How innovation fit are you?
While innovation’s importance is largely acknowledged, it is less clear how to measure and improve it for a firm. This article should interest you, if you’re an entrepreneur, senior stakeholder, innovation incharge, or simply curious.
What is Innovation & Why Care?
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change” (Charles Darwin, British naturalist).
The Latin word innovare, meaning change, is where the word innovation originates (Bessant & Tidd, 2014). Corporate executives and entrepreneurs are the change agents who use innovation to create value from ideas. The value can be commercial or social, meaning innovation impacts businesses of all shapes and sizes. Furthermore, the impact is so much so that the survival of a business depends on it. Innovation is a complicated process that requires methodical management across a variety of themes, as evidenced by the fact that many new ideas, and the entrepreneurs that pursue them, fail.
If only there was an innovation management process that could offer practical guidance around formularising and updating business routines, the trick, i.e. innovation, could become repeatable rather than being accidental. Introduced by John Bessant and Joe Tidd in 2013, “Simplified Model of Innovation“ offers just that.
Innovation Model
The book — Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change, 7th Edition is a fantastic up to date resource to delve into the depths of the proposed model. Furthermore, moving forward, I plan to also share my research notes in the form of reference tables (sort of summaries), for each step of the process, to highlight consolidated perspectives from eminent figures in the history of corporate innovation.
SEARCH
SELECT
AGILE IMPLEMENTATION
CREATING & CAPTURING VALUE
INNOVATION STRATEGY
INNOVATION ORGANISATION
PROACTIVE LINKAGES
LEARNING & BUILDING CAPABILITY
Innovation Fitness Test / Audit
The ‘Innovation Fitness Test’ or IFT, which draws wisdom from the aforementioned model, is a potent instrument that assesses a company’s capacity for innovation and its future prospects (Bessant, 2013). IFT assists in igniting a conversation about innovation and offers suggestions to the interested parties regarding what appears promising and what needs to be improved.
This simple yet effective audit tool focuses on some of the most important aspects of innovation management, including Strategy, Processes, Organisation, Linkages, and Learning. By analysing and scoring answers to statements describing ‘the way we do things around here’ (i.e. the pattern of behaviour that describes how the organisation handles the question of innovation) and plotting consolidated scores in a spider diagram, a lucid view of what is missing or can be improved in an organisation is obtained. Thereafter, following IFT guidelines of what a low score might mean — and what steps could be taken to improve the situation — one could take preventive or corrective action to serve one’s innovation goals.
When I recently attempted the IFT/audit process for a thriving, UK-based high-tech firm, the first, and the most crucial, step was to collect data via:
- Online Campaign: I began by launching an online campaign that included broadcasting a questionnaire (strategically designed Google form) within the organisation in the hopes of gathering first hand information. Although it was convenient for both parties, it did not yield any results. Employees appeared to be wary of going on the record. As a result, I realised that this could have been made to work by having senior stakeholders promote or mandate it internally rather than simply circulate it. Due to time constraints, I didn’t get a second chance. Anyway, every failure is a learning experience and something to keep in mind moving forward.
- Primary Research/Interviews: Employees who participated in the interview process (Note: Always target people from diverse parts of the business such as from different departments, roles, etc.) were encouraged to discuss, time permitting, several themes one at a time and to rate the organisation on each theme with justification, if possible.
- Secondary Research: For a comprehensive, balanced analysis, pertinent data was also gathered from secondary sources, including both official and non-official sources.
After compiling all opinions, I gave the organisation a grade based on different factors and provided an analysis of their main strengths and areas for worry. In the end, I wrote a thorough report to present my suggestions to the organisation’s head of innovation.
Individual discussions were kept in complete confidence, and the data was deleted once the study was over.
Source and Inspiration
As a recent participant in the Data Science with Business programme at the University of Exeter, UK, I had a privilege to learn about innovation from the legend himself, Prof John Bessant, and his extraordinary associate Dr Bill Russell.
Although above ideas are mainly inspired by Prof. John’s work, I took it upon myself to research and contrast these ideas with those from other prominent researchers in the field. Furthermore, after successfully completing a full-blown audit/IFT on a thriving UK-based technology firm, I feel that I owe this article to my mentors in order to express my gratitude and appreciation for them as well as to share this information for the benefit of others.
