Innovation Governance – How Well Does it Work?

This series of articles has explored the definition and scope of innovation governance as well as the different organizational models that companies typically choose to allocate responsibility for innovation. This last article will discuss questions linked to the perceived general effectiveness or inadequacy of innovation governance endeavors, and it will characterize the managers’ level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the various organizational models that their companies have adopted.

9 Different Models in use for Innovation Governance

Research from Jean-Philippe Deschamps, Professor of Technology and Innovation Management at IMD, indicates that there are at least nine possible models of innovation governance, some of which are more widely used than others. This second article in a series of three on the topic of Innovation Governance will review the various governance approaches or “models” that companies have put in place.

What is Innovation Governance? – Definition and Scope

Innovation governance can be thought of as a system of mechanisms to align goals, allocate resources and assign decision-making authority for innovation, across the company and with external parties. In this series of articles, professor Jean-Philippe Deschamps delves deeper into this topic; what is innovation governance, what different models are there and which ones seem to be the most effective?

How Status Quo Bias Can Kill Innovation

Status quo bias is a proven cognitive bias that exists in all normal people. Innovation, especially breakthrough innovation, requires veering from the status quo. As a result, the average managers is all too likely not to approve a highly innovative idea, not because of any intrinsic flaw in the idea, but because the idea would require change. You need to work around this bias if you truly want your company to innovate.

How a Decision Room Can Enable Change and Innovation

One of the challenges leaders face in times of uncertainty and rapid change is helping senior managers to engage in bigger-picture thinking. To enable this process, a growing number of companies are creating “decision rooms” – dedicated areas that help them visualize challenges and opportunities from a number of perspectives and make better decisions.

Inspiration Versus Aspiration: Two Approaches to Innovation Leadership

Inspiring leadership is what we have all been led to believe creates successful businesses. The fact that history is dotted with examples of successful companies which businesses study closely for clues their own leaders can emulate, clearly shows that we believe there is a formulaic style of leadership which is key to a thriving business. If only it were that simple. Kate Tojeiro, founder of progressive leadership consultancy, X-Fusion, takes a closer look at two key types of leaders.

A Simple Template for Choosing an Innovation Challenge

People who practice collaborative innovation envision a compelling future. They transform their communities, their organizations, and themselves by helping people realize their potential for leadership as they form and evolve ideas. Reality check: effective visionaries use pragmatic tactics to move from point A to B. In this article, innovation architect Doug Collins shares a simple template that practitioners can use to help sponsors of innovation challenges choose where to begin their journey.

Making Collaborative Innovation Stick

People who practice collaborative innovation commit to transforming their communities and organizations in authentic ways. Through the practice, people realize their potential for leadership by posing the critical questions that matter and by convening peers to pursue the ideas that follow. And, let’s be honest: the practice takes a lot of work. In this article, innovation architect Doug Collins reflects on ways in which people can approach the practice to increase the odds that it persists and proliferates.

Cognitive Biases Inhibiting Innovation in Top Management Teams

The top management team of an organization is arguably the most important team for deciding and implementing innovation strategies. They typically decide which markets to be entered, which markets to be exited, and which new technologies to pursue. But decision making is fraught with biases – errors in judgment that affect the quality of decisions. Sometimes with devastating results. In this post we will see how basic human psychology affects the decision making of top management teams.

How Human Behavior Can Skew Innovation

A variety of human group behaviors can undermine innovation. For best results, we need to be aware of them and mitigate those that can derail innovation efforts.

Is it Time to Rewrite the Innovation Playbook: Ten New Requirements in the Age of Hyperinnovation

In the world of hyperinnovation innovation itself is changing. In place of a monolithic R&D based innovation culture we suddenly have a proliferation of innovation approaches and new pressures on enterprises to innovate. Haydn Shaughnessy and Nick Vitalari argue the innovation playbook needs to be rewritten, and relabelled.

Being Innovative in a Big Company

One of the problems that many large organizations face is how to innovate successfully within the confines of a massive, bureaucratic operational structure. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of research and development, where small, entrepreneurial firms routinely do end runs on large companies will multi-million dollar research budgets.