Innovation - pushing people not buttons

Andre Laurin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:38:01 -0400

There is a frothing of corporate mouths whenever the prospect of innovation revolves around technology; it is revered as the Holy Grail, the bounty of high margins and repeatability that will deliver fat profits with decreasing service cost for years to come. As this has often been the outcome of new technology, it can quickly become the focus of an organization’s innovation strategy; in some cases an obsession. Which is great if you’re in a technology business. But even then, companies who think they are...may actually not be in a technology business at all. In fact, when distilled to its most basic form, technology is used to satisfy people needs; not technology needs.

Therefore, this miss-conception can often carry through to innovation, where many organizations have been enchanted by the promise of the siren’s technology song; the premise being “make something new and they will come”. This is not the case for Innovation & Idea Management software – your technology is an enabler for sure, but people have to be motivated in order for it to be engaging and actionable. Innovation & Idea Management is a people process that needs to be implemented with the support of technology. No push-button solutions here, because ideas need dynamic human input in order to become innovations, in order to get implemented and for the results to be measured in a meaningful way. This requires forethought, planning and most of all hands-on custody.

To properly support your process, your Innovation & Idea Management technology should first be defined by each role player’s need-set and in function of the purposefulness related to associated process step – not just based on the availability of technology features that merely provide the ability to do something differently; launching an idea & innovation process creates expectations for users based on promised outcomes – so when the ideas start coming fast and furious the organization has to be prepared to respond in kind. Because the brand promise of your program will be upheld as just that: a promise of better outcomes.

In the end, innovation is about transforming one’s culture and operations, therefore how one services this change-management is an essential component to process design; one that should only be transferred to technology when the thinking, analysis and planning of the process have been duly completed.

Idea and Innovation Blog

Innovation - pushing people not buttons