Developments and articles of interest from the past week:
- In this blog post from NESTA, Philip Colligan talks about the release of a new report on co-production.
- This article discusses the potential of cloud computing to assist public sector innovation.
- In this post, Vijay Govindarajan looks at why implementation and execution is the most important aspect of the innovation process, rather than creativity and coming up with ideas.
- This piece from Dr Tim Kastelle supports the same argument – the focus needs to be on the doing, rather than the idea.
- In this post Dr John Steen argues that the key to sustainable innovation is to make sure it is managed as a process, so that it is not reliant on individuals, but an ongoing capability.
- In this piece Jeffrey Phillips argues that innovators need to be open to new sources of ideas – e.g. see what is happening on the ‘edge’ such as in design- and art-worlds.
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Hey guys,
Love the blog as always.
I think the link for the Dr Steen post might be the wrong one.
cheers
Rachel
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Hi Rachel – it should take you to an article called sustainable innovation?
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The article “Innovation is not creativity” by Vijay Govindarajan really resonates with me.
I so love to read about the “reality” of innovation (I’m a little boring when it comes to these things). I firmly believe that real value is generated through the execution of initiatives; with way less value (more often than not) actually generated through the generation of ideas than most give credit to….. and its not that ideas are not valuable per se. We need them and like everyone else, I like to contribute and come up with good new innovative ideas… Its fun and feels great and is exciting when your ideas become a reality… But in my opinion good ideas are for the most part cheap and relatively easy to acquire…
In support of this thinking is the fact that often, the best strategies fail. In fact rarely does the best corporate, business, functional ...
... or process strategy win… Typically, the strategy best executed is the one that wins. (There is plenty of research on this subject this but this isn’t the post to deliver it.. I’ll try to find some links and post them also)
Most innovation project train wrecks that I’ve seen have not been as a result of the idea(s) being bad, but the exact opposite; the idea(s) have been too good. The solution has been too perfect. The design teams have brilliantly planned the execution of a heart transplant while the execution team was struggling with relatively minor surgery.
Coming up with the perfect solution is easy…. truly, really easy…. Any half decent analyst can “re-design” for efficiency or effectiveness, lowest cost or whatever else is on the fad menu…. Solutions that ignore the constraints of capabilities, management buy in, budgetary constraints and all the other stuff that’s required for execution are easy.
Some of the recent articles posted on this forum have detailed ideas such as “fast failure”. The idea of failing fast and small….. I really agree with this approach for some ideas, however we still run the risk of “failing” great ideas, ideas that could have changed our worlds in some way simply because even having simplified or risk reduced projects, we still might simply not have the capabilities to execute effectively.
Therefore, (in my view) any “innovation program” needs to have as its foundation the development of the organisational and individual capabilities in execution.
The challenge (and this is what this post is really all about) is the question how do we get the right sort of “execution skills” in place…… I say the right sort because we need to manage the risk of failure such that “cool weird wild or complex” ideas still get to see light of day. What do those execution skills look like?
Oddly, (and while they are required) I don’t think that the “best practice” project management methodologies that some organisations (mainly government and big business) insist on using is what’s required when developing an innovative organisation. Far too often, projects that are managed to within an inch of their life using some formal methodology are executed with process rather than spirit…. By that I mean that often projects seem to be focused on the process of “best practive project management” rather than the “desperate desire” to win and get the job done (aka skunk works). As a result, what we are sometimes left with in these projects (particularly when things start going pear shaped as they inevitably do in any complex project) is “butt covering” through project teams t crossing and i dotting their way through the process to a mediocre but “non-failed” delivery………..
How do we become organisations, groups and individuals that can make things happen? What do the right sort of execution skills (for innovators) look like and how do we develop them and get them in place?
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It’s going to take me a long time to read all those!
just had a thought!
Remember in high school where you had to debate and the teacher put you on one side of the other regardless of what you beleived? Wonder if people would be interested in having an Innovation debate, opt in two eTeams of three (just because I’m a traditionalist really!)Pick an innovation topic, throw the electronic coin to see which side of the debate you have to argue. The first debater n each team has one week to come up with the argument with their fellow team, the next day the next debaters post etc?
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Hi Elizabeth. I love that Idea. Some of the best ideas come from being forced to play an un-natural hand….
One technique I use when I’m hosting ideas workshops is a process called “missing feature”. Teams are asked to redesign something without a key component of the current model being available.
It migh be taking the technology out. or the physical site away or people all together out of the service or model or whatever…. It really can harvest some cool seeds of ideas…
Anyhow, I’d be happy to play. Bring on a subject and point to my position.
Cheers
Con
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