The 9 Principles of Highly Effective

Innovation Systems

The purpose of this presentation

I am working on a book about the principles organizations should follow in order to become highly-innovative. This deck summarizes the overall idea behind the book as it defines the main terms and offers a preview to the nine principles and the three categories they are divided into. Would love to get your feedback in the comments section.

Innovation

A significant impact on strategic key success factors of an organization through endeavors that have high levels of uncertainty and pose new and unfamiliar challenges to an organization

Innovation project

A project that aims at making a significant impact on strategic key success factors of an organization, has a high level of uncertainty and requires the organization to perform fundamental activities differently

Innovation idea

An idea that has the potential to become an innovation project

Innovation system

A medium that fosters the creation of innovation ideas and their development into successful innovation projects. At any given moment it contains a collection of innovative ideas at various stages of development and implementation. When built correctly, ideas transition into innovation projects, go through various stages of experimentation until a decision is made to deliver them.

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Inception Experimentation Delivery

This is a schematic representation of an innovation system. It is essentially a funnel that contains a varying number innovation projects. Innovation projects go from ideas in inception, through stages of experimentation until they reach a point where they can be delivered by organizational units and start to actually affect strategic key success factors in a significant way. The organization is making a gradually increasing investment in achieving the next level of clarity at every checkpoint of an innovation project until a business leader is willing to invest in the actual delivery of a project.

Summary of the 9 skills

System level Project level Environment levelFlow Elasticity MotivatorsSelection Stewardship ContainingCredibility Growth Sponsorship

System level skills

At an innovation system level there are certain skills that must be maintained for that system to thrive. You can think of them as the skills that drive the innovation system and keep it going.

Flow

In order to have great ideas you need to have a lot of them. Generating a large number of quality innovative ideas to feed your innovation system is essential for its success.

Selection

Feeding your innovation system with a prolific flow of innovative ideas means that you also need to put in place a mechanism that can help you select the most promising ones and as they change into projects make decisions on which ones should be pursued and which should be dropped.

Credibility

In order to keep ideas flowing there has to be some level of credibility to the system. When you are counting on any population to continue providing you with ideas, intellect and connections then you have to close the loop and allow them as individuals and as a crowd to witness the fruits of their contribution and the benefits for those who interact with the inovation system.

Project level skills

In order to have an effective innovation system, projects have to be handled using certain guidelines. Underperforming in this category leads to underachieving projects and a very small ratio of projects that get to implementation.

Elasticity

The willingness to allow a project to go through fundamental changes based on the feedback it receives and data collected around related experimentation activities. Projects that adhere to this principle follow methods such as design thinking and lean startup.

Stewardship

Making sure that innovation projects get to clearly defined decision points where predefined criteria are applied in order to make a decision on next steps. In addition, as innovation projects transition from one stage to the next, making sure that the necessary resources, tools and decision-maker attention are provided to them.

Growth

When innovation projects get to their delivery stage  they pose a collection of unique challenges that organizations aren’t used to from their normal way of delivering products and services. This principle involves acquiring new critical skills, leveraging strengths and eliminating inhibitors to a successful scaling of the project.

Environment level skillsAt an environment level there are certain habits, rules and safeguards that should be put in place in order for the innovation system to thrive. It is like the difference between planting seeds in a toxic environment compared to one that is irrigated and nourished. In the former case you as an innovation leader are going to constantly be forced to intervene and be personally involved in projects and system-level matters that can and should be simpler to achieve in a favorable environment.

Motivators

This principle has to do with the extent to which innovation related matters are incorporated into the well-established practices of the organization. How motivated are managers and the various supporting functions to promote innovation in ways that serve the innovation system that is in place?

Containing

How tolerant is the organization to ideas with high levels of uncertainty? How tolerant is it to projects that have a high risk of failure? How does it treat the people who come forward with such ideas and who drive such projects?

Sponsorship

Decision makers for this purpose are the people who have the access to budget and resources and who make decisions on whether to invest them in projects and whether to assume risk. When these individuals are sponsoring the program and the projects that come out of it this constitutes a key principle for the overall success of the innovation system and its projects.

Principle How a lack of adherence to this principle manifestsSystem level  

Flow Lack of ideas, low quality of ideas, ideas appear only during dedicated events but not on an ongoing basis

Selection Inability to effectively select which ideas should be pursued, decisions made behind closed doors, highly political process, selection looks at ideas as in a zero-sum game competition

Credibility A small ratio of those who submit ideas return again, workforce unaware of ongoing projects, lack of faith in the system, workforce cynicism on the seriousness of the innovation system

Project level  

Elasticity Projects’ main attributes remain unchanged throughout their lifecycle, no practices of build-measure-learn, the approach to customer input is qualitative and intuitive

Stewardship Projects that were shut down in a manner that seemed arbitrary before being given a chance to achieve their potential, projects that were heavily invested in over long periods for unfounded reasons, projects that started with much enthusiasm and somehow dissipated and weren’t heard from

Growth Projects that had strong management backing, ample resources and simply couldn’t takeoff, a lot of finger pointing between the various parts of the go-to-market teams, failure that seems like it has nothing to do with the product or the technology

Environment level  

Motivators People are measured on delivering the core business only, goals are set with regards to core business only, those who fail innovating pay a career price, promotions are common for the conservative employees who don’t fail

Containing Drinking fountain ideas stay at the drinking fountain, most common answers to innovative ideas are “we already tried and failed, I don’t see how this generates revenues, interesting ideas but let’s finish our deliverables for this quarter first”, decision makers consider innovation projects as ”science projects”

Sponsorship Innovation happens as “skunkworks projects” and surprises decision makers when it surfaces, projects get stopped in their tracks due to lack of coordination between different units or lack of strategic alignment, innovation projects are placed at a low priority position on the task list, decision makers are disinterested with the outcomes of the innovation system

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@ahigv Innopost.wordpress.com Ahi Gvirtsman