innovation tensions - Smart Agility Intelligence

the Pathway Curve Methodology

By taking a more systematic approach to any innovation you achieve a greater understanding over time of what is involved.

Firstly you have to ask what you are trying to achieve, is it incremental innovation, distinctive, disruptive or even radical white space innovation? Do you approach innovation differently for each of these? I would argue you need to learn and build from one to another as you learn on the way, this is my going up a curve that increases in complexity and its scope/ outcome.

How do we embed innovation in all its forms needs what I feel is a unique approach that I have called the Pathway Curve Methodology

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How do you evolve?

How do you as a business evolve — The two needs to evolve a business

Practical Approaches to Fitness Assessments

Finding practical capability identification requires a given approach:

Initially a more path dependency one is explored, searching for existing routines, capabilities and knowledge (more backward looking) for factors that seem to have affected the past success. This then allows us to explore:

Identification and classification of existing capabilities
Identification and classification of required future capabilities
Then, prioritization of these capabilities in light of the core capability criteria and strategic goals.
The Gap analysis (self assessment and external clarification/ comparison)

This is achieved in a mix of interviews to find the Strengths & Weaknesses and the nature of required future core capabilities felt necessary.

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The Fitness Evaluations

Achieving fitness you firstly have to know where you are and then what you want to achieve. Within our assessment to attain an understanding of your fitness for innovation we take two points of time, the present fitness and the type of fitness you want to achieve in the future. We have a structured method to make these assessments but we frame the ‘fitness’ around the different dynamics making up innovation.

These are both internal and external, they are seperate test and the internal one only can be undertaken. The external can always come later but as we move from a closed to a more open innovation organization, the external assessment has an increasing relevance but knowing your internal fitness has got to be the starting point first.

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Checking your pulse for innovation vital signs

So how do we check our innovation vital signs?

I think there are many ways we can make constant checks and often when I’m visiting organizations you can begin to sense these vital signs and pick up on many warning signs from the conversations. These can come from that ‘buzz’ that does or does not seem to be circulating around the building, or the way the people simply talk to you about innovation. They often don’t speak of innovation with pride but in whispers carefully checking that no one important is in hearing distance, often with implied innuendo of the things not right, more than the many good things that are actually healthy and good. Many times I find it is simply what is not said that speaks volumes about the health of innovation within organizations.

Pulse of innovation 4 — The search for a strong innovation pulse

So what do I use for part of my pulse check on my visits?

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Opening Outline of Dynamic Capabilities

Introduction to dynamic capabilities

The study of dynamic capabilities, the organization’s capacity to change its operations and adapt them to the environmental requirements, has taken centre stage in the debate on strategic management as well as organization theory (Teece, Pisano and Shuen 1997, Eisenhardt and Martin 2000, Zollo and Winter 2002, Winter 2003) in recent times. The notion, which has received several, and only partially aligned, definitions, lies at the heart of of the organization’s ability to enact change in a systematic and fruitful way.

Winter (2003) clarifies that organizational change happens in one of two ways: the first with ad-hoc problem driven search, and the second through the action of “stable patterns of activity aimed at creating or changing operating routines in pursuit of enhanced organizational effectiveness”, the definition of dynamic capabilities in Zollo and Winter (2002).

The different dynamics IFD — The two points for dynamics in innovation

What is Dynamic Capabilities?

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Explaining Fitness Landscapes

Firstly what are Fitness Landscapes?

In any competitive situation, the survival of the fittest dominates (Darwinian). Knowing your innovation fitness is essential in this race. The question often raised is where do I focus my limited resource to achieve a better fitness to be successful at innovation?

Mapping out your innovation capabilities to the task at hand enables you to understand and relate to what is needed. Innovation Fitness Landscapes identify the opportunity spaces on where you need to focus your efforts- the appropriate resources to navigate the terrain. The greater the ‘fitness’ transforms your landscape potential into accelerating opportunities into final tangible outcomes.

These critical factors give higher value potential or ‘peaks’ that are more valuable to your needs. The more ‘rugged’ the landscape can also determine the greater fitness for the rate of innovation. The height of the peaks in these landscapes, the greater value placed upon them, illustrates how intense the innovation challenge is, and the number of critical peaks shows how diverse it potentially is.

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The Outcomes Expected from this Work

All I can share are the result outcomes I would like to achieve from this work with you:

Expected results I am seeking out of this work for you will lead too:

A framework that moves towards a company-wide development program that gains identification and the target of company-wide improvement of routines and different skills required for innovation to succeed/ improve and be distinctive.
Pursuing limited or ‘selective’ development will not have the desired effect, it is not just a human resource department exercise or individual division or team level exercise, but provide a framework that offers the real answer to innovation and why it does require a ‘holistic’ view of innovation development to manage.
Be in a position to challenges long-established organizational capabilities and routines that are taking place by knowing where (and why) they reside and are often more ‘static’ in reality than understood. Often many of these ‘static’ capabilities are simply not valuable to further invest in, the waste of precious funds just for the sake of it, as other areas identified offer a more dynamic aspect closer to achieving the strategic results set within the corporate strategy for innovation return.
Importance of linking capability to become dynamic with the strategy gives greater alignment and potential and can offer a clear capability portfolio where resource needs to be applied to bring new value and alignment to the organizations goals.
The internal dialogue generates a self-reflection process for identification of true and ‘false’ dynamic capabilities and identifies the more static ones that often just need reinforcement. The solutions draw out internal discussions for a recognition and reality of the present and future needs in this area of innovation resource allocation.
It provides the means to achieve additional resource allocation and raising the importance of these to support the strategic intent of the company and it intensifies and solidifies the studies and importance of innovation within the framework of the organization as an area of specialised knowledge.
Results achieved from this raises the need to understand dynamic innovation capability. Knowing the importance and effect of dynamism for the growing need of greater flexibility and agility in changing, challenging times becomes a clear focus. Then through seeking routines and knowing the diversity within these choices, one can identify the basis of sound differentiation to meet different innovation challenges.

We simply do need to know

We do need to understand Dynamics Capabilities and the organizations fitness to innovate.

Firm resources are scarce; we still don’t understand the ‘dynamics’ of innovation, the interdependency of the parts, this framework I’m presently working upon sets out to achieve this. Which parts have greater impact, which are not so important? Innovation is still not treated company-wide in a holistic way as recognition of the dependencies is poorly understood.

This is what I want to change. What and where do you place your resources to gain greater impact? What is important to recognize as needing additional ‘weight and focus’, what capability and competencies need to have a stronger emphasis and why? How can we identify these, make the innovation process more dynamic yet these embed constantly as routines? What would happen if we ignore certain innovation aspects, what would give greater impact to our business?

Why each company needs to know its Fitness Landscapes

The pressing need for a firm is to integrate, build and reconfigure internal and external competencies and capabilities to address rapidly changing environments and it is the ability to achieve new, more innovative forms in rapid changing market conditions that will emerge as the winners of the innovation race.

This calls for more ‘dynamic capability” to be achieved. The basic question that needs to be addressed is “what are our dynamic capabilities?” More importantly “which critical ones should we focus upon to improve our capabilities and competences to innovate?” Fitness landscapes provide the understanding of the existing position and then point to where to place your resource so as to improve your innovative capacity through understanding the dynamics of ALL the parts and selecting the ones that are the critically important ones for the organization to achieve their goals.

Identifying your critical innovation capabilities

My work on dynamic capabilities for innovation

Over a period of the last thirty months or so, I have been studying and researching this whole area. I have some hypotheses that need testing but the outcome of this effort to date has got me closer to believing we can achieve greater identification with those distinct capabilities to support EACH unique position.

Firstly you have to keep in mind the big four issues to think around 1) the Environment Complexity, 2) The Existing Asset Base, 3) the Value Creation Mechanisms established, and lastly 4) the Organizing Context of what innovation needs to achieve for the organization. Context for me is really important and often lacking.

The objectives behind this work are to show present and future impact of innovation.

Simply put it is to provide a robust model that understands the critical aspects that impact innovation, that can show the critical dependencies to focus upon and understand there need, so these can lead to which ones are more likely to deliver ‘greater’ growth through a more focused approach and provide longer‐term sustainability in innovation activity.