THE
LEADING
VOICE
IN
INNOVATION
CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER
i n n o vat i o n 101
+
i s s u e #6
The Budgeting Barrier Apple spent $10 billion on innovation in 2013. Dan Hoffman looks at whether a bigger budget, equals better research| 04
The People Barrier Google’s Yuval Dvir looks at the people you need to have involved in your innovation efforts, and what makes a great leader | 13
welcome to the
innovation 101 edition In this edition of CINO, we are concentrating specifically on the barriers to innovation in a series we’ve called ‘Innovation 101’. To do this justice, we have called on five proven innovators to impart their knowledge and experience. With their help, this edition provides industry-specific advice, and should act as a guide for companies which are yet to embark on an innovation project.
MANAGING EDITOR Simon Barton EDITOR George Hill ART DIRECTOR Charlotte Weyer
04 | the budgeting barrier
13 | the people barrier
Apple spent $10 billion on innovation in 2013. Dan Hoffman looks at whether a bigger budget, equals better innovation
Google’s Yuval Dvir looks at the people you need to have involved in your innovation efforts, and what makes a great leader
07 | the culture barrier
16 | the structure barrier
A strong corporate culture is something most companies aspire to. In this article, Sue Jefferson discusses how culture can make or break innovation
Innovation can be structured in many ways. Richard Angus discusses four ways innovation can be segmented, and how each can influence a company’s success
09 | the roi barrier Mark Bigham tells us how he has managed to persuade senior executives to financially back his innovation ideas
18 | round up We discuss the main takeaways from each of the barriers discussed in Innovation 101
CONTRIBUTORS Yuval Dvir Sue Jefferson Mark Bingham Richard Angus Dan Hoffman
Are you are looking to put your products in front of key decision makers? For Advertising contact Andrew at ataylor@theiegroup.com
contributors Sue’s main role at McCain
Yuval’s CV is like a rundown
was to address the root
of the world’s most
causes of innovation
innovative companies. Not
and to identify how the
only is he currently working
Sue Jefferson,
company’s business
VP Global
performance could
Innovation*
improve. She looked at
at McCain
the role culture has in
Foods
innovation.
Yuval Dvir, Global Product Operations at Google
at Google, he has also been part of the success at Microsoft and Skype. He investigated the importance of people in his article.
Mark’s position has
Richard is responsible
seen him become deeply
for IE’s most successful
involved in the company’s
innovation events and has
innovation efforts. He has
been working in the area for
Mark Bigham,
been with the company
Richard Angus,
several years. He discussed
Chief Innovation
since 2005, and he
Head of
how a company’s structure
Officer at
focussed on the the Return
Innovation
can become a barrier to
Raytheon
on Investment (ROI) barrier.
at The Innovation
innovation.
Enterprise
Intelligence
Dan has been with the county since October 2012, and offers a different perspective on innovation Dan Hoffman,
due to his public sector
background. He called upon Chief Innovation projects past and present to Officer at Montgomery explain how he’s achieved County success.
* Sue is now the CEO of Possibilities Realised Ltd.
chief innovation officer
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the
BUDGETING Barrier
Dan Hoffman, Chief Innovation
Officer at Montgomery
County Words by Simon Barton
D
an Hoffman has been the Chief Innovation Officer at Montgomery County since October 2012. Dan’s experiences with innovation have mainly come within the public sector. This perspective, one which does not come from a purely commercialized setting, allows us to evaluate the budgeting boundary differently. Montgomery County is part of the Maryland state. Just above Washington DC and just to the left of Baltimore, the county has around one-million inhabitants and is one of the most affluent areas in the United States. Dan sees considerable differences in both sectors, and states: ‘The difference between government and commercial organizations is considerable. We don’t think that we have to spend a certain percentage on R+D, it’s very ad-hoc.’ The environment in which innovation is tested also has an impact on the budgeting process. In government, failure is almost encouraged, and is seen as a way of guaranteeing the development of
i n n o vat i o n 101 : t h e b u d g e t i n g b a r r i e r
5 Image Copyright: MikeDotta
future iterations. This can be done because the budgets involved rarely amount to more than two-hundred thousand dollars. Contrast that to the ten-billion dollars Apple spent on innovation in 2013, and it’s clear that the stakes aren’t as high. You may think that having a budget the size of Apple’s would allow for more freedom. And in terms of the projects that they undertake, it does, but what it doesn’t do is give them an opportunity to fail. If you spend ten-billion dollars, you need a return. When you spend two-hundred thousand, or even less, that pressure isn’t as intense, and that means that innovation needn’t be forced. In reference to this Dan states: ‘Instead of creating a safe place for these ideas to be tested out, they [commercial organizations] create these mechanisms where failure isn’t possible. I think that inhibits innovation for governments.’ Proof of concept projects, therefore, are not done with the same mindset. Yet drawing a straight line between public and commercial environments isn’t possible either. Dan says: ‘It depends on the size of the government too. It’s hard to say that a rural county with 15,000 people is going to be doing the same amount of R+D that a major county like ours is, which has a million people, but there are things they can do.’ This means that the budgeting process, due to the tasks that a jurisdiction of Montgomery Council’s size must undertake, compared to one with a smaller population, differs considerably from government to government. As mentioned before, the budgets that Montgomery County deals with are often in the region of two-hundred thousand dollars. But budgets, in Dan’s opinion, shouldn’t be rolled out on a project by project basis. He states: ‘They are not huge sums of money, so having a fund available to capture emerging opportunities, to maybe help a startup company, those are the types of opportunities you want to seize, and to do that you can’t just rely on the standard annual budgeting process. You need to
have fund set aside to accommodate for those types of projects.’ Smaller budgets don’t necessarily mean shorter timeframes to completion. Dan, however, does measure his projects by the month, although their completion can often take much longer. Concerning one of his current projects, Dan explains that; ‘[The project] is just about to reach a sixmonth milestone - it’s 18 months long. At that point we’ll either end it, or scale it up and keep it going.’ Innovation is truly different in the public sector. The projects aren’t as glamorous, but they are ultimately as important. Budgeting isn’t as stringent as it is in the public sector, with Dan preferring a ‘fund’ to an annual budget as this gives him the freedom to deal with issues as they arise. In terms of negotiating the boundary, Dan’s been lucky to work with leaders who have granted him access to funds when he’s needed them. He does, however, point to the need for projects to be brought to life, before budgets are worked out. He says: ‘You have to show people. Start with low-cost prototypes that you can do hackathons, maybe, that can make it real so that you can show people. A rough prototype maybe. You’ve got to make it real.’ chief innovation officer
the
Culture
Barrier
Sue Jefferson, VP Global Innovation* at McCain Foods
W
hen it comes to making innovation a competitive advantage, companies should ask two questions:
(1) If your current innovation business impact is strong, do you know why and is it sustainable? (2) If your innovation impact is not performing satisfactorily, do you know why and how you can fix it? With the majority of business leaders expressing dissatisfaction about their current innovation initiatives, and with a number of agencies offering a magic solution to fix them, this article looks at how companies can identify, establish or protect one of the most critical parts of innovation – their culture. In David Maister’s book - ‘Strategy and the Fat Smoker’ - he comments that while most companies have the
same strategy, it is how you are organized to deliver it that determines success. Unfortunately, many companies don’t understand this or are unwilling to do what it takes to enable innovation. Those that deliver correctly – win. Success is based on being faster and better than your competition when chasing a similar strategy, and this is why culture is so important. If we assume you have absolute clarity as to where you play and how you will win versus your competitive set, let’s focus on culture, people and how well you enable them to deliver. There are a number of areas regarding your company’s culture that you must know for certain. For example, every level of your team must have the clarity to know where you want to play in the market and how you ultimately plan on being successful. There can be a tendency for senior management teams to keep secrets, and only let those further down the food chain in on the essentials, not the finer points. This can lead to a lack of direction, and doesn’t give off the right signals. You can have direction, but without a skilled workforce to carry out your plans, there’s not much you can do. It’s really important that a company understands both its strengths and weaknesses in regard to its workforce, and knows which parts of the company could be improved by a recruitment drive. Another important issue is KPIs and whether they encourage the desired behaviours and attitudes, or instead create unintended consequences. As many
i n n o vat i o n 101 : t h e c u lt u r e b a r r i e r
companies have found out, measuring innovation is a difficult thing to do. The correct metrics will change on a project-by-project basis, so there’s rarely much in the way of precedent to examine. That’s why it is unfair to expect a company to get everything right straightaway, but what they must do is remove any metrics that are affecting the innovation process detrimentally. The KPIs a company chooses is inherently linked to the way it defines progress, and its culture. When people are asked to be innovative they often think that they will be given free rein to be creative. That’s not always the case. Often, there are many restrictions - like capital, technology, assets, finance limitations, research techniques - that must be adhered to. If a company’s culture is more prohibitive then these restrictions must be laid out before a project starts. If not, it could have a substantial impact on the eventual outcome. This will also impact an employee’s capacity to find solutions to barriers independently. According to CEB, the typical measures used do not correlate with the best innovation outputs. Therefore, these questions must be asked: -Are your processes swift enough but enable the right level of rigor in decision-making?
DO Stakeholder interviews - all levels Enable Honest, confidential responses (you may use an independent person) Analysis of Themes emerging from intervivews (eg. strategy & priority clarity, alignment of leaders, commitment, capability, assests, processes, KPIs, rewards and more) - What’s working well - What’s missing & important to fix Internal Workshop of right stakeholders, shaping Changes, creating Proposal - What changes, Why & specifically How - Benefits & Measures of Success Review Innovation Culture Change proposal with Stakeholders, build together with commitment to change Communication and Change management action plan Initiate and publically recognise early signs of desired behaviours
- How devolved and swift is your decision making and how well are people empowered? - How do you know that all these are in place and working well? - How do you protect this, so if and when your strategy changes or your people change, your culture doesn’t change unintentionally? If you’re not sure you have all the above in place, how do you check what you have, then establish the desired culture? The most effective way I have found to do this is straightforward, but before you start, you must be open to feedback, then committed to act on the outcome. Most importantly, bringing vizibility to your culture. What your people actually believe and actually do is invaluable for assessing where you are now. Keeping this front of mind, when nurturing or strengthening with specific communication, recruitment, development, rewards and enable it to develop into a competitive advantage.The quality of your stakeholder interviews, the analysis, the workshop and the ensuring forward culture activation plan will determine the impact of your innovation success.
AVOID Piecemeal complaints Basing on your own assessment (as in only 1 lens) Listening to “if only, we should...” Piecemeal fixes (sticking plaster) Wanting a solution without being willing to make systematic changes to organization or own behaviour Appointing an Innovation agency BEFORE you know the root cause of what’s missing Innovation expectation without clarity of Where You Play and core business strategy
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FOSTER IDEATION STRUCTURE EXECUTION
Chief ie.
Officer Summit
DEC 8—9 2015 | NEW YORK + 44 207 193 1512 + 1 415 992 7589 adaud@theiegroup.com www.theinnovationenterprise.com
The
ROI/ Executive Buy-in Barrier
Mark Bigham, Chief Innovation Officer at Raytheon Intelligence and Information Services Words by George Hill
W
hen we think of the world’s biggest companies, Microsoft, Google and Apple normally come to mind. With their glitzy marketing campaigns, they’re always surrounding us. While these companies are highly successful, their contemporaries are often more understated in terms of their notoriety. Take Glencore. They’re a multinational commodity trading and mining company, ranked 10th in the Fortune Global 500, but how many people would truly be able to describe what they do? But with their revenue standing at $232.7 billion, they’re one of the most profitable companies in the world. Raytheon comes under a similar bracket. A billion dollar business which many aren’t aware of. While their image might not be as glamorous as Apple’s or Google’s, their impact is just as important, if not more so. Operating in the defence sector, Raytheon is a technology company founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s now the world’s largest producer of guided missiles. Their technology is having a real impact on society and is being used to help combat ISIS, the Syrian/Iraqi terrorist group responsible for the atrocities across Syria, Libya and Iraq.
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/executive
buy-in barrier
“
Raytheon comes under a similar bracket - a billion dollar business which many aren’t aware of. Whilst their image might not be as glamorous as Apple’s or Google’s, their impact is just as important, if not more so
Working within this environment brings additional pressures to those present in the commercial setting, further increasing the need for Raytheon’s innovation initiatives to be successful. With this in mind, it’s important that Raytheon stay ahead of the market and have the best possible tools to measure their ROI on innovation. When asked how Raytheon does this, Mark Bigham, the Chief Innovation Officer at the company says: ‘the way we measure ROI on innovation at Raytheon is really in two ways - one is financial, looking at investment and the potential return, and the second is strategically, the technology that we’re investing in - do we think that it’s going to position us strategically in the market?’ While this seems like a simple strategy, Mark’s keen to accentuate that the measurement of ROI differs considerably project-to-project. Raytheon operate in many domains, including space and online, and due to this, ROI has to be calculated differently. Marks says: ‘there’s a big change in ROI from project-to-project, and depending on your area of focus, you will measure your ROI differently.’ Mark states that it is about ‘driving gamechangers’ and making sure that the ROI is as great as it could be across each initiative. A domain in which Raytheon are currently involved is cyber security. Cybercrime is growing as an industry, with the risks low for criminals but the rewards high. It’s been
estimated that the annual cost of cybercrime to the global economy is more than $400 Billion. Due to this, Raytheon have come up with ‘Raytheoncyber.’ As a portal of information, it is concerned with making sure that the public has the correct resources to guard against cybercriminals. This is testament that buy-in for cyber security has been achieved at the company. Therefore, proving the importance of innovation initiatives being in line with the current needs of the organization and the customers they serve. Mark explains that the unpredictability of cybercrime, has meant that buy-in has been easier to attain from senior management. He also elaborates on this by saying: ‘we see unpredictability increasing the demand for cyber products, unfortunately we see the problem as getting worse so our executives have definitely bought into cyber’ As an extension of this, Mark emphasizes that Raytheon will buy-in to any innovation initiative which allows its customers to better understand geo-political threats. He states, ‘anything that’s going to help our customers, whether it be cyber, in the space domain, in the air, land, surface domain, those are areas we’re going to invest in to help our customers understand them better’.
i n n o vat i o n 101 : t h e r o i
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This is testament to the fact that executive buy-in for cyber security has been great at the company, proving the importance of innovation initiatives being in line with the current needs of the organization and the customers they serve
Raytheon is clearly a company striving for excellence, and this is one the reasons why the organization’s senior management team are keen to experiment with innovation whenever possible. The best innovators, such as Google or Apple, have never compared themselves with the competition. They see their products as superior, and therefore, above anything their rivals could offer. For Mark, this is a healthy way for a company to look at things. And while it’s important that companies don’t forget that they have competitors, it’s also essential that executive buy-in is centred around customer needs. Mark states: ‘we don’t respond to competitors in that way, we’ll monitor the competition, we’ll watch what they’re doing, but I don’t think responding to a competitor is a good thing to do’. He also elaborates on this by saying: ‘responding to larger global trends and understanding what our customers need is a much more important strategic investment and focusing on being good for our customers and responding to that is a much better thing to do’.
/executive
buy-in barrier
This approach to buy-in is a universal one which will used by many companies, most of which will operate in different sectors. Raytheon’s strategy however is slightly different to commercial companies due to the life and death situations where their products are used. Mark says: ‘it’s very difficult to compare a project where you’re helping a government try and fight something like ISIS, compared to an innovative commercial project - they’re still important but it’s a different type of calculus’.These raised stakes means that ROI must be looked at from more angles. This could be helping win the war against ISIS, or helping a government save a group of hostages. To evaluate them, the innovation initiative should be in line with customer demand and never a reaction to competitors. ROI should always be customer-focused, where a project is valued against its capacity to help customers. Raytheon’s field of expertise is such that it provides us with an innovation framework that’s unlike many commercial organizations. With their innovation initiatives directly contributing to life and death situations, it means that executive management teams are keen to invest in projects which have the potential to save lives.
This goes to show how important it is for innovation initiatives to be proactive rather than reactive. Management want to make sure that their innovation efforts are propelling the company forward, not sideways alongside their rivals. With Mark stating: ‘we try and do our best to satisfy our customers needs, and if we do that well, we don’t need to concentrate on the competition’. chief innovation officer
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COLLABORATING FOR TRUE SUCCESS
OPEN INNOVATION SUMMITS + 44 207 193 1512 + 141 5992 7589 adaud@theiegroup.com
BOSTON - OCTOBER 28 & 29, 2015 LONDON - APRIL 27 & 28, 2016
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the
People
Barrier
“
Since the basic idea of innovation goes against any sort of limitations; either by process, policies, structure or rules, even a subtle restraint can trigger a negative reaction in the minds of those trying to innovate.
�
Yuval Dvir, Global Product Operations at Google
T
here is a lot of buzz around the word 'innovation' and how embracing it can transform your business. Innovation means doing something new, different, smarter or better that will make a positive difference on customers, the company, or society as a whole. It can cover every aspect of the business, from products to services, and your business model and processes. Innovation Accelerators Innovation has the potential to become a growth engine for companies. Their presence can ensure long term success and a host of competitive advantages. And as such, it has created a lot of attention in the form of articles, conferences
and several solutions such as ideation frameworks and open innovation platforms. Innovation accelerators can benefit companies through two main forms. First, they can support the innovation flow - such as the prioritization process, focus and alignment to strategy. Second, they help promote the behavioural change that comes with adopting a new approach, mindset and culture. This leaves the core work of innovation mostly outside the influence of these activities. Since the basic idea of innovation goes against any sort of limitation either by process, policies, structure or rules - even a subtle restraint can trigger a negative reaction in the minds of those trying to innovate. chief innovation officer
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So if we believe even part of that hypothesis, what can we actually do to promote innovation in our organization? Individuals When it comes to individuals, there are many attributes we would like to see in our employees. Smart, open minded, hungry, good judgment, challenging the status quo, comfortable with change and uncertainty, leaders in potential, professional and personal ethical, and people who want to make an impact - to just name a few A caveat to these, or any other attributes, is how you define and identify them. For example, does smart mean a high IQ, EQ or both? Do they need to be subject matter experts or fast learners? Different definitions lead to different results. While all these attributes are important, and need to be present in some capacity, there are a few that cannot be absent. Being professionally and personally ethical is paramount as it can help ensure employees always revert to doing what’s right when ambiguity arises. Leaders
Teams The basic unit and building block of an organization is the team, not the individual. A good and balanced team is able to create and deliver value to customers faster. To create these high-performance teams, there needs to be balance between the individual attributes and personalities which make up the team. Everyone shouldn’t, however, score the same on the different attributes mentioned. They also don’t need to have the potential for people management as not everyone can be a leader. But everyone should have the passion, ethics and the will to do what’s right. Just like in professional basketball teams, you need a guard, a playmaker, a centre and a shooter, and that combined with the right culture can create a successful team. As the coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, a National Basketball Association (NBA) team, recently mentioned: ‘the power of team trumps all.’ Now back to the basics, and back to work.
For leaders we need to augment these attributes with a genuine interest in people. One can never be a good leader by solely following management protocols, or see management as a ‘necessary evil’ for climbing the corporate ladder. The organization, then, needs to do a better job at finding those who are right to lead, while also providing non-management progress to others.
Every corporation started out with a simple idea to solve a problem for their customers. Let’s get back to the basics and focus on the reason organizations begin in the first place.
That’s not an easy task. Agendas and politics sometimes obscure the reality and can affect a decision. A good indicator of a strong leader is the ability to perform as a team member, as good as someone who’s in charge. Leaders are critical as they usually have greater influence than the individuals in the company, and therefore can have a tenfold impact on shaping the working culture.
And if we cannot stand up to the formula of ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’, what is the reason to keep our people involved?
Truly, the main way to innovate is to stop and listen to your customers and empower the workforce to come up with new solutions for them.
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HARNESSING TECHNOLOGY, DRIVING INNOVATION
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER SUMMIT
SAN FRANCISCO DECEMBER 2 & 3 , 2015 Speakers include:
+ 1 (415) 692 5514 sforeman@theiegroup.com Chief Technology Officer in San Francisco
chief innovation officer
the
Structure Barrier
Richard Angus,
Head of Innovation
at The Innovation
Enterprise
F
irst off, it’s simply not viable to describe innovation in broad terms – it requires segmentation. At its most basic level, initiatives fall into two categories: incremental (improving existing) & breakthrough (creating new). These are entirely different processes and therefore require entirely different methodologies. As described in an HBR article: ‘everything that makes incremental models work is what causes them to unintentionally kill potential breakthroughs.’ If you shackle breakthrough innovation to its less sexy brother, you’re going to run into trouble. Equally, if a corporation focuses relentlessly on one rather than the other, disaster is just around the corner. Incremental bias killed Nokia and has permanently damaged Microsoft. While radical change - seen with the release of the Fire Phone - caused Amazon to take a huge financial blow. Many small and medium sized businesses constantly chance their arm on extreme innovation, only to sink into bankruptcy. Fear, whether it’s fear of being disrupted or of disrupting an existing business, should offer motivation rather than the focal point of a strategy. Balance is essential. Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Beyond that, structure can be disrupted by the source of innovation. Should a new initiative filter from the top, as with so many other functions? Or should change bubble up from would-be entrepreneurs deep within the organization?
chief innovation officer
i n n o vat i o n 101 : t h e s t r u c t u r e b a r r i e r
It’s been argued that ‘the higher the goal the higher the role’ – that real breakthrough innovation can only come from the top. After all, it’s something pioneering, needing power and influence for full assimilation. Incremental innovation can come from a number of areas, through the traditional chain-of-command– it’s safer to entrust the smaller projects this way. Is that really true, though? Initiatives such as Adobe’s ‘Kickbox’ are debunking the myth, showing a structure to support breakthroughs from the bottom-up. In today’s corporate environment, structure for innovation isn’t black-and-white – don’t make the mistake of overlooking the colossal potential of the workforce. Integrated or External? Drucker said ‘Innovation is real work, and it can and should be managed like any other corporate function’. His argument was clear – innovation should be its own function. That sounds ideal, yet in practice it’s not necessarily working. McKinsey reported in 2012 that just 1/3 of executives could say that innovation was fully integrated into their organization’s strategy. Recurring conference themes have suggested that not much has changed in recent years. Alongside C-Suite approval, strategy is essential.
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baggage and sharpen up the focus on breakthrough innovation. Incremental innovation is something that should be more integrated. If there are problems with this, they are generally cultural and can be improved, at least, with a number of off-the-shelf ideation and engagement programs, such as Stage Gate & Spigit. KPIs New processes and services, simply put, need new metrics; they are new. Incremental innovation, which must be separated, can work to familiar strategic measures, but applying these to new innovations is inadequate. It will cripple them from the start with unrealistic expectations for return. Rather than linking outcomes to financial goals, it’s finding some measure for success in the value chain of innovation that’s critical. This must not be ignored in favor of attributing everything to dollars and cents. For corporate innovation to thrive, it needs to be separated, both in terms of what it means, and where it’s done. Whilst it’s not right to say that all organizations should create a breakaway innovation centre, it’s certainly fair to conclude that traditional corporate structures do not suit the process.
Can an external innovation center, closer to its target market and separated from the main HQ, hope to remain integrated with strategy? Labs and centers have proven significantly more successful than homebased innovation departments. Despite this, they engage less regularly with company leaders, representing a paradox between the importance placed on alignment versus relative freedom of operation. Certainly, when it comes to breakthrough initiatives, there’s been huge positives from labs and corporate incubators which are separated from the main business. Operating more like startups, they develop new things, faster. Countless organizations, particularly financial, have looked to this model. Perhaps you need to keep the top order out of a new initiative to avoid any chief innovation officer
innovation 101 : the round up Simon Barton Managing Editor
So there you have it. Five pieces, from five prominent innovators. In this round up, let’s look at some key takeaways from each barrier, and analyze the way they can impact your company.
The Budgeting Barrier Bigger budgets don’t necessarily mean more freedom. While at Montgomery County, Dan’s primarily been handed smaller budgets, and that’s given him room to fail - something he feels is essential when aiding the development of future iterations. Don’t budget in a way which puts pressure on you to succeed first time. Give yourself the chance to fail, as the culmination of your short-comings could result in a more effective end product. The Culture Barrier Sue states: ‘Success is based on being faster and better than your competition when chasing a similar strategy, and this is why culture is so important.’ A culture must have clarity, and a company shouldn’t have a closed door policy when it comes to communicating with its workforce - regardless of someone’s position of seniority. Everybody at the company should be empowered to contribute to the innovation process, with feedback openly encouraged. The Executive Buy-In / ROI Barrier Measuring ROI should change from project-to-project. For Mark, it’s about ‘driving game changers’ and making sure that the projects central to a company’s core processes are getting the necessary returns. In terms of Executive Buy-In, Mark states: ‘Anything that’s going to help our customers, whether it be cyber, in the space domain, in the air, land, surface domain, those are areas we’re going to invest in to help our customers understand them better’. Mark, then, accentuates the importance of inspiring senior management with certain projects, and measuring their performance using unique metrics.
i n n o vat i o n 101 : t h e r o u n d u p
The People Barrier Yuval discussed the importance of liberating people, ‘without unleashing chaos’. He looks at the personal attributes which ‘innovators’ tend to have, and how leaders can be created from these people. Highlighting the importance of leaders ‘providing non-management progress to others’, he also understands that organizational politics can be a barrier. For Yuval, it’s about getting ‘back to basics’ and making your people happy. Then, they’ll be determined to help you innovate.
The Structure Barrier Richard discusses four key areas within the structuring barrier - whether it should be top-down or bottom-up, integrated or external, incremental or breakthrough and finally the importance of KPIs. While looking at how companies should segment innovation he states: ‘If you shackle breakthrough innovation to its less sexy brother, you’re going to run into trouble. Equally, if a corporation focuses relentlessly on one rather than the other, disaster is just around the corner’. He accentuates that importance of balance, and the need for new initiatives to be assigned their own metrics. As he states: ‘Rather than linking outcomes to financial goals, it’s finding some measure for success in the value chain of innovation that’s critical.’
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