Brainovation Blog

Presenting at ispim 2012

2012-01-31T20:41:00.004-05:00

I just received the acceptance notification for a presentation at this year's ispim conference in Barcelona.
Quoting from the abstract:
"The innovation ecosystem includes interventions with client organizations by professional consultants, who either specialize in innovation and innovation management or include such as part of a broader service offering.
Like other consulting engagements, innovation interventions can be performed more or less well and with a varying return on effort. It is therefore of interest to study such interventions as innovation ecosystem processes and develop guidelines for good practice.

This submission aims at identifying key issues involved in innovation interventions and proposes
guidelines for successfully conducting such interventions.
Questions include what is unique or particularly challenging about innovation interventions, to what extent the innovation intervention can and should become "standardized" and what constitutes a good or successful intervention."

Good questions. Now I have to articulate the answers.
See you in Barcelona?

Enter The Dragon

2012-01-30T21:20:00.004-05:00

No, I'm not referring to the 1973 movie. I'm referring to state capitalism in 2012 - the year of the dragon.
The current issue of the Brainovation newletter comments on the rise of red capitalism:
www.interknowledgetech.com/brainovation.html

On communities

2012-01-15T16:11:00.002-05:00

When theory meets practice things can happen. Some ten years ago Communities of Practice were the buzz in knowledge organizations. Including in the one where I was serving as CKO at the time. We managed to establish a decent call for action and the concept, together with an IT solution, proved relatively easy to introduce (and a little harder to sustain).

In general, and as with other organizational development concepts, some organizations did better with CoPs than others. Some did worse.
Among cutting edge practitioners, communities have spawned an interest in additional related topics like e.g. the art of collaboration, the act of knowing and the nature of expertise.

Not surprisingly, expert thinking about communities has evolved since the early days of pioneering efforts and after years of practical experience.
Etienne Wenger - the original community guru - has pointed to the value of peripheral participation as an example of how the original concept has changed somewhat over time.
Here’s Wenger in an interview at the University of Manchester:
http://www.239productions.co.uk/wenger/

My own pragmatic (and somewhat heretical) conclusion is that it doesn’t always matter that much what theory says. What does matter though is a clear insight into what needs to be accomplished and a good understanding of various concepts in order to find the approach that has the best chance of actually working in the organization and its business environment. And of course not forgetting to make the effort.

Global Aging

2012-01-10T12:19:00.004-05:00

That an aging population will have a significant socioeconomic impact in a relatively near future has been known since quite some time. People live longer and have fewer children. The number of retired people per 100 in the workforce continues to increase reaching an estimated 25 by the year 2050. Not so few reports have been written about consequences and warnings have been raised.
Last month the BCG contributed a report on the subject identifying four areas that need some serious attention. Before it's too late.
Here's a summary: Global Aging

A Nordic Recipe for Innovation Metrics

2011-12-16T12:31:00.002-05:00

Measuring innovation can be done by and for different actors and with a focus on different performance areas. Even so, and like with other metrics systems, measurements need to be done with a purpose, i.e. with an objective to accomplish something.
The current issue of the Brainovation newsletter comments on innovation metrics and points to a paper by Oslo based Nordic Innovation:
A Nordic Recipe for Innovation Metrics

Time To Think

2011-12-14T15:11:00.004-05:00

The more time pressure people feel on a given day, the less likely they will be to think creatively. So wrote Teresa Amabile almost ten years ago in an article titled Creativity Under the Gun. One could probably drop the word creatively and the remark would still be true.
Even if a sudden insight occurs in something like a eureka moment, it doesn’t mean that creative thinking as such occurs in a flash. Thinking takes time. And creative thinking takes time too. In today’s high paced work environments with frequent interruptions and information overload, the situation is even more challenging than when Amabile first made her observation.

Managers often assume that if there is no time today for innovative play, there will always be time tomorrow. Maybe. But it’s not all about time. It’s also about inspiration, motivation and about trust in leadership and confidence in the future. And about access to information and connectivity to others.
Making room for creative contributions thus involves quite a bit more than just having time. And then there needs to be a problem to solve. Preferably a good one.

The Creative Dilemma

2011-12-03T09:44:00.002-05:00

By the time people reach a level of executive authority in organizations, their thinking is firmly steeped in the past. A phenomenon not unique to executives. The same probably happens to most of us. This doesn’t mean that we can’t speculate about the future, make forecasts or solve complex problems. But the thinking we bring to bear on the issues is shaped by what we have experienced and learned in the past. Something that somehow seems both necessary and inevitable.
Next generation thinking comes with - well, the next generation. But while creative and willing to take risk, the young lack both experience, expertise and authority. In organizations I call it the creative dilemma. Yet it is possible to sustain innovation in commercial enterprises. Even breakthrough innovation. Steve Jobs clearly demonstrated that at Apple.
Few are like Apple though. In this Forbes article, Steve Denning discusses why many organizations don’t do so well:
Why are there no successful innovation initiatives?

Idea Support

2011-11-15T21:49:00.004-05:00

To survive and mature, good ideas need good support. But if good ideas are good for business, why wouldn’t they always be supported?
Of course, resource availability and decision makers’ individual preferences play important roles, but there are also more subtle mechanisms at work involving how people react to the uncertainty inherently associated with something that hasn’t been tried before.

It is well known that many of the same organizations that endorse innovation also routinely reject creative ideas. Attitudes towards risk and uncertainty drive such behaviour.
A study published by Cornell University suggests that there is indeed an individual bias against creativity in situations where uncertainty is experienced:
The Bias Against Creativity: why people desire but reject creative ideas

The Cornell study concludes with the remark that “if people have difficulty gaining acceptance for creative ideas especially when more practical and unoriginal options are readily available, the field of creativity may need to shift its current focus from identifying how to generate more creative ideas to identifying how to help innovative institutions recognize and accept creativity”.
Couldn’t have said it much better myself.

Outside the box, inside the brain

2011-11-09T21:44:00.003-05:00

In a recent post on the HBR blog network, Dan Pallotta writes “you cannot possibly think outside the box unless you understand the nature of the box that bounds your current thinking”. Perhaps. But then again I wonder if creativity is really concerned about the nature of the box. It’s true that you can “make the box bigger” by reframing the issue or look at a problem from a new perspective and in doing so it may be helpful being aware of what bounds your current thinking. But when a truly creative breakthrough occurs, it’s often the result of hard thinking inside the box followed by no thinking (or thinking about something different) that prepares the brain for a fresh approach rather than deliberately thinking about the box and trying to get out of it.
Actually, come to think of it, thinking always occurs inside. Inside the brain that is.

Here’s Pallotta’s post with quite a few comments:
Stop Thinking Outside the Box

Brainovation Cells

2011-10-31T22:43:00.004-04:00

Readers of this blog probably know that I don’t really like the expression “thinking outside the box”. Depends too much on how you define the box. Should be creative thinking. Period. And creative thinking should be, well…creative.
Some innovation gurus advise against ideation getting into creative overgear, coming up with crazy ideas or far fetched solutions looking for a problem. Fair enough. But looking at innovation as a business practice, I think one should try to maintain a few small practice areas that involve really creative thinking. Not only would these serve as idea generators, but also as “workout” places where people could learn creative thinking and problem solving techniques. I have seen suggestions we could call such creative practice areas ideation cells or maybe creation cells. True to my brand, perhaps I may suggest brainovation cells.
But of course it's not about what they're called. And it's not about beanbags and pink walls. It's about the kind of thinking that goes on. Creative.

Let's fuzz it

2011-10-26T08:09:00.001-04:00

The front end is fuzzy. It’s right there where fuzzy - but potentially great - ideas thrive. Innovative organizations know that and they keep the front end fuzzy, while experimenting, learning and maybe even playing. Fuzz is fun. You don’t really want to “unfuzz” the front end. Just find ways to let those ideas or hunches gently roll on to firmer ground, where you can take a closer look at them. Like finding stuff on the beach washed up from the ocean.
You may even want to push some emerging ideas back into the fuzz for a while to see what might happen to them. Some ideas make other ideas stick to them and turn into idea clusters with potentially greater value. And sure, a lot of ideas just won’t make it.

Can you then in some sense manage the fuzzy front end? It’s partly about how you define it and there are quite a few things you can do. In fact, according to Swedish professors Johan Frishammar and Henrik Florén there are seventeen things you can or should do:
Achieving Success in the Fuzzy Front End Phase of Innovation

Great. Just make sure to keep the front of the front end plenty fuzzed up!

A checklist for doing ideation

2011-10-23T19:23:00.003-04:00

There is no shortage of bullet lists around explaining how to do something in business. Including how to do ideation in organizations that wish to get a better handle on the fuzzy front end of innovation. Such lists rarely provide much practical detail. But they can often be used for general guidance to determine e.g. if something is missing or initiate a discussion about the interpretation and validity of a particular point.
My own basic thoughts on managing or orchestrating the front end of innovation are expressed in the process I call guided ideation.
Many others have made similar, or even better, contributions to the subject. Here’s a recent one that I kind of like, posted last month by Gijs van Wulfen:
20 tips for ideation excellence

Designing Interventions

2011-10-18T20:44:00.006-04:00

Despite all the research, hype and buzz about innovation and learning, there still seems to be a gap between theory and practice. Or maybe it’s because of all the research, hype and buzz. At any rate, there is still a significant number of people who make a living as consultants helping clients put theory into practice or organize their efforts for desired business outcomes.
But what does a good intervention look like? Not surprisingly, there doesn’t seem to be a single answer even though a famous line by George Zimmer, founder of the Men’s Warehouse, might serve as general guidance - "don’t just make a sale, make a customer".
Here are some suggestions seen primarily from the consultant’s perspective making a customer:

Don’t talk money until both parties know what needs to be accomplished

Don’t grab an assignment just for the sake of getting the business

Apply a modular intervention approach with a series of expected outcomes

Engineer each step module for the minimum effective effort

Include clear exit options at the end of each module

Think together when framing the issues and solving complex problems

Facilitate mutual learning through frequent interactions

Leave the client not just a traditional report, but a living knowledge artifact

Not a particularly aggressive approach I admit. Perhaps more Scandinavian than North American. But I think Zimmer did have a point. Maybe consultants could paraphrase another of Zimmer’s lines - "you’re going to like the way you learn; I guarantee it".

Mastering Technology Markets

2011-10-06T08:05:00.004-04:00

It goes without saying that market operations are critical to business performance. But it's not just about traditional sales & marketing or customer projects and the straightforward provisioning of products and services. In today's business environments with complex technologies, advanced users, strong competition and emerging markets, it's also about innovation, learning, knowledge and expertise as these apply to market operations.
Read more in the current issue of the Brainovation newsletter:
Mastering Technology Markets

Innovation: process, culture and dumb luck

2011-10-01T03:33:00.010-04:00

Yesterday I met with a Stockholm based firm specializing in innovation and corporate ventures. Their approach makes sense and involves the discovery of unrealized potential and improving the capacity for innovation in client organizations.
This brings to mind another firm I've been in touch with before, that used to specialize in idea management using the concept of innovation gap to demonstrate unrealized business potential in revenue terms or in terms of future revenues at risk.

Explaining to clients what they are doing (current practice), what they should be doing (best practice) and what they could be doing (innovation) is not a bad idea. As long as there is a visible and plausible business logic to explain any suggested actions or investments. And as long as the benefit of the anticipated outcome vs risk is understood and perhaps even quantified.
But of course, in the wonderful world of innovation it's not all about process and culture. We should never forget to look out for sheer dumb luck too. It just might be lurking round the corner or approaching from the "left field".

L’innovation Ouverte

2011-09-07T09:36:00.004-04:00

French innovation is more than world class food and wine. And it is becoming more open. Since Henry Chesbrough popularized it in the 90’s, Open Innovation has gone from concept nouveau to industry practice also in France. But somewhat less so than in e.g. the US according to a study of open innovation in French companies by consulting firm bluenove. Whereas perceptions of OI are generally positive, many companies still consider themselves to be in the early stage of adopting open innovation strategies and are somewhat unsure about what benefits to expect.
The study suggests four reasons why there is a gap between France and the US in the practice of OI:
- questions about collaboration
- uncertainty about specific methods
- narrow scope of application
- lack of strategy
Read about these and more at Open Innovation in France

Strategic Workforce Planning

2011-08-31T16:38:00.007-04:00

The demographic impact of boomer retirements has been known for quite a long time.
A new study by the Boston Consulting Group brings the issues in focus again. While nobody can turn back the clock, there are ways for employers to manage their demographic risks through workforce planning. The report is well worth reading. You can download it from the BCG site:
Turning the Challenge of an Older Workforce into a Managed Opportunity

The Age of the Customer

2011-08-22T18:07:00.006-04:00

No, capturing the voice of the customer is not a technology problem. It’s a communication problem. In the broadest sense of the word. It’s not just about listening to what customers say. Sometimes it’s about hearing what they don’t say. And about recognizing and understanding the emotions and expectations they have about products and services. Even anticipating emerging needs that are not yet fully articulated.
Sure, there is VoC technology too. There always is. It used to be specialized tools like QFD, then more general ones like CRM. Now it’s all about everything going social.
In case you missed it, in this feature from early June Josh Bernoff makes the case for engaging with empowered customers:
Welcome to the age of the customer

Innovating down under

2011-07-31T17:03:00.002-04:00

Many nations have innovation policies and systems. They probably won’t produce the next Apple or Google, but they are important in terms of setting national or regional innovation agendas, stimulate industry clusters and test various models. And they produce plenty of documents and reports to read. Here’s one from down under:
Australian Innovation System Report 2011

Perspectives on a partnership

2011-07-11T17:40:00.004-04:00

I’m discussing a possible partnership with a Scottish firm. It has brought to mind a few considerations and questions about what makes a business partnership successful. I’m flexible as long as I don’t have to eat haggis. Well, there is actually a bit more to it than that. Nobody enters a business partnership only to help the other party. The partnership must generate a stronger value proposition and lead to a better business performance for both parties. I think the following could be characteristics of a successful partnership:

• Active
• Aligned
• Balanced
• Committed
• Competitive
• Deliberate
• Focused
• Fun
• Inspiring
• Managed
• Strong
• Sustained

Then, over time, the partnership must of course do well enough in the market to continue to justify its raison d’être. My starting point for these kind of discussions is interKnowledge Technologies’ networking profile.

I have been in partnership discussions several times before without much materializing. I’m curious to see how this one will turn out. It looks promising. I guess time will tell.

Seasonal work

2011-07-03T12:43:00.002-04:00

For everything there is a season says the Preacher. And so it is in business too. A time to act and a time to wait. A time to invest and a time to be frugal. A time to grow and a time to shrink. A time to hire and a time to fire. A time to acquire and a time to divest. A time to take a risk and a time to be cautious. A time to win and a time to lose. And a time to think.

We’re all familiar with the expression window of opportunity, i.e. a limited time frame during which it would be particularly beneficial for a business to act in the market. Gaining a first mover advantage with a new product would be an example.
There are also internal windows of opportunity - situations e.g. when an organization is less resistive to change or when it’s looking for direction. Managers are less likely to pay close attention to such windows of opportunity as they naturally focus on the primary issue at hand. Being timely and effective is always good. Paying attention also to the internal season could make a difference in organizational development. At least sometimes.

Overload

2011-06-26T20:30:00.006-04:00

Information overload is not a new phenomenon. In fact it goes surprisingly far back – as a concept at least to Toffler’s Future Shock from 1970. If we include cognitive overload and difficulty to cope with change in general, I guess the human experience of being overwhelmed goes a further long way back.
But more recently, it’s the proliferation of information and communications technologies that has accelerated the problem. Experts have estimated that last year information overload cost the US economy close to a trillion dollars in productivity and process losses. Recent books on the topic include e.g. OVERLOAD! by Jonathan Spira. Could be a good read during the summer break.

In the meantime, here’s an interesting paper by Belgian cyberneticist Francis Heylighen from 2002 that is still worth reading:
Complexity and Information Overload in Society

Understanding innovation - and its problems

2011-06-16T15:21:00.002-04:00

Innovation is both an interesting concept and an important activity. It has been subject to much research and it is widely practised. In business, innovation is often understood as the economic application of a new idea, such as a new product or service or a new process or business model. Good innovation thus turns good ideas into good business and in that sense innovation is a business process. And as such, it can be managed. Not necessarily by way of traditional process management but at least by way of a structured approach.
Innovation also relies on human traits such as creativity, curiosity and imagination. And on the phenomenon we call serendipity. From these perspectives, innovation needs to be guided and nurtured as much as it needs to be managed.

Despite all the theory and practice, innovation problems and challenges persist. Here is a study of innovation performance problems experienced by small, medium and large businesses in 12 European countries:
Problems in Innovation: A Cross-country Comparison

Innovating in Canada

2011-06-05T10:14:00.003-04:00

Canadian innovation self bashing occurs quite regularly. In a recent report by the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity it is again argued that, compared to its major competitors, Canada's innovation performance is somewhat lackluster. And it's true that Canada often barely makes top 12 in ratings of national innovation performance.
Some people don't quite agree though with the pure output based view of innovation performance, such as the number of new products and patents. It can be argued that the capacity to innovate is an equally important factor to consider as it is a leading indicator of future performance. I agree that there is most likely a correlation between capacity and future performance. But if today's performance is poor, one must ask what the capacity was say five years ago and what the difference is today. So while nations should certainly build and sustain a strong capacity to innovate, I think we should continue to judge performance primarily by output and impact. After all, it's getting ideas off the drawing board and into the market that really makes a difference.

Here's the report:
Canada's innovation imperative

And here's a comment by Joshua Gans:
Is Canada's innovation performance really so bad?

What is strategy?

2011-05-23T19:19:00.004-04:00

I have been following a discussion on the Strategic Planning Xchange at LinkedIn. The question was the simple but fundamental what is strategy? And the answers have been many. Some reflecting deep thought, others less so. The problem is that, even if we like to find concise definitions, strategy (whatever it may be) is a broad concept with multiple perspectives involving complex issues. A one line definition of strategy - however cute or profound - almost always risks ending up without much practical relevance. A strategy is certainly not a plan or a process. Nor is it a wanted position or desired outcome. If it were, it could never fail.

If strategy is anything at all, it needs to be crafted with an overall objective in mind. It would support decisions about the business and its future and serve as a guide for deliberate actions. It would look for ways to consistently create immediate or future outcomes beneficial to the business. This in turn may involve difficult tradeoffs, risky choices and even short term losses. And yes, despite the intention to succeed, it could certainly fail.

I think most executives don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out what strategy is. They are concerned about what they should do next. What they should do about emerging technologies, competition, markets, mergers & acquisitions, divesting, creating returns and paying dividends. They must ask not what strategy is but what the overarching objective is and therefore what needs to be accomplished. With the answers to those questions clearly in mind, they can then do what executives should do - lead with insight and courage.

What do bosses do?

2011-05-16T20:50:00.003-04:00

Bosses need to be awake at the wheel, not asleep at the desk. No problem there. The question is rather while awake at the wheel, what should they spend their time on?
London Business School professor Rajesh Chandy suggests bosses should spend less time talking to clients and more time thinking about the future. I agree. Not because it’s bad to talk with clients, but because it’s good to think about the future. Unfortunately thinking takes time and therefore must take time away from something else, like spending time with clients.

Thinking about the future involves more than talking with customers or indulging in executive brainstorming retreats. When Bill Gates took his private “think weeks” twice a year, he was not just making sure he owned his time. He was actually focusing on reading up on internal Microsoft papers to provide comments and feedback, but also to trigger his own forward looking thinking about key topics.

For those particularly interested in what Italian bosses do, the Harvard Business School working paper below shares the result of tracking the daily activities of 94 chief executives of Italian firms. As you will see, the paper suggests that there is actually a correlation between what bosses do and the performance of the businesses they manage. At least in Italy.
Here’s the download:
What Do CEOs Do?

Ballmer & Bates

2011-05-11T10:44:00.001-04:00

With Skype again changing ownership for a hefty price tag one might wonder some more about internet business models. While the days of tender age California CEOs with pony tails, shorts and flip flops may be gone, there is still something slightly special with doing business on the net.
Ever since the days of ICQ the standard formula for success was simple. The value is not in the ongoing business, but in its future potential or in its number of users.
Forget about making profit. Get venture capital. Make a free service and get a lot of users. And then sell out. Good for the founders and good for the users. But is the model sustainable if the business itself is not generating profit? Probably only if it integrates with or supports other consumer or corporate business applications. This may be the case with a Skype service run by Microsoft. Time will tell.
Besides, it will be interesting to see what hard core Mac users will do with a service run by the arch enemy. And how well Tony Bates will do under Steve Ballmer. As a Skype user I wish him all the best. Bates that is.

Mobile Entrepreneurship

2011-05-07T21:15:00.008-04:00

While having breakfast this morning, I watched Polar Mobile’s Kunal Gupta on the cpac channel. Gupta spoke about mobile lifestyles, the future of mobile apps and the entrepreneurial story of Polar Mobile.
Gupta’s view of entrepreneurship goes beyond “just” starting a business. He sees it fundamentally as doing what you dream. Polar Mobile had an idea about how to do media publishing on mobile devices. They did not spend much time on traditional market research or business plans, but focused entirely on getting a first customer. And they got a big one - TIME Magazine. The rest is almost history.
I don’t know how well their apps work, but Gupta speaks well and certainly looks the role - the ceo of a successful technology startup. He also made an interesting comment about going to engineering school. He said that finishing his degree at the university of Waterloo taught him an important lesson for entrepreneurs - the need to do what you don’t want to do. It’s a good point. I could add that doing too much of what you like to do is another common trap in entrepreneurial effort. Along with the failure to recognize that, in a commercial enterprise, what really matters is not what customers need or want, but what they are actually willing to pay for. It appears that, unlike the company illustrated above, Gupta and Polar Mobile went about it in the right way.

Innovation for a greater good or a greater profit?

2011-05-02T13:46:00.003-04:00

According to an innovation study by GE involving respondents from 12 countries, 77% of executives believe the greatest innovations of the 21st century will be those that help address human needs over those that simply create the most profit. Even though they probably mean it, it still sounds like a politically correct statement to make.
As always, what will matter is of course not what companies say, but what they will actually do. Regulation can obviously prevent companies from making products harmful to humans or to the environment. But will the same companies that offer golden parachutes and do mass layoffs deliberately take less profit for a greater good? Will a drug company develop a drug just to save lives? Will a car manufacturer develop a safer car if it is less profitable? Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not.

In reality what we may see is not an either or, but a both. Products that address human needs and make profit. Besides one should keep in mind that profit isn’t all bad. Like you and I companies pay taxes and companies with bigger profits pay bigger taxes.
Most companies are in business to satisfy market and customer needs, while trying to maintain a healthy profit. As for innovation, I think we can safely assume that, for the foreseeable future, good innovation will be that which turns good ideas into good business. What then are good ideas? Most simply put, those that will bring about something good. And why not with a good profit margin.

Here's the study:
GE Global Innovation Barometer 2011

When learning doesn’t occur

2011-04-30T21:58:00.002-04:00

The Motorola Iridium story has been told many times. What’s historically interesting with Iridium is not the innovation as such or the technology. What’s interesting is the learning that didn’t occur. Not until it was too late that is. It’s another illustration of how difficult it can be to kill bad innovation projects once they are underway. Big, high profile projects in particular, i.e. the very ones that really need to be scrapped when it’s becoming obvious they should.

So sometimes it’s not risk or uncertainty that makes innovation fail, but turning a blind eye to reality. Therefore, seeing clearly and knowing when to pull the plug - and actually doing it - are critical skills in innovation management.
Here’s a knowledge@wharton article from last month that says something about when to gamble and when to fold. And yes, it does mention Iridium:
Innovation strategies for a new economy

Learning is not an option

2011-04-13T09:44:00.003-04:00

Few firms would deliberately choose to fail. Then again, success or failure is not a choice. It’s an outcome. Assumptions, analysis, decisions, actions, conditions and circumstances all contribute to an outcome, which is then determined a success or failure according to some established criteria. But it isn’t always a pure good or bad. An outcome could be judged a failure or a success depending on being viewed in a short term or a long term perspective. A loser helps qualify a winner. A pilot could be designed to prove that a new product or service will make it in the market or it could be designed to maximize learning.

From a learning perspective, rather than simply look for success or failure at the end and search for the cause, it may be better to engineer for value from the beginning and probe and sense the way forward. My point is that, whereas failure may or may not be an option, learning certainly isn’t.

Failing Well

2011-04-05T18:35:00.006-04:00

The April issue of the HBR is dedicated to Failure. Article headlines like “Ethical Breakdowns”, “Why Leaders Don’t Learn From Success” and “Failing by Design” give you the idea. It’s interesting as most of the time we hear and read about breakthroughs, turnarounds, rapid growth and other business successes. Clearly, both failures and successes offer learning opportunities. But to capitalize on such opportunities may not be as straightforward as it appears. Failure is a complex phenomenon involving uncertainties, decisions, actions and circumstances as well as mental traps and cognitive constraints such as attribution or outcome bias, which may lead to errors in judgment. Such errors don’t always lead to bad results and can thus be masked by good outcomes. Not learning from success I have seen in the past, where an organization repeats e.g. a successful project architecture without having made assumptions explicit and without knowing exactly why things went well, only to fail when previous success factors have changed or are no longer present. The same can happen with strategy. I’ve seen that too.

Yes, organizations should make serious efforts to learn and change. And accommodating failure is part of that. However, celebrating failure is where I draw the line. I just don’t think it’s the right thing to do. It’s a bit like when we get a birthday present we really don’t like, but still say “oh, I love it”.

Here's one of the articles online: Why Leaders Don’t Learn From Success

Time To Think

2011-03-31T14:15:00.003-04:00

Multitasking and information overload are familiar everyday challenges to knowledge workers. It’s funny that despite all our time saving and personal productivity tools we seem to never have enough time. Of course one can always argue that the time we have is the time we take. But there are organizational circumstances too. And time means both time to do and time to think.

I have long exchanged thoughts and ideas with knowledge organization guru Richard McDermott. In a recent article he shares his views on self service and experts’ time. It’s well worth reading: Free Your Staff to Think

Policy & Business Practice

2011-03-28T13:10:00.003-04:00

Despite the previous post, I’m not all against policies. But I have some requirements. A good policy aims at creating good business practice. An effective policy is one that is enforced. Hopefully it’s also a good one. A policy doesn’t have to make sense in every respect, but it must at least be clear and known to those who are supposed to abide by it. And there must be some way to grant an exemption if business or other circumstances so demand. It must also be possible to change or abandon policies that are not effective any more or no longer serve a useful purpose. A policy is something an organization imposes on itself. It should also impose on itself to conduct policy reviews.

Policy Perils

2011-03-26T18:04:00.003-04:00

I recently had an interesting experience with a business prospect.
The company wanted to retain the services of an expert whose position they had just eliminated. They realized that they needed his expertise for another six months and he was agreeable to a contract assignment.
I was approached by the expert to help administrate the project. Sure. No problem. I have done business before with this company and we decided to submit an offer after initial discussions between the company and the expert had resulted in a preliminary agreement.
The rest should have been a formality.
But despite the fact that it was the company that had asked for the service, things turned out differently. The purchasing department checked their records and found that my firm’s status as approved vendor had expired. One would have thought that a simple renewal would have solved that problem. Pas du tout.

We then instead decided to sign a subcontracting agreement with a manpower firm that is a current approved vendor to the company. We thought we were in business. Not so fast. The expert would have needed access to his former employer’s intranet. Enter IT and HR. C’est pas possible.

So here we have a situation where there is an agreement with line management about what needs to get done, who should do it and what it would cost, but support function policies dictate that it can’t be done.

In conclusion, we wish the company all the best. But we can’t help wonder how they think about business vs policy and about the empowerment of their line managers. Perhaps there should be an overriding policy in big corporations, that if something needs to get done, it should.
Might be good for business.

Gazellian growth

2011-03-17T22:14:00.002-04:00

A startup is not just a small version of a medium sized company. It’s not even just the early stage of a small company. It’s something distinctly different. A startup is an organized effort to create new business by exploiting a new idea or an emerging technology. There is typically a strong focus on a single product or service and gaining initial market traction. Startups have intellectual capital but are usually starved for cash.
The people involved are innovative risk takers. Overall, the startup venture is an entrepreneurial effort with much of the risk absorbed by investors for a stake in the business and in the hope of rapid growth.

The Canadian government has declared 2011 “the year of the entrepreneur”. Fast growing “gazelles” are part of the formula for success.
Here’s an outline of a Canadian strategy for high growth entrepreneurship:
Fuelling Canada’s Economic Success

Leaky Business

2011-03-08T16:09:00.005-05:00

A recent article in The Economist, the leaky corporation, made me think a bit. Social networking is becoming part of business. Information volumes handled annually grow at an accelerated pace, reaching a worldwide estimated 35 zettabytes by 2020. Collaboration and information sharing technologies reach beyond the boundaries of the firm. The use of cloud services, an increasingly mobile workforce and the growing popularity of outsourcing and open innovation create new demands on the management of information.
No wonder many businesses and organizations have become increasingly concerned about information security and intellectual property rights.
The approaches differ. Firewalls, role based access, data loss prevention and other more or less sophisticated technologies have been in use for quite some time. Part of the problem is that organizations don’t always know what data it really needs to protect and who should have access at any given time. And overly restrictive measures - necessary as they may be - do not communicate trust. In fact, the opposite would probably be true.
So businesses and organizations must continue to somehow reconcile the conflicting needs of being open and transparent on one hand and protecting sensitive and business critical information on the other. The overall trend seems to be towards more openness, which will force companies to think carefully about not only the volume and nature of information, but also about information transactions, extrusion prevention and the impact of information loss and leaks.

As for IP protection, the dominant thinking has been that patents and copyrights stimulate innovation as they give the inventors the necessary time to commercialize and profit from their creativity. Counter arguments have been made and the debate about whether patents help or hinder innovation seems to continue.
Here is a short reflection by the Max Planck Society:
Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Knowing for a Living

2011-02-26T15:56:00.002-05:00

I once accompanied a BSI ISO 9001 assessor on his tour around an organization under compliance review. He stopped at a product manager’s desk and asked him to explain how he was working. Well prepared, the guy pulled out a process chart and showed the different steps involved in product management. Then the assessor - to everyone’s surprise - asked “but if you can’t do it that way, what do you do then?”
The proper answer would have been something like “I use my own expertise and the knowledge of others if I need and then I solve the problem, document what was done and communicate with those who need to know.”
The assessor was actually trying to be helpful and point out the need for flexibility and a people centric approach to complement the standard work process.

Part of designing processes in a knowledge organization would be to determine what skills and competencies are required for each work step involved and what information, knowledge and expertise are needed for each management decision. It sounds straightforward enough, but in practice poses a few challenges.
One way to facilitate the design of knowledge organizations would be to examine it from a knowledge flow perspective, i.e. identify what information and knowledge need to flow between what teams and groups. Once identified, these knowledge channels can be reviewed for efficiency and effectiveness and subsequently be subject to design and improvement.

In the end - and as the incident above illustrates - I think it all goes back to putting the knowledge worker in the center of design. Peter Drucker used to point out that knowledge workers need to manage themselves. He was probably right. After all, isn’t knowledge work knowledge centric?

Thinking as a Service

2011-02-22T08:50:00.003-05:00

It used to be 2.0 everything. Now it’s everything as a Service. One of the latest I’ve seen is Innovation as a Service by Imaginatik. I thought I should add one - Thinking as a Service. And I’m not the only one thinking about that. I noticed the expression is being used in a presentation at the upcoming Gartner Customer 360 Summit in Los Angeles.

A brainy friend of mine used to say that thinking is not for everyone. I guess what he meant was that highly analytical or creative thinking and deep reflection are not for everyone. Partly perhaps because some are not so inclined. But also simply for the lack of time. And that’s where consultants and advisors like myself come in. Not necessarily because we’re smarter than our clients, but because thinking takes time and we’re the time they don’t have.
Besides making time, there are ways to facilitate and support both comprehensive and creative thinking and there are ways of providing this as a service. Managed analytics is one example. The use of structured thinking guides would be another.
Here’s what I mean:
Brainovation® Structured Thinking Guides

A checklist for good ideas

2011-02-14T15:14:00.005-05:00

OK, you have a good idea. It could be a big one. It could be a small one. Or it could be one that just needs to bake a little more. Now what?
Well, you could roll up your sleeves and get going right away. Or you could:

• Imagine the outcome
• Craft the message
• Evolve the concept
• Evaluate the opportunity
• Build the alliance

• Expand the view
• Do the numbers
• Make the case
• Choose the path
• Lead the way

The point is that even a good idea needs some work before it’s ready to roll. And rolling a new idea uphill can be hard work.

I posted a slide version of this with additional comments on slideshare:
A checklist for good ideas

Workforce Skills and Innovation

2011-01-31T13:42:00.003-05:00

One would think that a firm’s performance largely depends on the skills of its people and, more broadly, that the economic performance of a nation depends on the education and skills of its workforce. Given the importance of innovation in the business performance of firms and in the economic growth of nations, one would also think that a majority of firms would be innovating at any given time. The actual situation appears a bit more complex.
Insufficient funds and the sheer lack of creativity and expertise are factors that impact innovation performance. Most established firms also spend a majority of their R&D effort on the improvement of existing products and services rather than on emerging technologies or risky ventures.
Still, it’s relatively obvious that there are linkages between education, knowledge, skills and innovation. To quantify these relations remains a bit difficult though.
This study, commissioned as an input to OECD’s innovation strategy, elaborates on some of the key issues involved:
Workforce Skills and Innovation

Innovation in the public sector

2011-01-27T09:24:00.003-05:00

“The public sector should never be a place where good ideas go to die” says the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation (CCAF) in a guide to innovation, risk and control published last year.
The guide goes on to promote four ideas:
• Encourage innovation
• Be in control
• Act on opportunity
• Reduce red tape

It identifies innovation as a management job. Management should test and apply creative ideas to solve problems and improve performance, create a control environment that protects resources and enables results, invest in a risk-smart culture and eliminate unnecessary rules and challenge the creation of new ones.
Sounds like good ideas for the private sector as well. Actually it sounds like ideas coming from the private sector. That’s also where most people served by the public sector work and the guide concludes with a people centric reflection:
“Public entities face recruitment, retention and capacity challenges as an educated and mobile workforce replaces the current generation. People with options are unlikely to choose a risk averse environment that creates barriers to innovation and fails to engender trust. But they will opt for an employer that values innovation and puts it at the core of its management practices.”

Download the full document:
http://www.ccaf-fcvi.com/IRC/CCAF-IRC-English.pdf

Nordic knowledge

2011-01-22T13:12:00.002-05:00

For quite some time, Nordic countries have repeatedly scored well in studies of innovation, knowledge economics, intellectual capital and the like.
High levels of education, dense human networks and a cultural disposition towards collaboration may be some of the reasons why. But there are others.

The Metropolitan Inc. consortium has conducted comparative studies of its constituent metro regions - Stockholm, Helsinki and Copenhagen. The results shed some additional light on how knowledge creation, cluster activities and entrepreneurial efforts occur in these three knowledge cities:
An assessment of human resources and knowledge creation
An assessment of specialized clusters
An assessment of performance, education and venture capital

The failure to innovate

2011-01-11T22:06:00.004-05:00

It’s wise to learn from past mistakes. And innovation is no exception.
Many cases from innovation history tell the same story though. Companies turn down a big innovation and instead choose to concentrate on their core business. And when it’s obvious what they should have done, it’s too late.
Are managers in such companies particularly shortsighted or incompetent? Probably not. It’s just difficult to predict the future success of something new. And just knowing that plenty of mistakes have been made in the past, is not very useful to avoid making another one. What can we do then? Innovation guru Clayton Christensen suggests using good theory, i.e. theory with strong predictive power. Christensen is an academic, but he’s probably right.

So what’s my prediction for 2011?
As usual I don’t predict anything specific, but I suspect that somewhere, someone will make a colossal mistake and turn down that next big innovation. It will rob a good company of a great future, but it will also hand over the opportunity to someone else. And they - if they seize it and if they succeed - will be the ones to write innovation history in 2011. With or without theory.

Year end thoughts

2010-12-30T16:20:00.003-05:00

With this post I will have reached my quantitative blogging objective for the year - sixty posts. Some of these have been less thoughtful than others, but I hope that at least a few may have shared some useful information or interesting insight.

I blog a fair bit about innovation. Thinking about it, there are certain kinds of innovation it seems we need more of like micro loans, baby warmers and phosphorus reuse.
And of course I’m all for technology gadgets as long as we don’t get totally carried away.

There are also the kind of innovations we could just as well have done without such as wall-to-wall carpeting, impossible-to-remove sticky price tags and, more recently, overly complex and out-of-control financial derivatives.
Even mighty Google - winner of this year’s global MAKE award - demonstrated that innovation is more than brand and resources as it had to pull the plug on its effort to conquer collaboration:
waving goodbye to Wave

Looking forward I wish that in Canada a real risk capital industry would emerge, in the US that Washington finds a way that works and that somewhere in the world there is a significant breakthrough in the economics of renewable energy.
On that note, and as this year is drawing to a close, I wish my readers all the best for 2011 and welcome back to the Brainovation blog in January for more straight thinking in our fast spinning, non-linear world.
Signing off for 2010,

Zuckerberg's impact

2010-12-19T12:01:00.005-05:00

Mark Zuckerberg is Time magazine’s 2010 person of the year. And yes, a great many people are on facebook. About half a billion back in June. I’m one of them, and facebook is certainly one of the online places to be. But I must admit that, while I do something I didn’t do before, being on facebook and other social networks hasn’t really changed my life in a fundamental way. Others may feel differently about themselves.
Like everybody else with a computer and an internet connection, I have access to a tremendous amount of information. I can educate myself on important issues a lot easier than before. I can keep track of friends and inform everyone of what I think and what I do. I can download music and movies. That’s great, but I still have only 24 hours a day and a lot of other things to do.
There is great reach, great potential and great convenience in social networks like facebook. Still I can’t shake a vague but nagging feeling that I’m fundamentally not that much better off than before. Then again, maybe many others are. And maybe together we all are.

Mr. Zuckerberg certainly has earned his recognition despite his relatively tender age. And certainly his life is one that has been significantly impacted by facebook. If indeed that’s the case for millions of others, maybe the real person of the year is all of us – the facebook user.

Innovation governance à la Sopheon

2010-12-09T21:39:00.001-05:00

Earlier today I attended another Sopheon webinar, this one on the implementation of innovation governance. It was presented by Sopheon’s consulting director Keith Duncan and senior consultant Iain King whom I incidentally remember well from my time as chief knowledge officer at Ericsson Canada, where we introduced Sopheon’s solution for online Communities of Practice.

Iain introduced a framework and maturity model for innovation governance based on aligning strategy, ideation and execution. The framework positions Portfolio Management as a critical process for achieving alignment. Of course, this is also one of Sopheon’s key areas of expertise.
The maturity model looks at how well the innovation governance processes are developed and integrated and how broadly they are applied across the enterprise and how effective they are.
I found it interesting to see how different companies have taken different paths towards a comprehensive system of innovation governance. The maturity model seems helpful in developing a deliberate and phased approach in that you can plot where you are, where you want to be and how to get there.

Keith emphasized that effective innovation governance is not easy and takes time to establish. Compared with the peaks and valleys of the typical Gartner hype curve, the Sopheon approach is aiming for a smoother, better managed path to productivity and return on effort. Secure senior management support, make room for change, don’t over-engineer the process, define early how to measure innovation performance, don’t forget to communicate, pick the first users carefully and try to keep the core team and support structure together were part of Sopheon’s advice for a successful implementation of innovation governance. Sounds like pretty good advice.

Many have described what to do in innovation management. Few have elaborated on how to actually go about putting a good system together and how to do it over time. In this webinar Sopheon did. I think they did a good job and I’m glad I took the time to attend.

Cognitive Companions

2010-12-05T21:20:00.006-05:00

We think therefore we are could modern organizations say. And thinking individually and thinking together are indeed two important disciplines in today's knowledge organizations.
Experts and management advisors play important roles in complex problem solving and decision making. Colleagues, peers and professional networks also serve as important thinking assistants. These knowledge resources in combination with various models, methods, tools and techniques serve as "cognitive companions" to knowledge workers and decision makers, helping organizations create better returns on their thinking capacity.
One type of cognitive companion is something I call a Structured Thinking Guide. Such a guide is a tool that provides comprehensive multiple perspectives on an area of interest or concern and facilitates situated thinking as well as the capture of additional insights and new ideas.

IDEAPUZZLE® is a good example of a structured thinking guide targeting the scientific research community:
http://www.ideapuzzle.com/

My own Brainovation® branded contribution is based on a mind mapping tool and targets innovation and other thinking intensive areas in organizations.
Visit interKnowledge Technologies for an overview of the concept.

A cloud over IT

2010-12-01T11:11:00.003-05:00

IT used to be those guys in the mainframe room. And then the mainframe disappeared. But it got replaced with a bunch of servers, which worked well for a while. Then Al Gore invented the internet and things started to change.
The problem was that the technology IT owned wasn’t unique. Everybody did the same thing. It was important, but it wasn’t core. And it was a big item in the cost budget. The solution was obvious: outsourcing. No wonder what was left of IT had to quickly reposition itself from technology provider to business partner.

The guys in the mainframe room have been through a lot. And now it’s happening again. The Cloud. The final demise of IT has been predicted several times before. It will be interesting to see what will happen this time.
Meanwhile, in a recent interview, All Covered Inc.’s CIO Tim Crawford comments on what’s happening and how IT might be impacted:
IT culture's norms in need of adjustment

And here’s a take on the issue by Forrester Research from early this year:
Business Technology Trends for Midsize Enterprises

Brainovation news

2010-11-30T17:19:00.005-05:00

The November issue of the Brainovation newsletter is now online:
Introducing Eureka Inc. - a business context for creativity and innovation

In addition to announcing Eureka, it also links to reports from events at the Toronto board of trade, including a presentation by Tata Consultancy Services CTO and another by Ontario's minister of innovation.

From how to wow: creative problem solving

2010-11-29T11:07:00.005-05:00

What happens in the brain when an insight occurs? Louis Pasteur once said, "chance favours the prepared mind". Modern neuroscience tends to agree even if a lot of theory is still speculative.
It goes something like this. We’re looking for a solution to a challenging problem and the brain starts working. More specifically the analytical engine of the left brain. It’s when we cannot solve a problem despite thinking hard about it that things may get interesting. Exhausting the analytical capacity and reaching an impasse followed by relaxing, sleeping or doing something different seems to somehow activate the creative engine of the right brain opening new pathways in subsidiary awareness.
Probably orchestrated by the prefrontal cortex, it seems like the priming of the left brain followed by decreased activity shifts the responsibility for problem solving over to the right brain, which starts probing the synaptic network for promising connections. When neurons fire in a new pattern that represents the solution and this is brought into awareness, an insight occurs. In this way, the brain makes new combinations of fragments or chunks of knowledge to form new ideas and make creative breakthroughs.

We experience such a eureka type insight as sudden, certain and satisfactory. The reason it doesn’t happen all the time is that Pasteur was right. The mind needs a good problem to work on and it needs to be well prepared when chance presents the opportunity.

Strategic thinking and managerial algorithmics

2010-11-23T11:00:00.004-05:00

Human thinking is not very deep. In fact it’s only about 4 mm deep. That’s the thickness of the cerebral cortex or the brain’s gray matter. It contains a lot of neurons though - about 11 billion I read somewhere. About twice as many as that of a chimp.
It appears that it’s the size, density and connectivity of the brain’s neural network that makes it able to do what it does. Help us think.
I picture thinking as a cognitive process running on a neuroplatform, which in turn operates on 110 mV electrical pulses at the Ranvier nodes along axons and the flow of neurotransmitters across synaptic gaps. Still somewhat of a mystery how that turns into actual thoughts, ideas and perceptions in the human mind.

But somehow it does and an emergent area of cognitive studies concerns the way managers think - or should think - about problems and issues. It’s sometimes referred to as managerial algorithmics. It’s not surprising that managers make choices about which problem to think about and how deep to think about a particular problem. But it’s the way they make those choices that’s interesting.
A study at the University of Toronto suggests that managers often make these choices for reasons other than those most responsible for strategic success or business benefits.
The underlying theory was articulated in this 2006 paper by Mihnea Moldoveanu:
Thinking Strategically about Thinking Strategically

Innovation and the ten commandments

2010-11-17T10:40:00.004-05:00

The current issue of Sopheon’s newsletter inKnowvations features an article by Pamela Soin about innovation and strategic management. Soin suggests that companies should align their portfolio management with a strategic innovation roadmap. It sounds obvious, but I can testify to the fact that even if companies do portfolio management, they don’t always have a well articulated strategy or an explicit roadmap for innovation.
Such shortcomings remind me of my own “ten commandments” for building innovation capacity:

i. Create the innovation strategy
ii. Specify the innovation process
iii. Define roles and responsibilities to drive the process
iv. Articulate the business case for innovation
v. Set innovation goals and targets

vi. Reconcile the arguments for innovation vs preservation
vii. Embrace risk and uncertainty
viii. Develop critical estimation and valuation skills
ix. Build culture through practice
x. Lead with insight and courage

There may of course be other important issues to consider in innovation management or in particular organizations and at the end of the day, innovation will not happen without innovative people making creative contributions. At any rate, signs of not making sufficient effort or not being effective enough include the loss of competitive edge, anemic growth and deteriorating business performance. Undesirable conditions indeed and good reasons why companies should be serious about building and sustaining their capacity for innovation.

In her article, Soin concludes “Hard times and excuses are everywhere, but so are innovation opportunities, whether it’s launching the next game changer, developing a creative distribution channel or creating a more effective manufacturing process. No matter what your company wants to do - increase revenue or cut cost - strategic roadmapping and portfolio management practices are critical to achieve full potential from your innovation efforts”.
Couldn’t agree more.

Speaking at McGill

2010-11-15T16:14:00.001-05:00

Last week I gave another guest lecture for a group of students at McGill, talking about knowledge and intellectual capital. It gave me the opportunity to look back at my experience and share some observations and insights about thinking and learning in organizations.
R&D organizations are certainly knowledge intensive and as such should be fertile ground for KM. And it was relatively easy to launch a solution like communities of practice even if it took a fair bit of planning and preparation and the help of a consultant and a technology vendor. As anticipated it was a little more challenging to sustain the effort over time and some social engineering had to be done along the way.
In the same organization, I also tried to introduce intellectual capital management as a way to help drive improvement. This was considerably more difficult and we ended up not making much headway. It was simply harder to “operationalize” ICM than KM, with the exception of intellectual property rights (technology patents) for which there were already practices in place. I left the company before we had time to figure it all out.

As for the knowledge economy, I couldn’t help but emphasizing that knowledge and money don’t substitute well for each other, it’s difficult to barter with knowledge and difficult to sell knowledge even in industries where that is the business model, e.g. management consulting.
Nevertheless, and on a more encouraging note, I concluded with Drucker’s vision of the enterprise of the future - one which is held together by strategy, one that has found the formula for the productivity of knowledge work and one in which the authority of knowledge equals the authority of position.
Perhaps today’s students get a chance to work in such companies tomorrow. I hope they will.

Smartsizing the organization

2010-11-14T18:17:00.003-05:00

Imagine a small company that has two senior specialists and one admin assistant. Times are tough and you need to cut cost. And quickly.
After laying off one person you have now reduced headcount by 33% and you have cut back on payroll cost. Good.
But as the admin work still has to be done, you have also reduced the productivity of the specialists, at least doubled the cost of admin work and probably eliminated any organizational slack for voluntary creative contributions. As hidden cost and non-financials, such impacts don’t show up in accounting. OK, maybe you didn’t have a choice. But you get my point. Smartsizing.

Naturally, others have made the same point. Some have even suggested how to manage. Last year this tool was put together by the Alliance for Work-Life Progress as an attempt to help organizations make better choices:
Flexible Rightsizing as a Cost-Effective Alternative to Layoffs

Strategy and gut feel

2010-11-09T18:22:00.006-05:00

Look at the ground you stand on says Tasaka. I agree. It helps to be well grounded. But to gain new insight we need to look at the world around us and ask probing questions. To break new ground we need to imagine what could be and create new problems to solve.
In other words, we need strategy.

Strategy is a thought construction. It requires knowledge of today’s situation and awareness of emerging change and new opportunities. Strategy involves the imagination to see multiple futures as well as the will and courage to pursue a vision. As a mental model it helps decision makers act today in anticipation of significant benefits tomorrow.

In theory, faced with important decisions about complex matters, a strategic scenario should play out in the mind of the decision maker: the challenge, the options and the possible futures. Mind playing the scenarios is typically triggered by discussions and consultations with peers and experts. It could even involve business simulations and war games.
In the end though, strategic management decisions are often reduced to executive gut feel. Also referred to as experience or expertise. The best outcome may occur when scenario play and gut feel combine into executive insight and turns into action. Things can still go wrong of course, but at least there was a strategic intent. And a learning experience to go with it.

The wisdom of Hiroshi Tasaka

2010-10-26T20:49:00.003-04:00

I came across the views of Japanese professor Hiroshi Tasaka a couple of years ago on YouTube where he was deliberating on the paradox of the knowledge society. I embedded the video in this December 2008 blog post:
http://thoughtblender.blogspot.com/2008/12/merging-brainovation-and-thoughtblender.html

Recently I noticed his comments on the financial crisis and his suggestion that invisible capitalism is emerging. A cute delivery without a deep dive into the issues, but the underlying message deserves some reflection. Here he is again on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBW2b6r9ryo

Finally, from a month ago, a guest article for the Huffington Post:
3 strategies for fusing science and spirituality

Business blindspots and real options

2010-10-24T22:08:00.005-04:00

Strategy traditionally involves identifying objectives, making choices, staying the course and managing accordingly. In turbulent times and fast paced environments, it may be more about finding ways to continuously work with strategic intent. In either case, embedded in strategic management lies the problem to act now towards outcomes and benefits that will materialize later. Strategy may even involve making short term sacrifices for long term - and therefore uncertain - gains. It could imply shifting resources away from current business into emerging areas with low initial returns. Not always easy things to do.
Surplus resources and organizational slack may allow companies to experiment, innovate and accommodate risk and uncertainty. In leaner times it’s a bigger challenge.

Quite a bit has been said and written already about strategy by Porter and many others. I would just like to emphasize the inclusion of these two items in the practice of strategic management: becoming aware of business blindspots and identifying real options.
A blindspot is the failure to recognize a business reality that we don’t like or don’t understand. Real options are the rights, but not the obligations, to invest in or abandon business opportunities based on valuation techniques. No reason why these two shouldn’t mix well with any model management adopts for strategic planning, decision making and control.
The Gilad method of blindspots analysis is well known in the CI community. It goes back awhile and there may be other ways of addressing the issue. What’s important is the fact that blindspots do occur and they need to be identified one way or the other.
For a refresher on strategy and real options, here’s an Oracle whitepaper from early this year:
Creating Options

More consulting conversations

2010-10-19T20:00:00.002-04:00

Today I had another consulting conversation lunch with Systency’s Greg Shaw. This time at the café Santos in Verdun. Nice little place for panini, salad, coffee and pastry. And conversation. Today’s topic was strategy. More specifically strategy in small consulting firms.

We felt that strategy is important. Not so much for a grand scheme to conquer a market but more for a defined business focus and a set of working assumptions and self imposed guidelines.
Like with hightech startups and other entrepreneurial ventures, in the beginning the firm in a way is the strategy. It is the focus and the vehicle for implementing that big idea or realizing that dream. As things move forward, strategy starts to take more distinct shape in terms of deliberate choices and plans for growth, marketing, branding, networking etc.

For a small business, it can be hard though to decline an opportunity just because it isn’t aligned with strategy. Or to stay the course with a negative cash flow just because it’s the strategy.
For most entrepreneurs I think it’s ultimately about sustaining both an opportunistic and a deliberate effort. Strategy should provide the general direction. And when opportunity knocks, we need to at least open the door before deciding to let it in or not.

Measuring and Motivating Creativity

2010-10-15T16:14:00.003-04:00

Can you measure creativity? Perhaps. Several models for doing so have been proposed, funny enough including both CAT (Consensual Assessment Technique) and RAT (Remote Associates Test). However, and not too surprisingly, creativity measurements have not been widely used in organizations. Partly because of the nature of the subject, but also because organizations - and their managers - prefer to do things more than develop a deep understanding of things.

Some of the latter may be useful though. According to researcher Teresa Amabile, creativity expresses itself through a combination of expertise, (creative) thinking and motivation. Interestingly, it’s very close to the productive interplay I mentioned in the previous post and which I think is so important to foster innovation.
Motivation is a key factor. Extrinsic motivation is closely related to management and incentives. Too much may be perceived as coercion and too little as lack of interest.
Intrinsic motivation is different in nature and can be difficult to work with, but it needs to be understood. Good managers know what really motivates people. And good managers find ways to work with organizational slack - another key factor in promoting creativity and innovation.

For those interested in developing further understanding of the topic, here’s a brief overview of what’s involved in measuring creativity:
Are we there yet? A review of creativity methodologies

Constraining Creativity

2010-10-12T20:48:00.000-04:00

Creativity is an innate capability of humans. In organizations, there need to be conditions for this capability to engage and express itself, i.e. there need to be conditions for people to make - and want to make - creative contributions.
On the opposite, the lack or absence of such conditions puts a constraint on creativity in organizations. Here are three contenders to look out for:

• Lack of confidence
• Lack of time
• Lack of structure

Confidence in the future stimulates creative contributions. Therefore lack of confidence in the strategies and leadership of an enterprise has the opposite effect. It could perhaps in some cases lead to innovative skunk work, but in general and as the result of reduced intrinsic motivation, it tends to limit the number and quality of contributions that people volunteer.

Enterprises aspiring to be creative need to find ways to operate with some degree of organizational slack, i.e. time for people to contribute above and beyond current assignments.
Another way organizations often engineer lack of time into their operation is the application of arbitrary deadlines. These are deadlines imposed for the sole purpose of putting pressure on individuals and teams. A way for managers to make their contribution. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for organizations being focused and people working hard and getting things done. But continuously operating this way has some ramifications. Not only does it reduce or eliminate organizational slack, it may also take away the very incentive to be creative and the room to make any contributions beyond what’s obviously expected.

Lack of structure as a constraining factor may seem somewhat counterintuitive. And indeed, in some organizations a “free form” environment may stimulate creativity. But in most organizations, making room for creative contributions would benefit from some designated roles, some place to go with new ideas and some way to orchestrate a productive interplay between creativity, management and expertise.
In these three articles I write some more about how organizations can work with creativity and innovation:
The Brainovation Papers

Managing the greatest asset

2010-10-11T15:41:00.003-04:00

In conjunction with the recent appointment of a new head of HR at a large telecom company, I noticed a statement from the CEO including the familiar claim that “people are our greatest asset”. I’m not sure if many former employees would wholeheartedly agree. The same company raised a few eyebrows when some years ago they announced a policy offering incentives for engineers over the age of 35 to leave. Not surprisingly, quite a few experienced engineers did, took the severance and ended up being hired by competitors. Others had to be brought back as consultants.

Arguments for including human capital and other intangible assets in the valuation of companies are easy to make. The problem of course is how to manage. Particularly in hard times when the greatest asset suddenly turns into the greatest liability.
I wish I had the answer. If there is a good one, I suspect it has something to do with good management.

Innovation: size small, medium or large

2010-09-27T14:34:00.003-04:00

Business history shows that, despite their muscle and might, time and again large companies have been left in the dust by smaller and nimbler ones who seem to “just do it” and get it right. Based on new ideas, new startups are launched every day. For them, innovation is the business. But what about the rest?

It’s been said that innovation is everyone’s job. I doubt it. Particularly when it comes to innovation in large companies. If it is everyone’s job, large companies would be extremely innovative. We know they’re not and there is a reason why. It’s not just because they’re large. As the illustration above suggests, it could be argued that it’s not actually their job to innovate. Medium to large companies primarily need to preserve, protect and grow their existing business. Of course they also need to improve products and services and innovate in their core business. Most do and some even run idea campaigns and business plan competitions or make acquisitions of small, innovative companies all in an effort to be more competitive, grow faster or gain market share.

But really creative and potentially game changing innovation will probably continue to come from unknowns in the left field and when least expected. Some of these will fail and others will be acquired. A few will go on to become large and less innovative companies themselves. And that’s ok. The left field will still be there.

From Boston with Insight

2010-09-26T12:29:00.003-04:00

I regularly check what’s shared by the Boston Consulting Group.
Their once famous Star-Dog-Cow-? “growthshare” model may be a bit outdated, but they continue to conduct surveys and produce reports and whitepapers that are certainly worth browsing. Maybe not always telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but most often interesting and useful.

Here are my picks from this month’s publications:
IT Advantage: Managing IT for Business Value
Winning in Emerging-Market Cities
Threading The Needle: Value Creation in a Low-Growth Economy

Tossing the business coin

2010-09-20T14:03:00.004-04:00

It’s often futile but always interesting to speculate about the future. Organizations do it in strategy, forecasts and scenario planning. Investors do it in the stock market and venture capitalists when they fund a startup.

Thinking about the future may not result in accurate predictions of it. In fact, it often doesn’t. But not thinking about the future is certainly not very helpful either. So it’s less about making predictions and more about probing for insights about new challenges and issues that may have to be addressed.
The trick of course is to act on a speculation. It’s all too easy to argue that “we cannot afford it”, “it’s too risky” or “we may be doing the wrong thing”. Innovators of course would argue “we cannot afford to wait”, “it’s too risky to do nothing” and “we may be doing the right thing”. Both arguments may be valid. They just happen to be on opposite sides of the business coin.
In lieu of a deliberate decision, I think management should at least toss the coin. And then play the game the best they can.

The Innovation Machine

2010-09-12T22:09:00.004-04:00

It’s been said that strategy, like frugality, is something you need when you’re running out of money. One could add that creativity is something you need when you’re running out of ideas. Hopefully they don’t run out at the same time.
With a supply of both, creative strategies involve the fusion of money (resources) and ideas. It’s also called innovation. And it’s a lot about successful execution.
A recent Economist article comments on the newest contribution by innovation gurus and authors Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble. It’s called the other side of innovation: solving the execution challenge.
The authors advise against all-inclusive idea generation that fragments the creative effort and also against counter-productive skunk works. They instead suggest building “dedicated innovation machines” that are still integrated with the rest of the company.
I have seen such machines in the form of internal innovation cells. They were not free of problems, but by and large they worked relatively well.
The Economist article is available online with quite a few comments from readers: the innovation machine

Govindarajan and Trimble have written about innovation execution before. Here’s an example from the Ivey Business Journal:
Achieving breakthrough growth: from idea to execution

Innovation talks at Couchiching

2010-09-06T13:21:00.009-04:00

I’ve been watching some replays from the Couchiching annual summer conference. This year’s theme was “watershed moment or wasted opportunity”. Many important issues and some excellent presentations and panel discussions.
Innovation was obviously on the agenda with both global and Canadian concerns. Here’s one of the videos from the cpac channel featuring The Conference Board’s Anne Golden, University of Toronto’s Roger Martin and OpenText’s Tom Jenkins:
Now What? Innovation and Global Competitiveness

Jenkins makes the argument that productivity comes from innovation and innovation comes from competitive intensity. I think we should also recognize that innovation basically comes from the creativity and curiosity of the human mind, but I agree with Jenkins when it comes to commercializing innovation and creating economic value.
Martin suggests that business schools should combine design education with business education. Interesting thought.

The Couchiching conference is not just about innovation, but this session again emphasized that innovation challenges are real and they need to be addressed.

Learning of the third kind

2010-08-29T17:45:00.005-04:00

Single and double loop learning take place more or less naturally in most organizations. New concepts and technologies can be adopted within the framework of such learning systems with relative ease. The case for double loop learning has to be rather strong though. After all, most management policies and work practices have been put in place to support the business and help people do a good job.
On the organizational level, triple loop learning would involve an examination of the entire enterprise, its organization and business architecture and its basic mission or raison d’être. For obvious reasons such examinations would be undertaken primarily as part of strategy reviews or scenario planning. On the individual level, triple loop learning plays a role in developing domain expertise through deliberate practice and involves the observation and understanding of ones own (learning) behavior.

Learning without change as the outcome is of course possible and beneficial in terms of decision making. But when triple loop learning calls for change, it really needs to happen.
This article by University of Vienna’s Markus F. Peschl offers a good take on the issues involved in serious learning:

Triple-loop learning as foundation for profound change, individual cultivation, and radical innovation

The innovator's dilemma: a struggle to survive

2010-08-27T11:25:00.002-04:00

I have worked some with entrepreneurs, innovators and small businesses. I see the same problem all the time. They’re strapped for cash. Not only that, I have even seen cases where they fall victim to abuse, where the legal system is utilized to force a judgment against them, knowing that most small operators don’t have the funds for serious litigation. Such judgments in turn disqualify them for SBA loans. Here I’m talking about the US of course.
Great. Everybody talks about how important innovation and entrepreneurship are and how important it is to get small businesses going. Yet, reality seems to be a bit different.
Innovators and entrepreneurs face many obstacles and I’m a bit surprised (and impressed) that so many of them are still around and are still trying despite the punishment.

OK, nothing wrong with putting people and ideas to the test and trying to qualify winners. But when the system prevents winners from emerging, then I feel that something isn’t quite right. Particularly in a (too) slowly recovering economy.

Telling a story

2010-08-17T09:14:00.004-04:00

A tweet from David Gurteen pointed me to this post about storytelling by Shawn Callahan:
http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2010/08/putting-stories-1.html

Callahan makes a good point. Storytelling, like personal narratives by experts, used to be a big thing in KM. But the other side of the coin - story elicitation - was never a big part of it. Interactive stories, like interactive computer games, could involve “modules” and “branches” discovered or elicited by the story listeners. It could include not only “this is what happened…” but also “this is what might have, or should have happened…” Above all, it must connect.

Yes, people should take it personally. To have impact, a story needs to be compelling, relevant and timely. It needs to make an emotional connection and provide a learning component that can actually be applied. And, like a good novel or a good movie, it needs a good story teller.

BI on the go?

2010-08-09T18:33:00.004-04:00

Few people would argue that we don’t need business intelligence. Or cell phones for that matter. But the case for mobile BI, i.e. business intelligence on your BlackBerry, iPhone or other mobile device, may not be quite as clear and compelling.
Here’s a recent and somewhat sceptical take on the current situation:
the case for mobile BI

So the main argument against mobile BI has been that people don’t really need that kind of information on the go, because it’s usually not real time sensitive. In many cases that may be true, but it’s not too difficult to think up situations where you’re not at your desk and still need business intelligence. At least some or enough intelligence that won’t need a large screen or heavy computing.

In addition to the big BI vendors, niche players are also now offering mobile BI solutions, including versions for the iPad:
QlikView
MicroStrategy
Pentaho
Roambi

Hard core mobilistas say that soon everything will end up on your mobile device. Others are more cautious. I think there is a case for mobile BI and as the application evolves, the case will become more compelling. It will either remain an option or become integrated with the rest of BI as a basic functionality. Just like the case was once argued for putting cameras in cell phones - once they’re there, people will use them.

Knowledge Management: real deal or not?

2010-08-05T14:26:00.002-04:00

Is KM currently a main stream solution? Is it well understood? Well practiced? Yes and no.
I think the answer is not more split than the fact that there is good management and there is bad. Or there are successful strategies and unsuccessful ones. And organizations that make serious efforts will probably end up being more successful than others in whatever they try to do, including KM.

It’s not too difficult to understand how Sharepoint works or what a community of practice is or why access to information is important. It’s what managers, experts and practitioners actually do that matters. And how much it matters that they do it well. I’m not saying that it is always wrong to introduce a solution looking for a problem. In fact, tinkering with a new solution may uncover problems or issues that have previously been invisible or poorly defined.
Almost a decade ago Tom Stewart suggested that KM must move from HR, IT or the CKO’s office to the frontlines of the business, where it can make a real difference. I think he was right, but I also think that KM must move to wherever it can make a difference - in strategy, decision making, managing a core process, practicing a key discipline or simply getting a job done.

An interesting test is whether an organization can articulate what they need to accomplish with the help of KM without using the words knowledge, learning, intellectual capital etc.
Try it, you may get a new perspective on KM. And perhaps on the rest of the business as well. At least in that sense, KM would be a real deal.

In Search of Time

2010-07-27T21:17:00.009-04:00

I just finished reading Dan Falk's In Search of Time. Falk takes you on a fascinating journey through time about time, time keeping and the nature of time. Relativity, quantum mechanics and the expanding universe mix with what ancient and modern philosophers and scholars have contributed to the understanding of time. Some have been spectacularly wrong like e.g. the Irish bishop James Ussher (1580-1655), who determined that the world was created at 6:00 pm on Saturday, October 22, 4004 B.C. The bishop was off by a bit.

Many great minds have struggled with the question of what time is. It's not really surprising that most have concluded that at least there is something deeply suspicious about the notion of time "flowing" from the past through "now" into the future, even though e.g. Newton declared that it does. But then what is it that flows and relative to what?

Some have argued that time is not a real property of nature, but rather an illusion created by our own minds. Others disagree and say that both space and time were created at the big bang 13.7 billion years ago. Before which there was nothing.

Then again, some simply argue that time is what clocks measure and it goes by at a rate of one second per second. Period. Not really very satisfying to an amateur philosopher like myself, who once wrote my master of science thesis about how stars are formed in the universe, but I guess it may have to do for now. By the way, it was actually that thesis which was responsible for turning me not into a scientist, but into a software engineer at the beginning of my corporate career. But that is another story. And actually a rather funny one at that.

Consulting Conversations

2010-07-27T13:48:00.007-04:00

Once a month I meet with Greg Shaw, founder & president of Systency, to talk about consulting, business management and other things of common interest. And to have lunch at the Premiere Moisson at Atwater market.
During the last twelve months Greg has put in a lot of effort to establish his business, which does technical due diligence and provides management services to startups and technology companies at the crossroads. Yesterday we discussed a range of issues from professional liabilities, payment terms and the fair handling of subcontractors to the art of writing a compelling marketing message as part of a technical document.

I enjoy the conversations. Greg is experienced and insightful and his business ethics are of the highest standard.

If you have a need for due diligence or management services or if you want to become a subcontractor, don't hesitate to get in touch with the Systency team. You will not get disappointed.
www.systency.com

Reviewing Innovation Performance

2010-07-26T16:37:00.004-04:00

No doubt, building and sustaining the capacity to innovate is crucial to the long term viability of businesses.
With the latest addition to the Brainovation service suite, interKnowledge Technologies now offer an Innovation Management Review looking at innovation performance from ten key business and organizational perspectives.
The review can be performed as an armchair assessment or as a study of actual innovation business practices and involves a knowledge exchange, an estimate of performance gaps in key areas and the identification of risk factors that may compromise the future market position of the firm.

Contact me for more information or to discuss an intervention:
ahemre@interknowledgetech.com

Innovation and Supply Chain Management

2010-07-22T12:58:00.003-04:00

This morning I attended another one of Sopheon's webinars in their series on innovation management practices. This session's title was Integrating Innovation and Supply Chain Excellence, featuring Gartner's Mike Burkett and Sopheon's Steve Rogers.

Burkett offered the not so surprising view that supply chain management is not sufficiently engaged in the early stage of innovation - also confirmed by a quick poll of webinar participants. The obvious questions then become what are the benefits of further integration and how can such integration be accomplished?

The overall issue is moving innovation not just to market in general, but to multiple regions world wide in an effective and cost efficient way while maximizing revenues, profits and return on assets. Actually, the latter challenges are of course the same for any enterprise doing business in a market. The point is that a new product must satisfy not only the demand side of the business, but also the supply side.
Most businesses know this. It's the depth and disciplines involved in addressing the issues that make the difference. Gartner, who acquired AMR Research late last year, recognizes product portfolio management as a key discipline that can be leveraged towards the objective of further integrating innovation and supply.

Naturally, Sopheon's technology offers process support. Accolade solutions provide ways to draw in suppliers and distributors secure and direct in early collaboration with new product developers to provide e.g. idea reviews, supply options assessments, cost impact analysis and environmental sustainability considerations. To estimate the eco footprint of a new product is a complex matter, but green is good and eco friendliness can lead to attractive marketing characteristics of a new product.
Another issue concerns the ownership of the innovation process. Steve Rogers pointed to a couple of cases from the UK, where supply chain management actually owns the process, driving it from the back end. This obviously requires that SCM professionals have the necessary broader business skills and sufficient understanding of NPD practices.

I'm not surprised that SCM experts suggest increased strategic visibility of the supply chain or that technology vendors suggest the use of their solutions. However, there were some good points made and product life cycle profitability is a legitimate - and important - business issue. In conclusion then, and like previous Sopheon webinars I have attended, this one too was an hour well spent.

The Arts of Benchmarking and Innovation

2010-07-21T12:56:00.002-04:00

I recently noticed a blog post expressing the view that benchmarking is a serious hinderer to innovation. The argument of course being that benchmarking focuses on the existing, while innovation focuses on the creation of something new.
I get the point, but I can't see why you cannot do both. Something new to the firm can certainly be learned from others and benchmarking e.g. innovation practices (instead of products or services) could be quite useful.
A well conducted benchmarking study involves not just an intent to copy, but rather a dialogue between two or more parties about organizational and business performance. It could spark new ideas that could trigger innovation. The purpose of benchmarking is simply to learn how well the firm is currently doing compared with good or best industry practice. Why would that hinder innovation? One could just as well argue that tracking sales, cash flows or market share is detrimental to innovation because it's not dealing with the future.
If it's about benchmarking or innovating, well then there is a management choice. Hopefully it's rather about both. Benchmarking could be driving development efforts in some areas and innovation in others.
In summary, I agree benchmarking shouldn't be done at the expense of innovation, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done at all. At least if the firm knows what it's doing and why it's doing it.

And There Was Light

2010-07-09T12:29:00.004-04:00

Earlier this week I got a chance to see And There Was Light, a special exhibition at Gothenburg's Eriksbergshallen featuring works by Leonardo, Michelangelo and Rafael. Most impressive was the curiosity, productivity and creative genius expressed in the paintings, drawings and invention models of Leonardo. Other interesting items included a full scale replica of Michelangelo's David and the recently discovered portrait painting La Bella Principessa by Leonardo, the latter accompanied by a detailed explanation of how experts were able to identify Leonardo as the artist (including the finding of one of his finger prints on the painting!).
Replicas of Leonardo's The Last Supper and Rafael's The School of Athens were explained with slides, spotlights and voice recordings.
Overall an impressive show. The exhibition is valued at 2 billion Swedish crowns and will tour the world the next eight years. If it comes to a city near you, don't miss the opportunity to go see it.
As an oddity, I noticed on Wikipedia that one of Leonardo's notebooks - Codex Leicester - is today owned by Bill Gates. Hmm...

Making Art Work

2010-07-04T05:06:00.008-04:00

Today's Göteborgs-Posten (The Gothenburg Post) features an interview with creativity researcher Evelina Wahlqvist. Like others before her, Wahlqvist makes the case that art is more than an expression of creativity. Or rather that creativity is more than art or culture - it's an actual industry. And a rather big one. Of course, creative contributions are a bit different from the production of other commercial goods. But they do have paying customers. At the same time, one can make the argument that art should not be commercially controlled and that artists, like researchers, should be free to pursue whatever they like. Unfortunately though, both artists and researchers have to make a living and somebody has to pay.
And that's precisely the point. Overall, creative contributions, art and culture are part of regional economies. And the business process for commercializing creativity is fundamentally not that much different from the one used in other areas of economic activity.
Last year Wahlqvist conducted a local study of the economic contribution of art:

Making Art Work

Innovation Leaders

2010-06-28T15:45:00.008-04:00

The driving force behind innovation is the wish to create and implement something new. To organize and accomplish this is the task of the innovation leader. Innovators and entrepreneurs know they have to find ways to roll their idea uphill and beat the odds stacked against them. Despite the challenges and difficulties involved, some entrepreneurs actually do succeed and some companies are clearly more innovative than others. Even though luck and circumstance may influence the outcome, human factors such as determination, perseverance and leadership ultimately make the difference. What then makes an effective innovation leader? To some extent probably the same characteristics that make an effective leader in general. But there are also some circumstances and issues that specifically challenge innovation leaders, requiring the ability to e.g.

See emerging high value opportunities before others do
Navigate through ambiguity, uncertainty and real options
Engage and get key players on board
Build networks, coalitions and alliances to help evolve the innovation
Drive the early effort with credibility and confidence

Things change and in innovative ventures failure is an option. Effective innovation leaders need to know when to abort a project should the business case be compromised or a better solution emerge. More than just killing an idea, in such a case, the innovation team has gained a valuable experience, honed its skills and will be better equipped to deliver when the next opportunity emerges.

Agile innovation

2010-06-15T21:38:00.002-04:00

Agile is good. The word itself says it’s so. Like maturity. There is both psychology and marketing in this. Rapid research, agile development and mature capabilities. Who doesn’t want it?
There is merit in methods like Extreme Programming (XP) and Scrum and waterfall models are so…well, old fashioned.
It is intriguing to think of communication centric and knowledge sharing based work practices to complement - or maybe even replace - the traditional process centric models. But how well does it work? How does it impact product quality, maintenance and lifecycle cost? Good questions and the answers may vary from case to case.

Finally agreeing on customer (market) requirements at the end of a project instead of at the beginning and having the development team work in monthly sprints towards early releases à la Scrum sounds good. I can see it applied in e.g. a startup software company that doesn’t have a legacy process or in an innovation cell within a larger organization, where an idea is quickly turned into a prototype by a rather small development team using “light” work processes.
However, a good methodology does not compensate for a bad idea (yes, some ideas are bad or at least not so good) and if we go to market with remaining uncertainty or with a lightly tested solution, we need to be aware of potential consequences and be prepared to commit additional time and resources. In that sense it’s a risk assessment and a business decision. And isn’t that what innovation is all about, agile or not?

If you want an Agile overview or refresher, I would suggest the following download from the Scrum Training Institute:
Nuts, Bolts and Origins of an Agile Process

Innovation: who's job is it?

2010-06-06T21:53:00.002-04:00

It’s easy to agree that quality is everyone’s job. Whatever is being done, it should be done right. Most things though in organizations are not everyone’s job. That goes for innovation as well. Sure, anyone could have a great idea and there needs to be a way to capture and seriously evaluate ideas wherever they come from, but that’s not the same thing as innovation being everyone’s job.
I recently met with a former customer at a telecom R&D company. We talked innovation and agreed it’s not everyone’s job. But it has to be someone’s job. Or rather the job of a small group of creative and well connected people with a mandate and who can inspire others, help ideas evolve and get traction, draw in expertise and get management involved. The latter can be tricky and managers can be hard to convince when ideas come with uncertainty and risk.
I realize that there can be concerns about the business potential of a new idea. What should not be an innovation concern, however, is whether a new product will work. If it’s built, it will. After all, isn’t quality everyone’s job?

Mind as resource

2010-05-31T15:35:00.004-04:00

Mind matters. Therefore understanding mind matters too. Henry Ford once noted that “every time I ask for a pair of hands, they come with a brain attached”. Ford may have inadvertently pointed to the importance of intellectual capital long before it became a household concept.
Is mind a resource? Yes, of course. But if it is, then how should it be viewed and how should it be managed?
Despite the importance of the meaning of the word “is” - as emphasized by a former American president - it is not what mind is that makes it important, but what mind does. Long before the times of Henry Ford, René Descartes wrote the famous philosophical line “cogito ergo sum” but also as a practical man observed that “it’s not enough to have a good mind, the main thing is to use it well”. Indeed. For mind to be a highly productive resource it needs to be engaged beyond routine knowledge work. The productive mind should operate beyond knowing what to do or how to do it, i.e. beyond business as usual.
Learning and innovating are both expressions of the productive mind. And both take time. Ideas emerge not on command, but when they are ready. The learning mind requires time to reflect on outcomes and a disposition towards change and improvement. The creative mind requires inspiration, motivation and a continuous engagement with new problems and opportunities. And both benefit from connection with other minds.

Innovative teams may want to improvise, self organize and think concurrently. This article by the Asian Development Bank’s Olivier Serrat makes an interesting comparison between the design shop and the traditional organization:
Design Thinking

Mindful Leadership, Mindful Practice

2010-05-21T09:56:00.002-04:00

From David Gurteen’s May newsletter I was directed to an article by Harvard University psychology professor Ellen Langer delightfully promoting Mindful Leadership.
Couldn’t agree more with Langer about the need for mindfulness, but I think it’s not just a matter of cognitive psychology or the behaviour of leaders. It’s also simply a matter of time.
I’ve said it before. Leaders who don’t allow themselves time to think may turn into thoughtless leaders. And who wants to be a thoughtless leader? And who wants to be led by one?

You can read professor Langer’s article on the HBR blog:
A Call for Mindful Leadership

and my take on mindful practice in previous blog posts:
Mindful Practice
Making the case for mindful practice

A KM conversation

2010-05-20T11:11:00.003-04:00

In a recent conversation with a contact at a large construction engineering company, I learned the company aims to implement "integrated knowledge management" driven by a corporate KM strategy. Sounds great, but it made think a little.
I think a few distinctions should be made in order for conversations about knowledge management to be conducted with precision.
There is knowledge work and there is support for knowledge work. Then there is knowledge management, which is about two things – organizing and maintaining the support for knowledge work and a strategic effort to develop, retain and leverage knowledge and expertise for business benefits.
This means one should try to clearly identify the points of impact and thus the expected organizational and business outcomes of knowledge management. These then help formulate the strategic goals which in turn are the starting points for KM strategies and plans. Add value engineering and that’s as much as most organizations will be able to do. And that’s pretty good.

Innovation policy: navigating buzz, hype and reality

2010-05-18T20:04:00.002-04:00

Innovation is a concept, a strategy and a practice. It’s also a buzzword. Nations need innovation policies and systems. Industries, regions, clusters and firms rely on innovation to sustain their growth strategies. Innovation needs to show in annual reports and economic reviews. To paraphrase the well known line from the movie Wall Street – growth is good. And that makes innovation good.

There are many different kinds of innovation though and policy makers may find themselves navigating a maze of innovation concepts. In addition, bridging the inevitable gap between policy and practice can be a significant challenge.

The following article from INSEAD Knowledge by Sami Mahroum elaborates a bit on the issues involved:
In search of an effective innovation policy

Building Innovation Systems

2010-05-10T10:51:00.003-04:00

I have stated before that a guiding principle for building innovation systems is the orchestrated interaction and productive interplay between creativity, expertise and management.
The same can be used as the starting point for assessing the effectiveness and performance of an established innovation system.
Clearly, looking at all three actors involved, a system of innovation may appear complex and fuzzy. The role of creativity in e.g. the arts is well understood, but it may be less clear how creativity makes its contribution in business.
In addition, while negotiating the complexity of building and operating a system of innovation, one can hardly escape Drucker’s cleverly crafted key management question: what needs to be accomplished? Without expected outcomes articulated it is difficult to judge the effectiveness of any design, including the design of an innovation system.

In R&D it may be taken for granted that creativity, expertise and management naturally combine in new product development. To some extent they do, but designing an effective system of innovation in R&D organizations still involves a range of issues and challenges.
The following article by Joachim Burbiel sheds some light on the topic:
Creativity in Research and Development Environments

Structured Innovation

2010-04-30T23:03:00.004-04:00

There was a time when I was trying to introduce a structured way of working in a product management organization. The methods we picked included Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to capture the voice of the customer. The results were mixed.

Today, with the ever increasing speed of change and with greater complexity and business uncertainty, I am convinced that it is not picking one particular method that will do the job even if an organization learns the method well. Nor do I think one should just go with the (chaotic) flow.
It seems to me that understanding multiple methods and applying them when and where they make sense would be a better approach to managing the early stage of innovation.
Or maybe it’s not as much managing as guiding and making room for exploration, discovery and learning. It might be messy, but I would argue there is a reason why the “fuzzy front end” is best served by a “messy process”.

Beyond the pure FFE though, innovation certainly benefits from some structure such as e.g. portfolio management, stage gate processes and metrics. Perhaps even QFD.
This IndustryWeek article featuring Parker’s Winovation approach goes back two years, but is still an interesting read:
The Future of R&D: Leveraging Innovation

Innovation 2010

2010-04-25T17:11:00.004-04:00

This month the Boston Consulting Group released another major global study on the practice of innovation.
Of the companies surveyed, compared to last year an increasing number indicate that they consider innovation a top three strategic priority and 61% say they will increase their innovation spending in 2010 compared to 58% last year.
This is hardly unexpected considering the fragile but continuing economic recovery. Nor is it a surprise that rapidly developing economies will move up the innovation value chain creating a more level playing field.
What is perhaps more puzzling is the apparent lingering gap between the importance of innovation and the capability to innovate. Most companies still seem to use general business metrics such as revenue growth and customer satisfaction as measurements of innovation. Only 20% indicate they measure time-to-market and even fewer include patents in their innovation measurements. It seems that despite the fact that idea management, patent portfolios and project valuation techniques have been around for quite some time, innovation management overall has been slow to transition from emerging to established discipline.

You can read the BCG report online: Innovation 2010

OL & KM past the peak

2010-04-13T16:39:00.003-04:00

Way past the peak of the familiar hype curve, Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management aren’t creating nearly as much buzz as they used to.
It could indicate that both are now mainstream management concepts. If so, and after over a decade of practice, what impact have they had on organizations and on business outcomes?
Not a particularly easy question to answer. Partly because both deal with intangibles and partly because assessing a practice involves not only the extent to which it is being used, but also how well it is being performed. Concepts also evolve with practice.
There was a time when portals were big and if you had one - and maybe a taxonomy to go with it - you were doing KM. Obviously not any more. As the original concepts have matured with experience, new ones have been introduced along with new technologies.

In general, it seems that OL and KM impacts could either be observed in the business performance or mission delivery of knowledge based enterprises or in the effectiveness and efficiency of individual knowledge work. I’m sure there has been positive impact, but I haven’t seen many broad studies published.
This paper by The University of Passau’s Franz Lehner and Nicolas Haas at least suggests a model for empirical research of KM success factors:
http://www.ejkm.com/volume-8/v8-1/Lehner_and_Haas.pdf

To be or not to be

2010-04-08T20:46:00.003-04:00

An iPad owner, that is the question. Apple’s product introductions are carefully engineered and they have managed to turn their new gadget launches into media events and early user stampedes.
No, I haven’t got one yet. Partly because I’m in Canada and partly because I’m not yet sure if I would like one. Or rather if I would like to buy one. Or actually if I would like to buy one now.

I remember years ago watching Bill Gates make a compelling pitch for the tablet PC at a Microsoft executive circle on innovative collaboration. As we all know, it never quite made it. The tablet that is. And both my Palm pilot and Sony Clié organizer turned into electronic trash years ago. Along with I’m not sure how many cell phones including my first one – an Oki car phone with the radio transceiver bolted to the floor of the trunk of my Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme V8 coupe. Ah, those were the days.

Of course, I admit that the iPad is a bold attempt at changing the personal computing experience and probably for the better. And now that they are fixing the Wi-Fi problem and promising a multi-tasking version, I think I should take a closer look at it. Probably at the Apple store on Saint Catherine street. But in due time, just like I did with my iPod.

The Super Innovative Firm

2010-03-29T19:12:00.004-04:00

An innovative, or highly innovative, firm could be described as one that generates, controls and maintains a strong market performance primarily through innovation. Not surprisingly, studies confirm that innovative firms generally do better in their markets than non-innovative firms. However, even in an era of accelerated innovation and rapid creation of new markets, moderating forces will continue to be present – the resistance to change and natural risk aversion of individuals, organizations and societies as well as economic & financial conditions and the responsiveness of markets.
There is no officially agreed set of characteristics of a super innovative firm. The following “top ten” suggestions may serve as a starting point for developing a deeper and more comprehensive view:
The super (highly) innovative firm

is really good at what it does but wants to become even better

has a real fear of complacency, status quo and a “learningless” environment

has a strong sense of urgency about being curious and creative

is continuously directing the creative effort towards outcomes beneficial to the business

has developed effective ways of combining creativity, expertise and management into a well orchestrated and highly productive innovation process that consistently turns good ideas into good business

is capable of working with both a single big idea and many small ideas

is developing, encouraging and empowering individuals to act as innovation leaders

has found effective ways of both exploring and accomplishing through dense and active networks

is actively seeking new knowledge and is particularly good at exploiting incongruities, change and shifts in market forces and is skilled in forming coalitions and alliances around a new idea

is imagining the future and sees its mission as trying to make it happen

There may be others or these may not be the ones. You may wish to share your thoughts on the super innovative firm. Are we entering an era of sustained super innovation driven by information, knowledge, social networking and globalization or are we just in another long economic wave of the Kondratieff cycle modulated by shorter booms and busts? Are there firms that can be labeled super innovative and, if so, what are the characteristics of such firms?
Looking forward to your comments.

Innovation Leaders

2010-03-25T08:38:00.005-04:00

Innovation leaders are an interesting corporate breed. A recent post by Blogging Innovation’s Paul Sloane comments:

“Innovative leaders are a little schizophrenic. They strive for success but fear it. They love to win yet they applaud failure. They are coldly analytical some times and hotly passionate at others. They use left brain and right brain techniques. Their management styles are sometimes tight and sometimes loose. They start fires and they put them out.”
Well said. I would add that they also make friends and they make enemies.
It’s taken for granted that innovation involves risk and failure from a business point of view. It may also involve risk from a personal career point of view. Innovation leaders - like other leaders - must therefore ask themselves the question “am I willing to put myself at risk to do what’s right?”

Innovation sometimes comes with casualties. Not only those ideas that didn’t make it but also a corporate career or two. But then again, if you get punished for pursuing a good idea, chances are it’s probably not the right company to work for anyway.
Let’s go light some fires.

Re-inventing innovation

2010-03-20T22:25:00.006-04:00

Innovation is not just thinking outside the box. It’s just as much about operating outside the box. The “box” can be a current concept, an established business model or a dominant design but it can also be a mandate, a team, a department, the company, an established best practice or anything else that may confine creativity and collaboration. In fact, we both think and work in boxes inside boxes, almost a bit like those Russian matryoshka dolls. And we do it not just because it’s the infrastructure of work, but because we seem to need such boxes.
The point is that we also need effective ways to work and think across boundaries, connect and share knowledge with people we don’t already know and find and follow new, promising pathways.
It has been suggested that modern business organizations need “T-shaped” managers, i.e. managers who not only focus on results in their own functional area, but also contribute across functional areas or business units. The same can be argued for innovators. They need specific domain expertise, but they also need broader views and sufficient knowledge of other domains or disciplines to be able to see and pursue new connections and new opportunities.

In science based businesses, the interrelation of science and technology with the organization of business presents both innovators and managers with the additional challenges of structural change. In an easy but interesting read, this working paper by Harvard Business School’s Gary Pisano discusses the relationships between technological development and the design of organizational, institutional and managerial models:
Innovating How We Innovate

A time to try

2010-03-11T15:04:00.004-05:00

There is sometimes a tendency to view the economy as a separate entity that acts on its own, posing both opportunities and threats with us as beneficiaries or victims. It might be good to remember that it’s not just us vs the economy, but together we are the economy. And we will recover.
On that note, it seems we are approaching the point in the global recovery where - as Tom Davenport once expressed it - companies may be willing to send up a few enterprise trial balloons. I hope they do and while they’re at it I suggest they also:

Find the outskirts of the normal comfort zone for trying new ideas
Hire someone who doesn’t match any current job description
Make room for their people to think and think together

That way companies may be better prepared to interpret a reaction or quickly pursue an interesting opportunity. After all, what’s the point in sending up a trial baloon just to shoot it down yourself or lose sight of it?

Leading For A Living

2010-03-05T15:30:00.002-05:00

A lot has been said and written about what leadership is and what effective leaders should do. In a recent interview BASF chairman Jürgen Hambrecht suggests that at the core of leadership lies courage, suggesting that when you are through thinking then do it. I feel he puts the finger on two key ingredients of effective leadership - insight and courage. They are both required as one without the other may lead to lack of accomplishment or accomplishing the wrong things.
In order to make decisions and act, leaders need to ask questions. To be or stay effective, leaders need to ask themselves some questions too. On that note I have compiled twentyone suggested questions practicing leaders may want to regularly ask themselves:

Obviously all the questions - if applicable - should be answered with a “yes”. The point is to determine what it takes to claim a “yes” and what one should do in case the honest answer is a “no”. That’s what a keynote speech or a seminar on leadership development would be about. Contact me at ahemre@interknowledgetech.com

Management by facts, figures and gut feel

2010-02-27T19:56:00.008-05:00

Peter Drucker once pointed out that whereas computers are used by managers, computing isn’t used much in management. Things may have improved a bit since Drucker’s observation, but by and large management in a majority of organizations is still mostly about administration, supervision, communication, strategy, goals & objectives and results - all blended with a fair bit of politics. Computers are used to acquire information and to communicate. Numbers, however, are primarily produced by accounting and even though balanced scorecards have been widely adopted, when push comes to shove it’s the traditional financials that count.
We all know there have been cases where creativity crept into accounting causing some spectacular failings. And in recent years we have seen what creativity gone wild can do to financial systems. Or perhaps it was more a combination of greed, complexity and lack of oversight than creativity itself that wreaked the havoc.
I realize there are some good uses of technology in management and there should probably be more of it, but it’s hard to replace brotherhood, boardroom talk and backroom deals with technology, good as it may be. I guess management will remain a blended discipline for quite some time to come. And maybe it isn’t all bad. Good managers do exist, experience does make a difference and gut feel can be right.
In conclusion, and as the illustration indicates, sometimes there is more to 1+1 than meets the eye. Particularly in management.

Innovation marketplaces

2010-02-23T14:38:00.000-05:00

Open innovation marketplaces have been around for some time. Many firms still view such marketplaces as immature and transactions as inefficient. While advocates argue that markets have improved, skeptics continue to view these markets largely as niche phenomena.
I think OI markets should be approached and engaged either as part of a deliberate effort to learn and explore or as part of a strategic innovation plan or not at all.
The role of innovation intermediaries is interesting as firms are reluctant to engage in transactions as long as they perceive the markets as immature and markets cannot mature unless firms engage. This is of course the usual dilemma for any innovation and the intermediated innovation market is in fact itself an innovation in the early stage of diffusion.
Intellectual Ventures is a good example of how intermediaries position themselves.

This abstract from a recently published market study by Kathleen Diener and Frank Piller touches on key issues and also includes a list of open innovation intermediaries:
The Market for Open Innovation

The Art of Strategy

2010-02-08T12:54:00.003-05:00

A long time ago Sun Tzu wrote “the art of war is of vital importance to the state; it is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin; hence it is a subject of inquiry, which can on no account be neglected.”

The same could be argued for the art of strategy and the corporation. Strategy should on no account be neglected. Most fundamentally, its nature must be understood. In addition to being forward looking, strategy must involve intent, objective and deliberate choice:

If strategy doesn’t make a choice, how can it be strategy?
If choice doesn’t involve objective, how can it be made?
If objective doesn’t derive from intent, where does it come from?

Making choices is at the heart of strategy. As Michael Porter has pointed out, the more we wrestle with trade-offs, the better we can identify new opportunities that support our value proposition. Making wise choices requires that information, knowledge and competitive intelligence feed into the strategic management process. As a consequence, strategy not only asks for a vision or a future wanted position, but must continuously answer basic questions like what’s happening, why is it happening, how should we position ourselves and what capabilities do we therefore need to preserve or create?
It is the answers to such questions that will point out the path, whether into a blue ocean, onto a green field or across a red river. The path is not the strategy, but rather outlines the steps that have to be taken. Will there be uncertainty and risk? Of course, but by seeking answers to the right questions, we will be able to tread the chosen path with greater awareness and with greater confidence.

Managing The Business Case

2010-02-05T15:53:00.015-05:00

There are business cases and there are business cases. Some are more sophisticated than others. Of course a business case may not need to be more sophisticated than in order for the right decision to be made. But it does need to be sophisticated enough to do just that.
A business case isn’t necessarily just looking for a net present value for itself, but also competes with other opportunities as well as with status quo. Different investments or different engineering approaches may create more or less valuable real options. Particularly in the case of emerging technologies, such options should be weighed in. In addition, as all business cases are forward looking in nature, they inevitably become related to future scenarios. In principle, business cases should be computed for each future scenario identified. Scenario probabilities could be estimated with the help of prediction markets.
Finally, business cases are not only used in decision making. They are also important vehicles for learning - or at least they should be. Assumptions should be made explicit and select cases should be tracked for performance, studied and added to the organization’s shared knowledge base. In addition to supporting future decisions, captured cases could then also be used in training or in business simulations.
In this way, “business case management” actually becomes a valuable part of knowledge management.