Is innovation part of the governance mission of boards of directors? At first sight, the answer seems to be “no”. In this new series of two articles professor Jean-Phillipe Deschamps delves deeper into the specific role of the board of directors and that of top management in exercising their innovation governance responsibilities.
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.
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.
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?
Big, crazy, breakthrough ideas seem wonderful when you are dreaming them up, but frightening when it comes time to implement them. Fortunately, the field personal development has a technique that you can apply: personal development planning (PDP). Jeffrey Baumgartner explains how to implement this approach to your innovation process.
In order for innovation to flourish in your organization, your innovation champions must be supported through properly structured responsibilities, goals and resources. Otherwise, they will leave to pursue other opportunities, taking their energy and ideas with them. That’s one of the core messages of Gerard J. Tellis’ new book, Unrelenting Innovation.
What makes a company innovative? Innovation is nothing more than a tool that enables companies to achieve unique, strategic goals. It should not simply be a slogan, nor an end unto itself, argues Jeffrey Baumgartner. To be truly innovative, an organization should have seven essential characteristics.
In this post we will look at something that all leaders who are students of creativity should know: how to harness the self-fulfilling prophecy as a tool to facilitate creativity. The Pygmalion effect is a phenomenon which effectiveness in stimulating creativity is only surpassed by its simplicity.
Conflict is a dreaded word. Most people associate conflict with interpersonal clashes ranging from inelegant avoidance tactics in the breakroom to fierce and open hostility. Surely, it is obvious that conflict in teams is detrimental to creativity and innovation. But is it? In this post we will explore this matter further and see when conflict sometimes can enhance the creative thinking skills of teams.
When it comes to creative problem solving, which is more effective? Focusing on the problem at hand, or on setting goals for what we'd like to accomplish? Jeffrey Baumgartner explores this perplexing question and comes to a very clear conclusion.
The nature of problems in innovative work is that they are often ill defined, novel to the individual who engaged them, and complex in that often several solutions exist to the same problem. In this post we will see how expertise is an important factor in innovative problem solving, and how leaders and organizations can cultivate R&D team expertise.
Customers change. Competitors change. Technology changes. If you don’t do anything, new and competitive products catch up and overtake your products and services quickly. A study by A.D. Little has shown that the life cycle of products has decreased by factor 4 the last fifty years. So innovation is essential. But it is time consuming. It demands a lot of resources. And a positive outcome is very uncertain. In this blog Gijs van Wulfen offers a helping hand by identifying five common mistakes to avoid.
Why would a company that rose to prominence based on its innovativeness abandon its lifeblood when the founder exists the building? There are many examples of this happening out there. However if they follow in the footsteps of the world’s ‘serial innovators,’ leadership can keep a company’s innovation flame lit without having to bring back the founding CEO.
What does governing the practice of collaborative innovation mean? When we govern do we compromise the spirit of openness and experimentation that enlivens the practice? In this article innovation architect Doug Collins applies the blueprint for collaborative innovation to explore these critical questions. His view? Governance is guidance: helping people work to their potential.
Innovation projects are said to fail 90% of the time. Why is this? Part of the answer lies in the special “innovation teams” who are mandated with finding breakthrough growth in large corporations. Setting these teams up for success is vital, yet corporations often fail when doing this. This article provides a collection of ten tips that serve as a talent management roadmap for growth companies in search of high-performance teams that deliver.
