+ Sobre innovación abierta intra-organizativa

Al hilo del post escrito en el blog OpenBasque, sobre innovación abierta intra-organizativa…

(video de la presentación en taller OpenBasque)

…a continuación van las claves de un Hack, y dos Moonshots. El primero de ellos metodiza, mientras que los otros dos complementan y redundan, respectivamente, algunos de los mecanismos comentados en la presentación. Los tres tips proceden de la comunidad Management Innovation eXchange (MIX) promovida por Gary Hamel.

HACK. Entrepreneur Employees: How to Innovate in Corporations

• In many service industries, employees are happy doing their assigned work and believe that innovation is not required in their world. Many service firms have tried changing this idea by encouraging innovation and providing a platform to innovate and showcase. But, they have failed in one critical aspect. They have failed in making their employees realize the need to innovate.
• Even in cases where the importance of innovation is communicated, innovation is inhibited due to one or all of the following reasons: Ignorance of the true value addition; Lack of perspective; Absence of significant incentives.
• We believe that it is possible to instill in employees ‘a culture to innovate’ by equipping them with the following: Awareness; Opportunity; Ownership; Recognition.
• In this hack, we suggest an experiment that will test our hypothesis. This experiment can be carried out on a small client account within the organization. To implement and test the hypothesis, the company must form a team called the ‘Innovation Team’, with a budgeted allowance to carry out the experiment.
• The Innovation team will be provided with a timeline to implement the initiative (90 days). The timeline is divided as Ideation Phase, Review Phase, Evaluation and Selection Phase, the Development and Deployment phase and the Iteration Phase.
• The Innovation team must select the ‘Xchange Panel’ that is instrumental in carrying out the experiment and incorporates people from different business functions: Delivery head/manager of the account; System architect and functional consultants; Representative from the Marketing team of the product or service which the account handles; Customer; Industry experts/Market Analysts.
• The ‘Innovation team’ will help the panel to conduct the ‘Xchange forum’ and ‘Entrepreneur’s Forum’ effectively.

  
• The ‘Xchange Forum’ is part of the Ideation Phase, where the different perspectives acquired are put to test. Role playing is one of the critical links in understanding the different perspectives. In these forums, the delivery team plays the role of the ultimate end-user and the Xchange panel plays the role of the immediate customer. In our illustration, the application delivery team plays the role of online banking customer and the Xchange panel role play as the bank… The success of the forum will be measured by arriving at broad areas of improvement, where profitable projects can be pursued, through discussion among the forum players.  The fund required to carry out these activities will be partly borne by the account and partly by the Innovation team.
• The Entrepreneur’s Forum – Time to Transcend: Every team member, having realized the true value he/she is adding and with an added perspective of the end-user, will feel the need to innovate and would want to contribute more than the regular work. He/She, motivated by the exercise, comes up with ideas to delight the end-customers, which he/she can present to a panel, which plays the role of venture capitalists. The Entrepreneur’s Forum is part of the Evaluation and Selection Phase. The Development team member, now on called the Entrepreneur Employee, is required to build his own team of delivery and management and has to convince the VCs to fund their idea. The Xchange Panel evaluates the idea proposed based on parameters of group criteria: Feasibility (ease of development – conflicts with other projects – ease of implementation – client acceptability); Cost (project length – resources required – cash flow change); Value Addition (value difference – projected cash flows – intangible benefit – availability of substitutes).
• In our experiment, the Innovation team and the Xchange Panel need to play a very crucial part in drafting the Idea Brief document. The employees may be motivated and could have found a new, exciting idea but equally important is to make it feasible by addressing all the concerns. The Project Management office will help the employees in identifying the budget and schedule considerations for the project to convert their idea into a business project. The output and success of the forum will be measured by the selection of a feasible project idea and formation of a delivery team with mentors.
• Delivery and Beyond: The development team, along with the mentors, has to arrive at a detailed project schedule and work on the deliverable as part of the Development and Deployment phase. The team has to report to the Xchange panel regarding their milestone achievements periodically. The funds and other resources shall be allocated to the project team at each milestone achievement and after the satisfaction of the Xchange panel. Once the project is delivered successfully within the time frame, the team/organization can present it to the client, proving the value it will add to the end-customer.
• At the end of the successful project completion, the Xchange Panel and the Innovation team should recognize the teams with organization-wide communication, best practices identification and other rewards.
• Once the pilot project has been successfully implemented, the ‘Innovation Team’ should plan an organization-wide implementation. However, the roll-out should be done in a phased manner. This would help to address problems in a systematic way and help to develop a more robust system. This culture of innovation would slowly but surely be implanted in the working styles of the employees and our hypothesis would become a reality.

 This framework primarily aims at cultivating an environment of innovation, ownership and implementation in the service organizations. It creates the following positive impacts in the employees:

•  The Need to innovate in a service organization with a business-to-business model
• An arena to criticize their own services and create an end-user perspective
• A sense of entrepreneurship among the employees and cultivating ownership among the employees
• Motivation to ideate more and think beyond their current lines of work
• While criticizing their work, the employees will realize the real value they are adding currently
• Tangible benefits like financial gain & increased project contracts and intangible benefits like improved relationships both within and outisde the organizations

 Moonshot 1. Create internal markets for ideas, cash & talent

•  “Organizations need a resource allocation process that more accurately mimics the selection pressures of a real market.”
• Funding decisions in corporations are usually made at the top and are heavily influenced by political factors. That’s why companies over-invest in the past and underfund the future.
• By contrast, resource allocation in a market-based system like the New York Stock Exchange is decentralized and apolitical. While markets are obviously vulnerable to short-term distortions, in the long run they’re better than big organizations at getting the right resources behind the right opportunities.
• To make resource allocation more flexible and dynamic, companies must create internal markets where legacy programs and new projects compete on an equal footing for talent and cash.

 Moonshot 2. Enable communities of passion

•  “Passion is a multiplier of human effort, but it can’t be manufactured. It’s present only when people get the chance to work on what they truly care about.”
• Passion is a significant multiplier of human accomplishment, particularly when like-minded individuals converge around a worthy cause.
• Yet a wealth of data indicates that most employees are emotionally disengaged at work. They are unfulfilled, and consequently their organizations underperform.
• Companies must encourage communities of passion by structuring work and revising management processes to help people tap into a higher calling at work, by connecting employees who share similar passions, and by better aligning the organization’s objectives with the natural interests of its people.

Por cierto, para los más animados, recordad que el concurso MIX para presentar ideas y prácticas disruptivas en el ámbito del Management 2.0, patrocinado por la Harvard Business Review y McKinsey, está abierto hasta el 18 de julio.

 Eduardo Castellano