The Brainovation® Blog

Innovationskraft: Idékläck, Djuptänk och Framåtblick

2016-09-19T02:54:00.001-04:00

Innovation har praktiserats länge och ingående studerats av många forskare. Innovationsledning har varit tema på konferenser och seminarier varje år runt om i världen sedan lång tid tillbaka. Det finns alltså stor erfarenhet och mycket kunskap om ämnet. Samtidigt vet vi att innovation ofta misslyckas.

Visst kan man säga att misslyckanden är en nödvändig del av innovation. Man vet ju helt enkelt inte hur väl nya produkter, tjänster eller affärsmodeller kommer att lyckas på marknaden innan man försökt. Man får ta risken. Dessutom leder ju ett eventuellt misslyckande till att man lär sig vad som inte fungerar.

Men det finns också sätt att öka ett företags innovationskraft och därmed även sannolikheten för framgång. Här är mina funderingar om ämnet:

A Glimpse of Smart Cities

2016-05-06T02:48:00.000-04:00

Last week I attended the Smart City event during the Eureka innovation week in Stockholm.

Presenters shared their views on IoT and Smart City development with upbeat predictions and interesting cases. A number of collaborative innovation projects were exhibited during the event. It’s all about wireless sensors, ICT and other technologies to create attractive and sustainable communities for future urban living. Well managed green cities and a Sharing Economy. Uber with driverless cars? Maybe.

A few questions and comments touched on vulnerability, security and crime. Not surprisingly, relatively little has been foreseen and planned for in this area. It’s probably unavoidable that with Smart Cities will also come Smart Crime.

Here’s my report:
A Glimpse of Smart Cities

Managing R&D

2016-01-26T09:17:00.002-05:00

Managing R&D organizations is in many respects not much different from managing any other type of organization. There are, however, some important characteristics of R&D operations. One is simply the need to make room for innovation and manage technology cycles. Another is the need to maintain a structured approach in new product development and product life cycle management, while at the same time managing continuously developing challenges and pervasive uncertainties in the business environment.

So begins a new and revised version of a white paper on the management of engineering and technology based organizations: MENTOR

Innovative Research

2015-09-24T08:44:00.001-04:00

Reuters has published a survey listing the world’s 100 most innovative universities. Ranking was based on research articles and patents.
Not surprisingly Stanford, MIT and Harvard made top three. Nine of the top ten were US universities with Korea’s KAIST in 10^th place. Several universities from small nations such as Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and Singapore also made it onto the list: The World’s Most Innovative Universities

Tina Seelig on Entrepreneurship

2015-09-09T13:04:00.000-04:00

Monday I listened in on a presentation from ESBRI by Stanford University professor Tina Seelig. She spoke on "From Inspiration to Implementation – How to bring your ideas to life".

As expected from an American academic teacher, the content was well developed and the delivery was flawless. The fact that creativity is more than ideas and innovation more than creativity is fairly well understood of course, but Seelig managed to make some very good points. That Brainstorming may require “Framestorming” first is an interesting way of emphasizing the need to be well prepared for creative effort. Paying attention and asking questions come from curiosity and engagement. Performing little experiments tell inventors whether their ideas will work. Imagination, Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship follow each other, with the latter certainly the hardest.

“I want to start a company, but I don’t have an idea” may be as common as “I have an idea and I want to start a company”. In either case, inspired people will have to combine their skills to succeed in the entrepreneurial innovation effort. And, according to Seelig, people are waiting to get inspired!
If you want to watch the video session, get on ESBRI’s web-TV.

At the Idea Factory

2015-04-18T13:55:00.001-04:00

I recently lectured at Gothenburg’s Idea Factory about insight and ignorance in knowledge organizations. Before the lecture, the people at Realize made a brief video interview with me. Here’s a transcript in English.

Why is expertise important in organizations?

Because investments in expertise create high returns. It’s easy to understand that knowledge is needed in knowledge organizations. Strategy, innovation and operations all require knowledge. But expertise is more than knowledge, more than just experience. It’s a capability. It’s the capability to see what others don’t, solve complex problems and find new, promising opportunities.
It takes a long time to become an expert and it’s difficult to teach expertise. So when organizations have acquired the expertise they need, they should make efforts to use it well. And make sure they don’t lose it.

What is missing from organizational learning?

It has been said that the main characteristic of learning organizations is that so few actually exist. The challenge goes beyond just learning and involves the outcome. If learning calls for significant change, a new strategy or a different company culture, then it’s difficult. If you can make that happen, then you are truly a learning organization.
Then there is often not enough room for different kinds of learning. Just working off budgeted hours for training isn’t always enough. I think organizations don’t always analyze learning needs or solutions as far as they could. Learning can happen in many different ways involving different methods and solutions. I suggest you may need to try more than one.

What is the connection between creativity and knowledge?

I see primarily two connections. One is the possibility to combine different existing knowledge to create new insight and new ideas. Another is the fact that knowledge is required to review and evaluate new ideas. Actually, the entire innovation process requires knowledge and expertise all the way from front end to back end. It’s about creating a productive interplay between creativity, expertise and leadership. Almost like a well functioning orchestra. Could you organize innovation a bit like a musical performance? Well, why not.

In Search of Google Magic

2015-03-11T13:25:00.000-04:00

I recently attended a presentation of management practices in Silicon Valley by Dr. Annika Steiber. Google was the main case, but Steiber has also studied Twitter, LinkedIn and others to get to the root of organizational performance excellence in Silicon Valley businesses.

There is only so much that can be conveyed in one hour. And, of course, we are not talking heavy industry here. No mining, machinery or construction and nothing that carries a lot of weight or requires people to wear protective gear. But certainly businesses that create a lot of value. So what can others learn then from the people on 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California?
Whatever it is that works for Google seems to work well. For them that is. And that’s an important point. Anyone who has ever been involved in serious benchmarking knows that adopting the practices of others comes with some caveats. You can’t copy culture. You may copy practice, but if you do you have to ask yourself some important questions:

What constitutes best practice?
Which practice is the best and who decides?
What specifically is it that makes this practice best?
What makes this practice suitable for sharing?
Would this practice work as well in our organization?

Google takes its business seriously. Focusing on people, making room for creative contributions, using social control instead of policies and being agile and lean sound like good advice for just about any organization. And sustainable success may very well require continuous renewal. If that’s what you need, you can certainly learn from the management practices of Silicon Valley. But good old B&M practices have not quite disappeared and I doubt the Google way would do as well in e.g. the nuclear power, offshore oil or aircraft manufacturing industries. And wild ideas and fast failures are probably not for the pharmaceutical industry either.
Making sure that the company mission is owned by everyone is a good thing though and Google may be a good example of a truly mission based enterprise, where everyone knows what needs to be accomplished – organizing the world’s information. Google’s mission is bold. Fulfilling it requires a culture of continuous innovation. So far it may not be magic, but they’ve done pretty good wouldn’t you say?

At the Idea Factory

2015-02-21T05:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I attended another Friday lecture at the Idea Factory in Gothenburg. This one presented by innovation guru Dr. Bengt Järrehult. Nothing much can be said about innovation that probably hasn’t been said already. But Järrehult delivered an interesting mix of blue ocean strategy, innovation psychology and common sense. And of course a bit of big company bashing.
The need for good communication between technology and market people has been emphasized many times before. That also means that techies need market knowledge and vice versa. A case for both individual and organizational learning.
Risking a loss often trumps the opportunity of making a gain. Successful innovation may need to include multiple value propositions and, much like agile software development, probe and sense the way forward rather than stick to a corporate 5 year plan.
I know this, but an occasional reminder never hurts. An hour well spent.

Corporate entrepreneurship

2015-01-12T04:18:00.000-05:00

How do large established companies manage the coexistence of the core business with corporate entrepreneurship?
It's a classic question in organizational design and development. The answer may simply be "as well as they can", i.e. once the challenge is recognized they find ways to make room for corporate entrepreneurship (CE) without compromising their core business. One could say it's really about managing CE as it's reasonable to assume that the core business will always be managed. Resource is an obvious issue, but there are several others as can be seen from a recently published study of some Swedish companies:
How large companies pursue tomorrow's business

MAKE 2014

2014-12-22T10:24:00.001-05:00

The 2014 global MAKE award study was published earlier this month. Most winners are again the well known big knowledge enterprises with Google for the second time named overall winner. No big surprises in other words. SAP and somewhat lesser known UK based Arup were named first time winners.
You can download the executive summary report from the KNOW network:
Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise

Innovation and Climate Change

2014-11-30T16:17:00.000-05:00

In time for the Lima conference, here are some views on innovation and the economics of climate change from the CCCEP and the Grantham Research Institute:
Policy Paper on Innovation and Climate Change

Risk, Resilience and Innovation

2014-11-26T14:59:00.001-05:00

Most organizations recognize risk and have at least some ways of managing risk. Most organizations also realize that risk and uncertainty are not the same and that the latter involves not only unknown threats but also opportunities.

PwC use the concept of enterprise resilience to go beyond traditional risk management and address an organizations capacity for change.
In this recent Forbes interview, PwC's Fiorella Iannuzzelli elaborates a bit on the concept and points to the role of innovation in developing enterprise resilience:

Defining the Role of Innovation in Company Resilience

Ideas in the Cloud

2014-10-31T14:43:00.000-04:00

Dagens föreläsning på Idéfabriken gjordes av teknikföretaget i2i-“idea2innovation” - i samarbete med Realize. Mycket folk men så ingick också lunchmacka före och bubbelmingel efteråt.

i2i har utvecklat ett verktyg för molnbaserad idéhantering. Idea Management har ju funnits länge förstås med likartade funktioner från flera företag. Ett vanligt problem har dock varit att man skaffat idé-verktyg utan att komplettera med kreativitets- och innovationsmetodik i övrigt, med magert resultat som följd. Här kan kanske samarbetet mellan i2i och Realize visa sig fruktbart i kundprojekt.

Why Management Does What It Does

2014-10-27T16:00:00.000-04:00

At times, companies adopt management innovations. The reasons may vary, but in general it is assumed they do so in pursuit of business benefits such as e.g. efficiency gains or quality improvement.
This study takes a closer look at adoption motivations relating to quality and environmental management practices in ten small to medium sized manufacturing companies in the Gothenburg area:
Adoption of Management Innovations

The study has some limitations, but it outlines contemporary thinking about what motivates companies to adopt new management practices.
Could help to be prepared the next time a new initiative is rolled out.

Innovation à la Chalmers

2014-09-17T09:43:00.000-04:00

Chalmers Innovation har utnämnts till världens 7:e bästa UBI-inkubator. Sedan stiftelsens grundande 1999 har 2700 idéer utvärderats, 200 projekt genomförts och 130 företag startats.
Stiftelsen är delägare i ett 40-tal företag med ett sammanlagt värde av 1 miljard kronor.

http://www.chalmersinnovation.com

Innovation overload

2014-08-18T10:29:00.000-04:00

In a recent Forbes article, David Slocum from the Berlin School of Creative Leadership suggests that overusing the words "creativity" and "innovation" risk making these lose their meaning. Of course this is not unique to these particular words, but Slocum has a point. There are situations where it would be important to be clear and to communicate meaning.
As with a lot of other management challenges, two of the most important questions are "what needs to be accomplished?" and "what outcomes are expected?" The answers will add meaning also to creativity and innovation and hopefully help reduce the language overload that Slocum warns about:
Why saying "creativity" is not enough

Business Model Innovation

2014-08-01T07:59:00.001-04:00

The 83rd edition of the Brainovation newsletter is currently online.
It comments on business model innovation and points to a study of the German smart energy market.

The Competent Company

2014-08-01T06:53:00.000-04:00

A quote from my second book on modern management:

"A long time ago Plato asked the surprisingly modern question what is the value of knowledge?

Today the relevance of the question is still recognized not only by epistemologists and knowledge economists, but by business leaders, analysts and investors as well.

The answer is clear. There are indeed significant economic and competitive advantages of pursuing a business strategy based on knowledge leadership. In their 2013 annual award study, Teleos reported that recognized global knowledge leaders posted returns on assets of 9.8% – 4.6 times that of the Fortune 500 median.

No doubt, technology leadership and market dominance are to a large extent the result of deliberate and directed internal investments in knowledge and expertise...

It’s when knowledge challenges generally held beliefs that an organization is put to the test – whether it can learn and change or whether it cannot."

The Competent Company will be published this month as a Brainovation book on Lulu.com. Stay tuned.

Brainovation Cartoons

2014-05-24T02:30:00.000-04:00

Regular readers of this blog know that I like to draw. Making fun of management and corporate life is not new, but at least I try to do it my way.
Here's a small collection of Brainovation Cartoons

Idea Management technology

2014-05-10T02:43:00.000-04:00

Nordic IT services company Tieto uses an Idea Management system they call Eureka. Perhaps not the most creative name for such a tool, but according to a study by the Mälardalen university the tool - in contrast to the illustration above - seems to work well for Tieto. Tieto's customers did not participate in the study and there is always a risk that internal users embellish their opinions particularly in a company one would expect to be generally IT friendly. Nevertheless, the study did what it could to mitigate the shortcomings of the method used. The report can be downloaded from Swedish university essays:

How enterprise social software enables organizations to increase their innovativeness

Innovation Management Maturity

2014-03-17T05:31:00.000-04:00

Is there a need for another maturity model in management? Carnegie Mellon’s Capability Maturity Model (CMMI) has been around for quite some time. Last year portfolio and resource management solutions provider Planview introduced their CMMI based Innovation Management Maturity Model. I’m somewhat skeptical. I think there are simpler and more effective ways for companies to review their innovation performance. And there is certainly a greater need to demonstrate performance than being able to market a level 5 innovation maturity - with or without a certificate. How about starting with a few basic questions:

what are we doing?
what should we be doing?
what could we be doing?
why aren't we?

Planview does a webcast on March 26 titled The Right Way to Run Innovation. It’s only 30 minutes so even if I’m skeptical, I might listen in. If I have time.

Fredagsföreläsning på Idéfabriken

2014-03-07T03:23:00.000-05:00

Den 14:e mars föreläser Martin Börjesson om omvärldsanalys och nya tankeboxar på Idéfabriken hos Realize i Göteborg. Ämnet verkar intressant och jag planerar att vara där. Dessutom har jag träffat Martin en gång tidigare när jag arbetade med strategi och passar gärna på att återknyta kontakten.
Vårens föreläsningsprogram finns på hemsidan: www.realize.se

A trip to Taiwan

2014-02-26T03:55:00.001-05:00

Earlier this month I visited Taiwan - one of the original Asian tiger economies. During two exciting weeks I experienced Chinese new year, hi-tech, oriental art and a touch of Buddhism. Here's my report:
A trip to Taiwan in the early days of the year of the horse

Bloomberg innovative nations ranking

2014-02-18T02:17:00.000-05:00

A number of innovation rankings are published every year from various sources. Bloomberg came out early with this one:
Most Innovative Countries in the World 2014

South Korea, Sweden and the US top the list.Taiwan, mostly known for its electronics manufacturing industry, made top ten and actually leads in patent activity followed by South Korea and Japan.

Stay tuned for this month's Brainovation newsletter, which will feature a report from my recent trip to Taiwan.

The struggle to innovate

2014-01-25T11:30:00.000-05:00

Sweden is usually doing well in comparative national ratings of innovation performance. That doesn't mean that everything is OK. Particularly with smaller firms. This study looks at the situation in Swedish SMEs using Freel's framework:
Why cannot Swedish SMEs innovate?