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FrankNigriello — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:56:18 CDT

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British Chamber's Response to Innovation Nation

FrankNigriello — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:49:06 CDT

from:
http://www.britishchambers.org.uk/6798219245601065910/2-2-billion-rda-budget-needs-to-improve-delivery-of-innovation-in-the-region.html

The BCC's report, The Ideas Business: The Real Innovation Nation, maps out what innovation activity is taking place in the different regions by the business community and England's nine Regional Development Agencies (RDAs).
RDAs have a £2.2 billion budget to spend on a small number of priorities including "encouraging innovation" and "supporting enterprise". A snapshot business survey by the BCC however, found that while 74% of business respondents already invest in research and development, only a third were aware of the current regional support available for innovation.

The report found that while a great deal of activity is undoubtedly taking place and a great deal of public money being spent;

Innovation policy remains too narrowly focused on science and academia rather than the companies do things better in new ways; and
Some RDA activity is being duplicated by the private sector, creating unnecessary waste and inefficiency.

The report recommends that suggest several solutions to these problems, which would significantly improve the UK's ability to generate as innovative an economy, specifically:

National government needs to remove the barriers that restrict a broader, more entrepreneurial approach to regional innovation policy;
RDAs need to ensure that they add value by minimising duplications with the private sector and developing a better understanding of what local businesses want and need, and;
Business organisations, such as Chambers of Commerce, need to learn from best practice in terms of supporting and representing private sector innovation.

Commenting on the findings in the report, David Frost, Director General at the British Chambers of Commerce, said:
"Maintaining a culture of innovation amongst UK businesses is essential to the future prosperity of our national and regional economies. RDAs have significant budgets and it is important that in facilitating innovation, they join-up support with what is really happening in the private sector in their regions. There is a great deal of work to be done here if the goal of embedding a nationwide culture of innovation can be met, and the expertise of the entire business community must be brought to bear in meeting this. ”
Click here to download a copy of the report in PDF format>>

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FrankNigriello — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:23:38 CDT

Find out more about the Oxfordshire Economic Partnership

We're researching innovation in the workplace

How do you foster innovation?

There is a plethora of literature about creating organisational capability for innovation. The term "innovation culture" is used widely, often to describe a set of guidelines or loose methodologies that encourage innovative activity within the organisational structure.

The stimulating environment, such as Google's headquarters which feature 'games rooms' and giant slides for employees, and the engaging 'innovation programmes' that foster collaboration or out of thebox thinking among teams, are obvious and somewhat simplistic approaches to creating an impetus for innovation.

For these outward manifestations to work, however, there must be a more fundamental approach to engaging individuals in learning and using thinking tools that enable them to find better, faster and often cheaper ways of delivering value to customers.

It is this personal level of innovation that is of most interest. This is the aspect of focused creative thinking that involves the operation of the brain, the socialisation within the workplace, the perception, knowledge and understanding that comes from customer intimacy and the thinking frameworks that can be adopted to provide coherent adaptations or adoptions of ideas for the benefit of a "customer".

On this site, we're referring to innovation as a way of thinking and we're bringing together ideas that may synthesise into a clear understanding of how innovation thinking works and can be encouraged or even developed within organisations.

Useful weblinks:

http://innovationoxford.blogspot.com/ -- Treve Willis's blog on innovation

http://www.dius.gov.uk/publications/ScienceInnovation.pdf -- the UK Government's latest opus on the topic

This website represents personal opinions of the authors and does not reflect the views of any organisations.

Innovation tools: Scamper

FrankNigriello — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:20:02 CDT

SCAMPER is an acronym for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse.

SCAMPER refers to some of the changes that you could make to existing products and services to open up new opportunities Developed by Bob Eberle, the changes SCAMPER stands for are:

S - Substitute - components, materials, people
C - Combine - mix, combine with other assemblies or services, integrate
A - Adapt - alter, change function, use part of another element
M - Modify - increase or reduce in scale, change shape, modifyattributes (e.g. colour)
P - Put to another use
E - Eliminate - remove elements, simplify, reduce to core functionality
R - Reverse - turn inside out or upside down, also ask the opposite of the question you want to ask, and apply the results..

As an example, imagine that you are a manufacturer of nuts and bolts, and you were looking for new products. SCAMPER would give you:

Substitute - use of high tech materials for niche markets, such as high speed steel? Carbon fiber? Plastics? Glass? Non-reactive material?
Combine - integrate nut and bolt? Bolt and washer? Bolt and spanner?
Adapt - put Allen key or Star head on bolt? Countersink head?
Modify - produce bolts for watches or bridges? Produce different shaped bolts (e.g. screw in plugs)? Pre-painted green bolts?
Put to another use - bolts as hinge pins? As axles?
Eliminate - Eliminate nuts, washers, heads, thread, etc.
Reverse - make dies as well as bolts, make bolts that cut threads for themselves in material, etc.

Why the focus on innovation?

FrankNigriello — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:09:03 CDT

Product Innovation Agenda 2010: Profiting From Innovation Today and Tomorrow is a follow-up to a 2005 benchmark study conducted by Aberdeen Group. Its objective was to re-assess the corporate product innovation agenda and to highlight the best practices of the companies with the best track records for new product innovation today and in the years ahead. Among its findings:

Best-in-class companies are able to hit their revenue, product cost, development cost, product lifecycle cost, and launch date targets significantly better than their peers.

Bottom-line benefits of successful product innovation were compelling, including an average 10% increase in product revenue and a 6% decrease in product costs.

Firms enjoying best-in-class performance were 54% more likely to have a Chief Product Officer (CPO), Chief Innovation Officer (CIO), or equivalent executive responsible for product innovation than the industry average.

Best-in-class firms are also adopting emerging best practices as they prepare to retain their innovation leadership through 2010 and beyond. They are 33% more likely than industry average companies to have open innovation processes by 2010.

Clearly, the companies that are experiencing best-in-class performance are taking a different approach to product innovation - one that other firms can learn from.

What are these top performers doing differently? Aberdeen cites a combination of these practices: operationalising innovation, incorporating customers in the development process, expanding the engineer's view to the downstream impact of their decisions, and streamlining the entire product development cycle from innovation, through development, to engineering.

What do we mean by "innovation"?

FrankNigriello — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:26:51 CDT

Fortunately (or unfortunately for some) there are plenty of definitions for innovation.

Wikipedia references the following:
The classic definitions of innovation include:

the act of introducing something new: something newly introduced (The American Heritage Dictionary).
the introduction of something new. (Merriam-Webster Online)
a new idea, method or device. (Merriam-Webster Online)
the successful exploitation of new ideas (Department of Trade and Industry, UK).
change that creates a new dimension of performance Peter Drucker (Hesselbein, 2002)
the process of making improvements by introducing something new

The outcome of innovation is a process or product that creates additional value for the customer. It may be through enhancement or addition to an existing product or service. It may represent a modification that provides additional or new benefit.

But the outcome will always be far less interesting than the input. To define how innovation works, the process of innovation, is the prize. If we can get that right, organisations can follow a route map or a plan to become "innovative".

The complexity in the definition of the process lies in its multiple facets. It is as much (if not more) about thinking and attitude as it is about organisation and structure.

Peter Drucker defined seven sources of innovation:

The Unexpected - An unexpected success, an unexpected failure or an unexpected outside event can be a symptom of a unique opportunity.
The Incongruity - A discrepancy between reality and what everyone assumes it to be, or between what is and what ought to be, can create an innovative opportunity.
Innovation based on process need - When a weak link is evident in a particular process, but people work around it instead of doing something about it, an opportunity is present to the person or company willing to supply the “missing link”.
Changes in industry or market structure - The opportunity for an innovative product, service or business approach occurs when the underlying foundation of the industry or market shifts.
Demographics - Changes in the population’s size, age structure, composition, employment, level of education and income can create innovative opportunities.
Changes in perception, mood and meaning - Innovative opportunities can develop when a society’s general assumptions, attitudes and beliefs change.
New Knowledge - Advances in scientific and nonscientific knowledge can create new products and new markets.

Drucker, Peter F. Innovative and Entrepreneurship, Practice and Principles. Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. 1985.

Implicit in each one of these sources is a set of knowledge requirements that include the following:

A deep understanding of customer requirements
The ability to observe and analyse the present state objectively
An attitude of openness to new ideas
A personal confidence that allows experimentation
Sensitivity to impending changes
A natural inclination towards creativity
An intellectual toolkit for managing creative thinking
A set of strategies for objectively assessing hypotheses in a structured manner

A first look at requirements

FrankNigriello — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:25:12 CDT

Learn more about SEEDA

Rob McKay from SEEDA shared some early thinking on the topic:

What are the key factors in creating an environment, within an organisation, that will maximise the opportunity for innovation? How can a culture of true innovation be cultivated, so that it encompasses both reactive and proactive innovation? Is it possible to obtain the ‘full recipe’ for innovation, rather than having to focus in particular parts or processes in isolation?

A number of key areas make a significant contribution to make to understanding the nature of innovation in organisations: There must be an understanding of the business drivers for innovation. Without a compelling business reason for having an innovative culture, its achievement is purely vanity.

Knowing the role innovation plays in meeting future business requirements; addressing customer wants and needs, outpacing competition, and meeting changing regulatory demands, is essential to ensure that any organisational development that leads to a better engagement with or fostering of innovation does so effectively.

There is a need to understand processes available for exploiting innovation. Effective use of knowledge management systems, open innovation and Knowledge Transfer Networks are important tools both for capturing innovation and stimulating it. However, they are tools, rather than a complete solution. Ineffective or inappropriate use of tools can lead to a negative outcome, and an organisation must be in a mode that maximises the effectiveness of these and other tools.

It is vital to understand the role of leadership in creating and maintaining an organisational culture. Leadership defines culture, through example, reward and approbation. A truly innovative organisational culture permeates all staff, and would need to respect the fact that leadership qualities exist at all levels.

As the famous quote from Lao Tsu states, “When the work of the perfect leader is done well, the people think they have done it all by themselves.”

There is also a role for grasping how aspects of leadership roles such as coaching and mentoring play an important role in empowerment and encouraging ownership of both problems and solutions, ensuring that innovative thinking and creativity are as close to the customer as possible. There is considerable value in grasping how the brain processes knowledge, learns and solves problems, and how it moves through the creative process.

There have been many eye-catching attempts (especially by ‘new economy companies’) to create environments to stimulate creativity and innovation. There is a concern that these are gimmicky and distracting, rather than effective.

What level of disjuncture from ‘normal’ surroundings maximises new thinking, before becoming too strange to be comfortable for the participant?
We all understand that distance from a problem assists in its solution – but what is the critical distance?
How do crises and pressure affect creativity?

Innovation is undoubtedly a social process. There is a need to understand the psychodynamics of organisations, and in particular the iterative processes that ideas go through when worked on in a creative collaboration.

Are there optimal structures or group sizes?
Do personality profile mixes, Emotional Intelligence factors or combinations of learning styles increase collective creativity?
What are the basic motivational aspects of effective individual participation in group creativity?
How do we pin down the more nebulous aspects of innovation?
What is creativity?

John Adair, the writer and thinker on leadership, and the author of books on innovation and creativity advocates ‘practicing serendipity’. Since serendipity is by its very definition, happy accident, this is clearly a big ask.

Lynda Gratton, from the London Business School, talks about innovative organisational cultures in her book ‘Hot Spots’. She condenses the Hot Spot, an organisation that lives on creativity, to the following equation;

Hot Spot

(

Cooperative Mindset

Boundary Spanning

Igniting Purpose

)

Productive Capacity

This captures some of the elements above, but perhaps not all; Grattons work is based on observation of existing organisations that she recognises as innovative and creative, rather than working through from first principles to create such an organisation. Certainly, Gratton acknowledges the multi-disciplinary nature of the task.