This document discusses how to improve organizational innovation through Dr. Amantha Imber's innovation framework. The framework has nine elements: measurement, communication, positioning, resources, strategy, roles, process, climate, and capability. It emphasizes building a strong foundation for innovation by establishing the proper structures, leadership, and processes to move ideas from concept to market. It also recommends avoiding decision fatigue by not making major decisions after lunch and benchmarking yourself against other innovative organizations.
28. Inventium’s Innovation Framework
Measurement Communication Positioning
Optimisation (turning innovation into a habit and
(quantifying your innovation efforts) (being a thought leader on innovation)
keeping it top of mind)
Resources Strategy Roles
Graduation (allocating time, money, and other (aligning innovation with organisational (driving motivation through job
things to drive innovation) strategy) definition and focus)
Process Climate Capability
Foundation (employee perceptions of the
(the pathway from mission to market) (skill building for innovation)
organisation)
Structure Leadership People
#2. There are a lot of bad ideas in this world. Such as this one, and this one, and this one (slides to show some crap ideas - similarly crap ideas to the ones i show later in the talk such as the boyfriend arm pillow) . Ideas that should never have seen the light of day. And I want to talk to you about why you should care, and how to make sure that you are never responsible for launching one of these bad ideas
#2. There are a lot of bad ideas in this world. Such as this one, and this one, and this one (slides to show some crap ideas - similarly crap ideas to the ones i show later in the talk such as the boyfriend arm pillow) . Ideas that should never have seen the light of day. And I want to talk to you about why you should care, and how to make sure that you are never responsible for launching one of these bad ideas
so why should you innovate? hopefully, this is crystal clear, but perhaps its not. so, when it comes down to it, there are three big reasons.
who is in a business that would like to grow profits over the next 3 years? OR is anyone in a business that is aspiring to decrease in size over the next 3 years?
now - this is different from “ growth ” . perhaps not as inspiring on a strategy plan - but nonetheless, a real consideration for many businesses. who is in an industry that has been or may be massively disrupted by new technologies, business models, start ups, and changes in consumer behaviour? and to not be irrelevant. Wil e cpyote is actually a bad example because he never dies. But as we all know, lifes not a cartoon.
who would like to work in a company that makes an awesomely positive difference to the world? and want to attract those people to work with you?
in contrast, i have come across a couple of organisaitons whose innovation strategy is to be a fast follower. how inspiring is that? let ’ s just copy our competitors - but we ’ ll do it really, really fast. yeah i want to work for that organisation. But one of the biggest problems with being a fast follower is the sheep can lead you in the wrong direction.
every man and his dog has an opinion. but unfortunately, most opinions are just plain wrong. so you want to approach it scientifically,
Sceicen is about the measureable and the repeatable. It ’ s about helpingyou inovate in a relaible and predictable way.
DOGS COLOUR BLIND
that being said, i did work in advertising for a while where i was helping people buy stuff they didnt nececessily need.
then i had a desire to do something super meaningful and i started this company called inventium. which i started 4 years ago. inventium exists to help companies innovate more successfully and we do that using scientifically proven to work. so now i want to talk to you about some ways that you can instantly increase your ability to innovate.
what sh*ts you? something we do a lot of with our clients is we help them uncover peeve points - things tha frustrate their customers - because we know that if we can solve for customer frustrations, this will lead to profitable ideas. and when i was creating this pres, i got to thinking about my own peeve points with organisations we encounter. 1. organisations that have innovaiton as one of their 4 or 5 key values, or even a whole tab on their website, but do nothing to make innovaiton happen internally. 2. being brought into do a keynoe on innovation at a company event, and hearing that nothing was actually done to support the message and innovation internally. 3. hearing baout organisations impe,ementing an online suggestion box - or idea managament system - and thinking that they have “ done innovation ” .
a couple of years ago, we were approach by a big oil company in the middle east. they were a 50,000 people company and had an online idea management system where all of these employees could submit ideas. they were then managed and monitored by a group of 200 innovation champs. but what had happened was these innovation champs were respnsible for deciding what should happen to each idea submitted - this would range for funding, rejecting, or archiving. archive was the asy way out - so the majority of ideas were just archived to review later. at the time they called us in, there were 100,000 archived ideas. and for me, this is a great example of where you think you are doing innovation, but all you have done is implement a tool. without doing everything else that needs to go arund it.
if we go back to our innovation framework, what is absoutely critical is setting a strong foundation. if they had a strong process that surrounded this tool this problem would never have happendd. if the climate was one that suppotred and celebrated ideas, this never would have happened, and if the people had the right capability - especially around decision-aking in the case of the champs, this never would have happened.
The difference bw having a strong foundation, and approaching innovation tactically. its kind of like a Slip and Slide. who had one of these when they were a kid? who still has one of these? it ’ s kind of magical when you are a kid- you can be standing up or kneeling, yet when you hit the slip and slide, you still keep moving.... but if the water wasn ’ t there, and the jump on, and keep sliding forward. but a tactical approach is like a slide and slide thats dried up. when you hop on it, you just stop - you dont move forward.
When the water’s not working, when the surface isnt right, or the spinkerlys are not working. You ddefinitely don’ t move forward. And likewise, with innovation.
set a strong foundation - refer back to IF. - online suggetion box - keynotes - value. but what i really want to say is stop being so bloody tactical. stop bringing in someone to do a keynote on innovation at your company event, without supporting this message when you all get back to work. stop putting in place an idea management system if you are not going to make good decisions, give good feedback, and resource ideas, and stop putting innovation as one of your 4 or 5 company values if you are just going to be a sheep.
i am a huge gary larson fan. i just love how he sees the world in a way that is completely different, but when you see one of his cartoons, it just totally makes sense. and for me, this cartoon illustrates one of the bgest problems with organisations that are struggling with innovation. they are too busy being sheep. - even how strategy planning is done allows little room for innovation. eg think in categories.
this is a picture of my late grandfather. now my grandfather was a very crative man, and someone who was not afraid to make a ruckus.
pause.
my grandfather certainly didn’ t play it safe by getting people tp liveunderground for what turned out to be a year.. his friends and family thought it was a bit crazy. but he did it, and it worked. And through not playing it safe, he turned into a life saver. stop playing it safe, stop going for the most obvious idea (chances are, your competitors are doing the exact same thing), Because the payoff for NOT playing it safe can be enormous.
the final thing i want to talk about is really practical and simple to apply, and demonstrates the value of using a science-based approach to driving innovation. to do innovation really well, it inovlves making a lot of decisions. and the effectiveness of these decisions can be the difference bw being incredibly successful through inno, and not at all.
draw graph - negative corr quality of DM # of decisions
tell story of the judge take the easy way out.
President obama, for example, only owns blue and grey suits – and has several sets of the exact same suit. He does this so he doesn’ t have to waste precious resrouces on deciding what to wear every day.
i love the quote “ if you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got ” . but i dont think it ’ s true anymore,because if you awlays do what you always did, you ’ ll probably get worse that you always got because the world is changing so fast. you cant just keep doing what you are doing and hope for the same results. so if you are in a business that wants to grow, and doesn ’ t want to die, and if you just want to be involved in creating something awesome, then innovation is how you get there.