I have had the pleasure of teaching Innovation Management this semester to our Master of Engineering Management students at Duke; both distance and residential. The student engagement in the material has been great, making it a lot of fun, including some great analyses of how companies manage innovation (or don’t in some cases!). For the current post, I asked students to provide their opinions on the top 10 innovation management concepts (an extra credit assignment for the class). I then choose some of them to share here with a little editing in some cases. I hope you enjoy them – I did.
1. Recognize Innovation vs. Invention
This is important because for every great idea that turned into Crocs or Snuggies or Facebook, there are hundreds and thousands that remain just that – great ideas. The book “Managing Innovation” puts it succinctly, to paraphrase, innovation is invention plus. It is invention plus implementation, invention plus value extraction, invention plus extra steps. The invention portion of innovation, whether completely original or incremental, is just the first step in the innovation process. (Colin R.)
2. Build a Culture of Innovation
Innovation is not created by a single individual, but rather by a concerted collective effort of the entire organization. 3M and Google are considered temples for innovation as they cultivate their employees to innovate and have set up a framework that supports integration of innovation across the organization. The company must become an ‘innovation factory’ where employees are challenged to drive a constant but focused flow of ideas through the factory. The company must support innovation at all levels and should be organizationally structured to support innovation, for example, flat organization structures or innovation cells. (Sreecharan C.) and
“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have…it’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it” by Steve Jobs in an interview with Fortune Magazine. Innovation is increasingly about teamwork and the creative combination of different disciplines and perspectives. (Haoze Z.)
3. Cultivate Champions
I think the concept of “champions” plays a very big role in a company’s innovation management process regardless of the innovation being sustaining, incremental or disruptive. Companies need these creative, passionate, risk-seekers to sustain their innovative environment. Champions can sometimes stick to their ideas irrationally and advocate them without justification, but the value they bring to the innovation process outweighs this problem. The Stage-Gate process should be utilized to help manage and harness the value of Champions. (Duygu S.)
4. Fail Early (and Often)
Start with lots of ideas, but have a process that carefully selects and develops the right ones, and gradually reduces risk as projects proceed. Utilize a “funnel” selection approach by continuing projects that pass pre-determined criteria and dumping those that don’t. Using a stage-gate process ensures that resources are not wasted on projects that cannot meet company targets and guarantees that the right activities are undertaken at the right time. (Doug M.)
5. Build a Portfolio
In innovation, as in investment, we should seek balance. A matrix-based innovation portfolio is an excellent tool to visualize and understand a company’s range of projects. The use of portfolio management allows a company to spread risks while taking on projects of varying potential reward. (Doug M.)
6. Practice Open Innovation
Open innovation is a relatively new concept, but due to the many benefits it provides it is currently becoming more popular among innovative companies. Companies go beyond their boundaries and open up their innovation processes to partners, vendors, customers and sometimes even the general public. They are no longer limited by their internal workforce. Previously, every company was responsible for “inventing its own future”, but open innovation can enable industry, academia, government and the public to collaborate and contribute to the innovation process. (Duygu S.)
7. Engage in Customer development
Customer development is as important as product development. Steve Blank’s four steps in customer development include —“customer discovery”, “customer validation”, “customer creation” and “business building”. Each should be implemented according to the target industry and company strategy. Although developed for start-up companies, this concept is equally valuable for large organizations. (Shibo F.)
8. Sharing is Caring.
If only your company knew what it knows! Knowledge management is more essential than ever as we deal with increasingly complex projects. How does your company make knowledge sharing easy? Does your company utilize social networks, wikis, blogs, instant messengers, and other communication tools? If not, you’re missing out on opportunities to forever capture and pool knowledge that may otherwise be lost. (Doug M.)
9. Enlist Diverse Talents and Backgrounds
Along with experience, in order to have a successful working group, there must be people in the innovation management process who have diverse talents and come from different backgrounds. This creates a team with different points of view in order to foster a climate of creative friction. More ideas – in number, subject, and quality – will be generated, which will lead to stronger innovations. (Colin R.)
10. Ten Concepts Don’t Tell the Whole Story
Let’s face it; this assignment is not very realistic! There are so many facets to innovation that defining the top ten is not really possible. Disruptive Innovation, Blue Ocean Strategy, incentives to motivate employees, core rigidities, life cycle concepts and the S curve, technology forecasting, etc., etc. all have an important place in innovation management. Nonetheless, these important concepts summarized by future innovators for our society is a great start and a fresh view of an important topic. (Jeff G.)
Footnote: Special acknowledgement and thanks to the text we used in the course which discusses many of these concepts: “Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change,” by Joe Tidd and John Bessant.
