There is a line of thought that if you want to be good — if not exceptional — at operational delivery, it is all about innovation. Innovation is the process which allows you to develop and deliver new things. Products and services that your competition struggles to copy. Think of Amazon and the Kindle or the use of DNA fingerprinting by the police. Innovation is critical to progress.
There is another belief that innovation is all about creativity. It is something that inventive types do, something that only the gifted can achieve and therefore not for us flat earth operational types. How do you innovate if you don’t have a creative bone in your body?
Creativity is part of the mix, but it is only a tiny part of it in reality. If you are hell-bent on being a great innovator, then robust management will give you most of what you need. Let me explain:
Stage One: The Innovation Pipeline
Most organisations have an innovation pipeline. It is the way they manage the delivery of new projects. It often feels a little like this:
Projects materialise from nowhere. The lucky ones find a way into the project process, and resources appear. They then undergo a long and tortuous “development” process. During which they befall many mishaps:
- Staff are redeployed, wasting all the effort invested up to that point.
- Business case requirements change.
- Managers throw unexpected “project hurdles” at the team.
- Rogue managers develop “homers” that go under the radar.
- Projects lose sponsorship. They meander, but nobody kills them.
- Funding dries up at the last moment (or never actually existed).
- Some projects get senior management “help”. Executives force them into the pipeline at high speed and under extreme pressure with a lot of political heat.
A better way
The first job is to get your project funnel under control:
- Create a register of projects so that you know what is going on.
- Build a transparent mechanism for allocating resources. Avoid the temptation to take on just one more project, and then another, and another.
- Develop stage gates that projects must pass through. It will help control risk.
- Apply straightforward, simple rules to these stage gates. (Do you need a full business case, or are you just assessing technical feasibility at this stage?)
- Ensure that everybody knows what those rules are.
- Fail fast, accept that not all ideas are good ideas. Kill the weak projects before they have too much effort invested in them.
- Report progress; be clear about what the risks and issues are.
None of this is particularly sexy or clever, just good portfolio management discipline. If you don’t do it, your innovations won’t happen. Your pipeline should be simple and look a little more like this:
Stage Two: Create Spin-off Benefits
Most organisations go back to the drawing board once a project is complete. They start to work on the next. Doing that is a mistake. A better way is to work out every possible way to spin the innovation off. You have developed new ways of doing things and created intellectual capital and competitive advantage. Now is an excellent time to milk that for all it is worth.
Here is an example. A brewer had a problem. They ran high-speed bottling lines that filled bottles with beer and then put a metal cap on the top. From time to time, one of the bottles would chip, and a sliver of glass would sink to the bottom of the beer bottle.
Glass in beer is not generally considered a good thing.
They put their best and brightest onto the issue, developing a machine to fix the problem. After putting on the lid, it spun each bottle. Any glass in the beer would settle in the middle by doing this. Using a laser could spot the glass and reject the bottle, a clever technical solution to the problem.
What they did next was cleverer still. It is difficult to sell more beer with the slogan “glass-free beer”. It provides no competitive advantage at all. Instead, the brewer patented their idea and sold the machine to every other brewer in the country. The competition could hardly say they didn’t want to buy it.
Not invented here syndrome.
In most organisations, spin-offs don’t fly as there is natural resistance. Nobody wants to use somebody else’s ideas. It doesn’t make you look good. Not invented here syndrome is alive and well.
Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.
Howard Aiken
Solve this by creating an environment that rewards spinning off ideas. Build a management process that spots the innovations across your organisation and promotes them. That process could include:
- Appointing somebody to find and sponsor spin-off projects.
- Arranging regular show and tell sessions.
- Identify potential spin-offs as part of the business case for new project funding.
- Providing an investment pot.
- Rewarding people for the best use of spin-off ideas.
What would work in your organisation?
Stage Three: Work on the Big Things
Most innovation projects materialise. Somebody has a so so idea that solves a problem and fills a budget gap. Then, before you know it, it has a full head of steam. The thing is, not all issues are equal. Take this website, and I have two problems:
- The search box (top right of the screen) moves from browser to browser.
- I don’t have enough traffic to create a serious business.
Solving the second problem will buy me a villa overlooking the Mediterranean. Solving the first problem will stop the search box from moving. As I said, not all issues are equal.
Innovation is all about problem-solving. So the first question should be, “what are the big problems that need fixing?” It would help if you had a robust mechanism to define the most critical issues. Can you pinpoint the big problems and describe what good would look like? If so, you are halfway to improving the situation.
A problem well stated is a problem half solved
Charles F. Kettering
Where do you start?
How do you work out what is essential? There are a couple of blog posts that give a little more context:
If you search under Operations Analysis, you will find many more ideas. Trawl through your business and identify the most significant problems. Then, create a hopper of issues to work on. Don’t just firefight and chase down the current topic.
Stage Four: Find a Creative Solution
Once you have found the big problems check you don’t already have a solution. Have you invented something elsewhere in your business that will solve this? Remember the bit about spinning out the benefits? If you already have a solution that works, now is the time to use it. Only when you have exhausted the options do you need to get creative. Even then, some formulaic behaviours will drive that creativity. Here are a handful of techniques that you could use to start the inspiration flowing:
1. Search for insights
Don’t just read a Harvard Business Review article to learn about customer satisfaction.
- Do a customer survey.
- Visit a 5-star hotel.
- Talk to a Michelin star chef.
- Watch the staff at John Lewis.
- Visit an Amazon distribution centre.
I have no idea what insights you will generate, but you will develop some. It is a vast world out there.
Every idea is a juxtaposition. That’s it. A juxtaposition of existing concepts
Steven Grant
2. Suspend disbelief
Instead of evaluating why an idea isn’t any good, please start thinking about what would have to be true to make it work. Change your style and build on ideas instead of dismissing them. Hand out red cards to people who are critical and not constructive. Create formal environments with the sole purpose of developing ideas. There is a reason why Google have such “out there” working environments. What could you do to change the way your organisation develops ideas?
When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: “Only stand out of my light.” Perhaps some day we shall know how to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light
John W. Gardner
3. Prototype
The act of prototyping an idea or running a trial makes it real. It forces you to suspend disbelief, to make it happen. It will also give you far more insight than evaluating the idea on paper ever will. People will sit up and take note. Never judge an idea until you have tried it.
Try everything once except incest and folk dancing
Sir Thomas Beecham
4. Create momentum
Prototyping creates momentum, but there are other things you can do as well. Instead of writing an e-mail, pick up the phone. Instead of waiting for all the information and analysis, start when you have 70%. Instead of asking for formal presentations, ask for verbal briefings. Focus your energy on a few things, not everything. It is incredible what you can create if you give yourself the time, space and momentum to do so.
Feed it into your development funnel when you have developed your winning idea. Then you are back to where you started, with robust project management.
If you put all these steps in place, you will be able to innovate. No matter how unimaginative you are.
Homework
Carry out an innovation audit. It doesn’t need to be elaborate; work through these simple questions:
- How strong is your portfolio management? Are you clear on the status of every project?
- Do you spin off ideas? Can you name three recent developments — within the last year — that are rip-offs of previous projects?
- Do you have a clear, prioritised list of problems to work on? Is it obvious what the most significant opportunities are to boost business performance?
- Do you have a culture that supports creativity, or are you quick to criticise ideas and abandon them?
Critique the outputs and ask yourself what actions you need to take. In which of the four areas do you fall? What are you going to do about it?
Related posts:
- Jack of all trades master of non: What makes a noble prize winning scientist?
- Not invented here: Why nothing comes from nothing and culture is so important.
- How to push your big idea: The power of the prototype.
- One hundred bad ideas: To be successful, you have to fail.
More information:
- When ideas have sex: Matt Ridley’s Ted talk shows how it’s not important how clever individuals are; what really matters is how smart the collective brain is.
- The Medici Effect: Frans Johansson’s book explains why so many world-changing insights come from people with little or no related experience.
- The board of innovation: My favourite innovation blog.
Further reading:
The Medici Effect is a fascinating book by Frans Johansson. He explains how overlaying the thoughts from one discipline on another can result in truly innovative ideas. It is full of examples (from world-class restaurants to the theory of evolution) and also suggests simple steps you can take to improve innovation within your organisation.
Post Script
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