokes innovation first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Often this reluctance to dispose of these old systems, processes and inadequate frameworks is holding innovation back.

I would argue that perhaps many of our current innovation practices are ‘frozen’ in past times and they significantly slow us down, in a world that is becoming one built increasing on speed, flexibility and adaptability.

We lose precious time as we should be forward looking. constantly learning and experimenting with new concepts and approaches to innovation and what and where these can bring in new growth, sustainability and value to our organisations.

Where does design thinking, lean management, the early thinking to focus more on changing the business model come in? These need to be deliberately designed into your innovation process, not used in a random, ad-hoc approach or as sideshows. They need designing into a new innovation system so they become commonplace and required.

Do innovation labs feature as part of the ongoing innovation development process and how are you building the customer experience? Are you approaching these in well-established structured ways as the defined innovation system or are you constantly refreshing and challenging the system by being adaptive, experimental and fluid in how you manage?

Often we don’t allow ourselves the time, presently seen as a luxury, to call for a comprehensive review of our innovation infrastructure, yet we ought to. Innovation thinking and its approach in design are constantly evolving and we should be keeping pace with these constant developments to realign the latest thinking and the internal processes.

We also should  expand out our thinking on innovation beyond the present, lessen the constant looking back and push it a little more towards having a greater emphasis on our future foresight, one that can deliver fresher vision, built on bolder and more rewarding challenges for the pursuit of different growth options .

We need to truly capitalise on the emerging practices of innovation, not just based only on yesterday’s experiments and successes or achieved through outdated past behaviours and thinking.

Where do we start?

Firstly you have to start out with why you feel a freshening up should be required, should this be radical, distinctive or incremental. Are you getting so caught up in analysing all the pieces, you are forgetting the bigger picture?

What do you actually want to achieve that takes you closer to your aspirations, not just immediate goals? Can the way you conduct innovation today meet that strategic challenge? Does it ‘advance’ on your current position? Are all business units working on the same system, are they all advancing at a steady speed to a greater maturity? If not, what is holding them back? Do we know, have we asked?

There is a host of reasons ‘renewal’ might be needed. Today, when markets are especially tough, looking long and hard at what you have and jettisoning what you don’t need becomes essential to re-position yourself as leaner and more flexible. There are many pressing needs why you have to ‘shape up’. Don’t ignore the need for renewal, it needs to be a constant in today’s rapidly changing and challenging times. So often when we have finally decided to establish a system of innovation it is already out of date. The use of technology is equally a curse as well as an enabler.

A need for a critical and fresh evaluation of your innovation process

There comes a time where any structure, process, culture or organisation needs a radical rethink and innovation is no different. Please don’t just simply bolt on the next bit, I would argue we need to reflect on this and think differently, re-equip ourselves to meet the present and future challenges and that needs stepping back often and with a fresh clarity of purpose as our markets, customers and innovation approaches are in such constant flux and change.

To achieve this more radical departure from your existing viewpoint, you do need to look at a more structured, methodical approach to your renewal of innovation. Constantly designing, adapting and redesigning into this processes and the required structures so you can keep a more sustaining evolution to your innovation practices. Renewal and legacy reduction become second nature, a constant in your life. Constant upgrades and jettisoning the old approaches as you learn and evolve.

Making the critical steps needs structuring.

Suggesting a structured approach to renewal is not an easy journey; it takes dedicated time and incredible strength of determination but it becoming critical to pursue. The rewards come through an organisation that emerges from today’s ‘uncertainly’ equipped to be more resistant, flexible and agile, so as to seize emerging opportunities quicker, at tomorrow’s new innovation speed, built on latest thinking, design and ‘bleeding edge’ tools and frameworks  .

An innovation guide in this is what I call the ‘sense of renewal’ framing, partly based on these suggestions mentioned in that post. It can often help you think through the options, evaluate the existing and compared with the preferred as it gets you closer to the need of your innovation design. So developing a basic problem recognition diagnostic tool that frames this thinking through can help.

A more structured and systematic approach must be taken

I would recommend for building a renewal programme that you can work through a step-by-step approach, enabling clarity and understanding as you go; so everyone involved can see the problems, challenges and then actively contribute to the solutions. This should be our goals always in renewal programmes, inclusion, be these to address societal or business challenges.

What this step-by-step programme does call for, is a very structured, comprehensive investigative approach across the organisation. firstly to build the momentum for recognising what a sense of renewal can bring as important for the future, and then secondly, seeing an emerging clarity for this future built upon a sustaining innovative culture that all contribute and become involved in.

The need for making the case for renewal and charting the path towards the solutions is no different from any other corporate initiative. Making the commitment and getting others to sign on is sometimes hard, but essential. Seeking out places of ‘duplication’ and latent redundancy is also necessary to build into any renewal programmes.

The post Dealing with the innovation legacy lying within your business. first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Often organizations are weighed down by legacy; it chokes off innovation and much of the potential creativity. This comes in many forms; in its culture, in its history, its core markets or products, in its systems, structures and processes built around innovation practice.

Today, we are confronted with a very different global market place than in the last century. National borders and regulations built to protect those that are ‘within’ in the past have rapidly become a major part of the ‘containing- restraining’ factors that are rendering many previously well-respected organizations as heading towards being obsolete and not in tune with today’s different world where global sourcing determines much.

They are increasingly trapped in declining markets, starved of the new capabilities and capacities to grow a business beyond ‘traditional’ borders, so this means they are unable to take up the new challenges that are confronting them. They see themselves as reliant on hanging on to the existing situation as long as they can, often powerless to make the necessary shifts, failing to open up, finding it increasingly more than difficult to find the ways of letting go, of changing. They are trapped in legacy.

Legacy can choke an organization in so many ways to limit expansion. 

How can we break out of this and rethink? When we begin to investigate legacy to cut loose and design differently, it begins to infringe, it challenges, it simply attacks what has taken often years to build and those most involved become defensive and fit to hang onto what has been established, as it feels familiar.

It feels like ‘their’ legacy is being destroyed and what they have fought hard to gain now needs protecting. Most organizations never feel fully capable to address legacy, they even will deliberately design duplication into their operating model, they will recognize they are far from optimal and more often than not, live with the consequences. In today’s world this is a real mistake.

The world is changing; you can’t afford to keep heads buried in the sand like an ostrich, although that’s actually a myth stating when ostriches are faced with attack by predators they bury their heads. New global adversaries are altering our landscape and forcing us to become increasing competitive, forcing us to often reluctantly alter our established ways.

We can’t afford not to refresh and renew on a constant basis. We need to not just adapt, become more agile but we must think through what, where and how we manage. We need to build a more dispersed network of innovation connections within and outside our organizations to gather and synthesize knowledge that have potential value and future worth.

To allow this to happen, for knowledge to flow into, within and across organizations we need to strip away many of the constraints built into our structure that are designed to ‘contain’ knowledge, whereas today we have to ‘spread’ knowledge far and wide, so we can make the new connections to build int this existing knowledge the  new value points where innovation resides.

Any journey starts with ‘letting go’

Control gives comfort; we constantly design this into the system. The larger we are, the greater the controls built into the system it seems but somehow, controlling for control sake, does need replacing; we need to let go of more than we realize to reduce the constraints placed on our business. We need to replace ‘command and control’ built up over numerous years with something different.

We need to begin to ask a range of strategic questions that question our legacy, so we can be released to move forward.

The post Organizational legacy often chokes innovation first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

There is a need in any framework design for building a new integrated innovation network that it needs to have openness, agility and flexibility purposefully built into it. It is more than likely that in the past design, the legacy within existing systems needs radically dismantling and redesigning to reflect the multitude of changes happening.

The reality today is we have to tear down much of what we have built up and in place to reflect the changes occurring all around us. We need to account both internally, in making a new structure for crucial decisions, based on those far more dispersion principles but also on the external, in how you will be reacting to competition and the challenges being presented in changing market conditions.

Increasing knowledge dispersion, shorter cycle times demanded to meet and respond to ‘breaking’ opportunities requires you to effectively manage these across your network in speedy response cycles, having in place a highly focused management and clarity of what is important and needing to worked upon. Even harder strategic choices, evaluating what gaps are needed to be filled in capability constraints, the ability to project and build a new collaborative culture play significant roles in any design and managing across this network.

Any new design has to carefully reflect on overcoming existing obstacles as well as anticipating and  accounting (as best it can) new barriers. You consistently are working towards the maximization and leverage of this new dispersed knowledge and what it can collectively bring  in its contribute into that ‘greater’ competitive advantage than the old system was able to achieve.

Building new designs for innovation needs to be more central in our thinking.

To make innovation more central, it has to designed in. This is not just building an internal innovation core but today it has to go one step further. We need to build into our thinking structures and flexible designs for constructing a dispersed integrated innovation network. This firstly needs recognition of its growing critical importance, then it requires a understanding of what and where this impacts on today’s existing organization design and then followed by a huge organizational commitment to make the evolutionary changes, in its sustaining and management. Our worlds are full of growing complexity that is being faced, externally within our market places and we need to be far more externally facing to understand these.

It is becoming absolutely essential to make these commitments in rapidly changing circumstances and global challenges to seek out innovations potential that lies across the globe, in every corner and the organization needs to have all the essential connections and avenues to this, to capitalize and turn the knowledge gained into commercial innovation opportunity. The more you are networked and get closer to emerging opportunity, the greater chance to translate this (quickly) into new innovation value to meet different  and common market needs.

We all  have come to recognize today, that “all knowledge does not reside within one place” and how we set about dismantling and redesigning our organization for tapping into global innovation knowledge will determine our future place in any competitive race. Innovation needs to be fully designed into the core of what we do.

The post Today organizations essential design is for openness, agility and flexibility first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Today, we are confronted with a very different global marketplace than in the last century. National borders and regulations built to protect those that are ‘within’ in the past have rapidly become a major part of the ‘containing- restraining’ factors that are rendering many previously well-respected organizations as heading towards being obsolete and not in tune with today’s different world where global sourcing determines much.

They are increasingly trapped in declining markets, and starved of the new capabilities and capacities to grow a business beyond ‘traditional’ borders, so this means they are unable to take up the new challenges that are confronting them.

They see themselves as reliant on hanging on to the existing situation as long as they can, often powerless to make the necessary shifts, failing to open up, finding it increasingly more than difficult to find the ways of letting go, of changing. They are trapped in legacy.
Legacy can choke an organization in so many ways to limit expansion.

How can we break out of this and rethink? When we begin to investigate legacy to cut lose and design differently, it begins to infringe, it challenges, it simply attacks what has taken often years to build and those most involved become defensive and fit to hang onto what has been established, as it feels familiar.

It feels like ‘their’ legacy is being destroyed and what they have fought hard to gain know needs protecting. Most organizations never feel fully capable to address legacy, they even will deliberately design duplication into their operating model, they will recognize they are far from optimal and more often than not, live with the consequences. In today’s world this is a real mistake.

The world is changing; you can’t afford to keep heads buried in the sand like an ostrich, although that’s actually a myth of when ostriches are faced with attack by predators they bury their heads.

New global adversaries are altering our landscape and forcing us to become increasing competitive, forcing us to often reluctantly alter our established ways. We can’t afford not to refresh and renew on a constant basis. We need to not just adapt, become more agile but we must think through what, where and how we manage.

We need to build a more dispersed network of connections within our organizations to gather and synthesize knowledge that have potential value and future worth.

Today, innovations new knowledge lies elsewhere

Increasingly we need to open up our organizations to different learning, experiences and knowledge. The growth of open innovation has been part of that.

Equally we are recognizing increasingly, that basing everything in one central place is becoming severely limiting. We need to adopt a more genuine openness that increasingly relies on a collection of dispersing and gathering points, where knowledge obtained has been closer to its markets and customers to provide greater potential of discovering future value.

Places where you have been able to gather these understandings and begin to quickly ‘translate’ them across a dispersed, highly connected networks of expertise, that can work on transforming this knowledge into new revenue opportunities that meets that identified need before others do, often set in 24 x 7 time to achieve the result.

Any journey starts with ‘letting go’

Control gives comfort; we constantly design this into the system. The larger we are, the greater the controls built into the system it seems but somehow, controlling for control sake, does need replacing; we need to let go of more than we realize to reduce the constraints placed on our business. We need to replace ‘command and control’ built up over numerous years with something different.

We need to begin to ask a range of strategic questions that question our legacy, so we can be released to move forward.

So what do these strategic questions cover?

I can’t do justice to all the avenues of this strategic inquiry but I can offer some of the most critical that will inevitably fuel others in your own specific situation.

Taking as an example an existing organization, caught increasingly in declining or stagnating markets, who are forced to address many important issues in designing into the organization, new, more diverse capabilities, that have significant ‘legacy’ issues running through them, let’s take a look at some of the most important ones to address.

• Legacy issues must be a significant ‘part and parcel’ of what needs to go, separated out from what needs to be kept and modified, or simply kept in place as it is strategically essential to the well-being and functioning of the organization. Managing legacy out of the innovation system, can be highly liberating.
• Where do you hold your core knowledge? – Is this centrally, perhaps in a home market or do you reflect on how you are going to disperse this across more decentralized organizations. What has on-going value, what does not and can be dispensed with?
• What does it take to diversify your knowledge? Pushing knowledge to new centres needs carefully re-designing. You do not want to end up having even more islands or silos of knowledge; you need to think through carefully a more integrated (global) model. It needs to build in my 6F framework of formality, flexibility, facilitation, form, function and focus. You need to take out what is irrelevant.
• Taking any decision to ‘attract’ and ‘disperse’ knowledge you must set about building the competencies, confidences, trust and network to bring this together. This ‘gelling’ needs lots of communicating, collaborating, and consistent feedback mechanisms that are well-built into any new system. Don’t try and adapt old structures methodology to a radical change, it needs redesigning from the bottom up. Get rid of as much of the legacy as you can.
• Redesigning a new culture becomes essential. It needs to be an adapting one, one that places demands on all within the networked system, it needs an overarching set of innovation culture and environmental principles. It needs clear governance structures and well-thought-through innovation processes and systems that allow innovation knowledge to flow where it simply needs to go. Again absorptive capacity principles are important to design and build in here. Don’t overlay practices that were based on being closed for ‘command and control’, design new ones that allow knowledge to simply flow and open up, in structures that can ‘encourage and compliment’
• Any ‘system’ has constraints. As you rid yourself of some, others quickly fill the space. It is how you manage constraints will determine your ability to make transformational change. The devil they say always lies in the details, and as you configure and design a new integrated model you have to constantly examine these trade-offs. There is lots of divergences and then convergence needs to be within the thinking this system through. Taking a whole lot of old practices out of the system is essential as they have no value or place in any new dispersed network. It simply works differently.
• When you are integrating in new ways requires certain like-mindedness of the people within the dispersed network. Building new teams that are spread out is hard, dedicated work. Recruiting, retaining and reallocating can make or break any new initiative in how they work together. Working within dispersed teams is demanding due to the make-up of cultural, education and time differences. You need increasing reliance on collaborative technology, creating as many face-to-face opportunities as possible but more importantly having projects where it becomes the unifier and common identifier. This unifies far more the cultural differences and tensions by focusing on the project outcomes itself, personalities are supplanted by the higher goal and motivation of working on ‘meaningful’ work . Tough as it may seem, root out the blockers, and dispense with those not prepared to work in teams.
• Costs accrue for a fair time in any starting up and transferring of knowledge, before the benefits really ‘kick-in’ and accrue in greater innovation capability. The working through the design of a new integrated but dispersed structure, in its logic and its make-up of the parts that will contribute into building increased innovation capacity and capability all need to ‘add up’ to larger than within the existing design. Don’t delay this potential by weighing it down with inadequate commitments and lukewarm understanding. Commit to a radical redesign and be realistic on when the (higher) returns are likely.

Managing complex knowledge and dealing with codified knowledge
As you learn to manage increasingly outside one central resource, you quickly come up against one of the biggest challenges within ‘dispersed innovation’.

What is needed to be put in place for you to capture and translate knowledge that can give increased value and (eventual) commercial benefit. Clearly that is the goal of any significant change in design but acquiring, assimilating, transforming and exploiting knowledge comes in many different ways.

Partly this depends on your industry and how you have allowed knowledge capture to evolve.  Certain industries need to manage their knowledge differently.

For instance the chemical, automotive or electronics industry have built up over many years significant ‘codified knowledge’ that is simply necessary to have in place. Other industries like consumer goods, pharmaceutical or the healthcare find it much harder to codify as they have a much more complex knowledge that requires greater understanding of differences to exploit each market.

This is not universal in its practice but knowledge should be valued, recognized and treated, partly in traditional ways but I would argue, it can be broken down in radical new ways where old constraints (legacy again) can be challenged in light of advances in technology, regulation, protection, intellectual property reinforcement, than in the past.

There are huge implications in the managing of innovation knowledge. The incentive to learn, absorb and translate knowledge is its unique value to you for ‘new to the world’ outcomes.

The essential need is to design for agility, flexibility and leveraging.

There is a need in any framework design in building a new integrated innovation network that it needs to have agility and flexibility. It is more than likely that in the past design, the legacy within existing systems needs radically dismantling and redesigning to reflect the multitude of changes happening.

These need to account both internally, in making a new structure for crucial decisions, based on dispersion principles but also on the external, in how you will be reacting to competition and the challenges being presented in changing market conditions.

Increasing knowledge dispersion, shorter cycle times demanded to meet and respond to ‘breaking’ opportunities requires you to effectively manage these across your network in speedy response cycles, having in place a highly focused management and clarity of what is important and needing to worked upon.

Even harder strategic choices, evaluating what gaps are needed to be filled in capability constraints, the ability to project and build a new collaborative culture play significant roles in any design and managing across this network.

Any new design has to carefully reflect on overcoming existing obstacles as well as anticipating and  accounting (as best it can) new barriers. You consistently are working towards the maximisation and leverage of this new dispersed knowledge and what it can collectively bring  in its contribute into that ‘greater’ competitive advantage than the old system was able to achieve.
Balancing legacy and new designs

The whole legacy issue needs those certain degrees of reciprocity, a moving or paring back initially to then move (significantly) forward. If you can’t understand the clear reasons why it is crucial to change the organizations ability to innovate across a more diverse network then simply don’t do it.

To make such a commitment, to make this sort of move, to a dispersed integrated innovation network requires huge commitment, in its sustaining and management of a growing complexity. But it is often absolutely essential to make these commitments in rapidly changing circumstances and global challenges to seek out innovations potential that lies across the globe.

The more you are networked and closer to an emerging opportunities, the greater chance to translate this (quickly) into new innovation value to meet different  and common market needs.

We all have come to recognize today, that “all knowledge does not reside within one place” and how we set about dismantling and redesigning our organization for tapping into global innovation knowledge will determine our future place in any competitive race, the one we all are seemingly caught up in.

Don’t let legacy be the reason to hold you back.

The post Can we overturn built-in innovation legacy? first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.