Creating Organizational Innovation Improvisation – Making The Flow Happen

The reality is that too often simple organizational experimentation for the purpose of streamlining or embracing advanced technological solutions requires the simplest of mental gymnastics in order to learn new ways of interacting with external forces both technological, financial, and especially design oriented. But how can complex organizations adapt at a pace that is consummate with the fundamental factor or change: usage?

In Forms, Metaphors, and Themes: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Organizational Improvisation we see some of the most fundamental efforts to map out and offer solutions to the biggest barriers to change along with simple and unexpected mechanisms that can make change happen quickly and many from a design centric methodology. Including gems such as dealing with ad-hoc response to circumstances; resistance behavior in the organizational under-life; a form of provocation; and a designed form of evolvability. We also see how improvisation when contextually sensitive and can be viewed as positive in one methodology but negative in another and how to leverage this distinction.

When utilized with specific internal design and engineering models for consummate focus with emerging technologies and social and visual queues, incredible results can take place in an ecosystem of rapid deployment of other emerging models to increase ROI when investors need be involved.   

 

                    

   

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When It's Disruptive, Spin Out and Spin In. Resistance Is the Key.

With the continuation of research into how disruptive design efforts and "Lean" capabilities increases the need to quickly identify the core drivers of an organisms outliers and either integrate or exaggerate previous prevailing notions of "let's not do that" are almost no longer valid as groups that quickly validate disruptive new product development efforts make breakthroughs that often lead to innovation. Where this become even more exciting is the overlap between existing internal methodologies.

In Assumptions in the Theory of Disruptive Innovation we quickly learn that disruptive innovations ( including the people that create them and often directly from what is seen as a unmet future need by users ) is often incompatible with existing preferences, incentives and competencies of actors in a firm’s value network. With this it is these innovations that are met with resistance when it comes to even approaching topics that can directly effect the validity or usage of said innovation in the real world. Now timing aside, overcoming such resistance, the incumbent firms or even incumbent internal actors often design a new models for acceptance, something that requires a nuanced and creative relationship with external stakeholders, especially when the environment or product line is characterized by a high degree of complexity. It is this key capability as detailed by this research that articulates the need for specific alternative methods of usage and acceptance that when properly executed allows the innovators to return to the fold of the organization and which radically effects the design competency and capabilities of the firm and the innovation created.

  

                    

   

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Do Networked Innovation Efforts Allow for Faster Results ? More Often Than You Might Think

In the race to actively increase the need for tightly coordinated innovation efforts inside industries where end user acceptance is the key to new product development usage, the factors mitigating failure are bound by not only wide spread usage, but over all knowledge. As it's often been famously said that people don't know what they want until you show it to them is key to adoption and even more so constrained when the group of ground breakers are relatively small and without a large voice.

In industries where high latency channels ( word of mouth, group gatherings necessary, etc.,, ) are the primary mechanism for innovation adoption this can sometimes cause increased difficulty in bringing innovations to the real world The effect then becomes, as detailed in Preference for Innovation Networks: A Choice Experimental Approach we see that leading firms, SME's choice of networks is affected negatively by the fact that these networks are composed of manufacturers and research institutions, and positively by the fact that information is shared confidentially among network partners where the primary network aims are building firms’ network of partners rather than, at large firms, where innovation has a function tightly paired to the outward effects of usage validity.

Sampling more than 200 new product development firms / manufacturers firms across Europe conclusions ranged from successes of inter-organizational networks depends on the exact and specific fit between the
network’s design ( from key industry players ) and the innovation and networking behavior of the firms specifically how open they were to partner via their direct to consumer activities. With specific and exact correlation it can be seen how specific activities in network creation lead to highly optimized and effective innovation capabilities that directly effect firm effectiveness in the market place.

  

                    

   

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Innovation Improvisation Makes The Breakthroughs Faster Than You Think

Can innovation and improvisation co-exist in a meaningful way and also as a turbo charger for results? Yes, but the mechanism s not what you might think. With the innovation game ( and you may notice which sounds like "The Imitation Game" ) the notion of the expected 7 step process to innovation is often much preferred as a systematic approach rather than any notion of the "ah ha" moment that can come at any time during the creation process. More than likely, the effect of such X step processes no matter how well intended often creates the backbone for incrementalism inside an organization and certainly within an innovation process. Therefore within the context of the down beat set by an organizations efforts to control and shepard the innovation process, improvisational techniques allow for organizational continuity to occur without the fully break the melody focus that any good bridge in modern R&B creates.

In Organizational Improvisation: From the Constraint of Strict Tempo to the Power of the Avant-Garde  we see the effects of Ad-hoc ( the ah ha process ); Covert ( clandestine ); Provocative ( destabilize war based ); and Managed ( Created Spaces ) efforts to deal possible zeitgeist of efforts that an organization can take to play along with the innovation game in the context of other similar organizations. Many of iGNITIATE's clients also report this as a key factor in increasing innovation capabilities as it is, this effort and the corresponding economics concerns itself with the battlefield of competition for dominance rather than the co-existence sometimes even within an organization, the terms used are naturally economic and position based. When focused on as a R&D effort complete with IP protection efforts and individual ownership / co-ownership mechanisms innovation improvisation takes on a whole new set of capabilities that can transform organizations.

  

                    

   

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Does Dedicated Innovation Focus Increase Design Success ? Not Necessarily. But It Can.

As innovators aren't meant to confirm, they are meant to converge, in facing the innovation games most complex foe, ROI, the reality is numbers don't lie. The issue is that the numbers related to what is true efficacy cannot be evaluated without context. However efficiency is not all monetary but unfortunately that is what the basis of innovation focuses on. Innovation by it's original definition by Joseph Schumpeter is 100% rooted in the world of economics. Schumpeter tried to start a bank, failed, was an economist / finance minister, failed, had nervous breakdowns several times over the course of his life, almost died and pushed himself and his investors with theories of cyclicity - when to buy, how to buy, when to sell, how to sell as a mechanism of how to increase shareholder value. While accurate in the race of ROI, in combination with the notions of how innovation is effected by a gold monetary standard , fiat monetary standard etc., every focus was economic and policy based. This however is not the only basis for innovation and certainly not to be evaluated in isolation. Why? Because micro ( non-societal based innovation efficacy ) ate a firm level is executed upon by industrious individuals regardless of external forces. Innovators simply do not stop just because a market says it is time or not time to launch.

In The Role of Dedicated Innovation Functions for Innovation Process Control and Performance we see a quite surprising outcome: informal control mechanisms ( when helping innovation along inside an existing organization ) has a positive effect on innovation activity ( more experimentation is taking place & people are trying new things ) and innovation performance ( more breakthroughs are being utilized ) out in the filed however with a formal control mechanism having significant positive effect on innovation performance ( usability in the field ) does mean continues innovation activity will take place. With the implementation of a dedicated innovation function ( an innovation office, and staff ) to monetize "new" efforts do in fact have a positive effect on both control mechanisms ( the people sheparding new efforts ) and innovation activity ( people in the field trying, trying, trying, new things ) but then comes the unexpected.

Contrary to expectations, an innovation ( office, and staff ) function’s direct effect on innovation performance is negative which is not surprising for one simple reason: it's infancy, innovation, IS invention and in it's adolescence morphs ( due to conformity to the existing organism capabiliteis ) to new set of environmental factors not previously there eg. the ever famous iPod whose demanded use of DRM as a legal framework for ownership ( from record companies ) which once in place cemented the adoption of new, previous unacceptable design creativity eg. the selection wheel interface. Had the typical model of innovation ( economics over experimentation ) taken place, the entire design effort ( of new interfaces, new modalities for digital audio playback use ) may have been thrown out: no one would have seen the value in the experimentation for the purpose of innovation past a few drawings on paper. Or would it?

Innovation within the context of formal product development is often ascribed to incrementalism and thus new product development efforts. Innovation within the context of informal and often ego based experimentalism becomes the key to rule breaker mentalities where when convergence occurs at a later time allows for breakthroughs that force change upon an organism faster than incremental adoption.

  

                    

   

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Intuition ( Innovation ) Means Exploration Success Or Investigation Enumeration ? Both

Intuition ( Innovation ) Means Exploration Success Or Investigation Enumeration ? Both. But you better be prepared for it.

When it comes to innovation, the reality is that dominance requires exploitation. Breakthroughs however do not necessarily align with this capability, at least in the "soft" sense. How can a balance be struck internally in your organization and in an individual so that the baby is not thrown out with the bathwater ? Here is how.
One of the key takeaways from The Role of Intuition and Deliberation for Exploration and Exploitation Success is that "exploration [ which is ] strongly related to intuitive decision making draws on both intuitive and deliberate decision making" however exploitation does not. Does this directly impact the perceived calm and persistence of your organizations ethos ? Yes. Does this coincide with frogs in boiling pots of water before they become cuisses de grenouilles? And more importantly can this be reversed ? Can intuitive decision-making style have a negative effect on exploitative success? Apparently observation is not positively correlated with deliberate decision-making and thus exploitative success. Why?

Essentially you can't leave it only to the bravest or most farsighted individuals for their decisions to influence long term success solely based on intuition. Organizations and organisms pay for long term successes to be assured just like droves of 2nd wave colonizers paid handsomely for accurate maps to their enterprising destinations. When it comes to discovery, intuition and innovation via exploratory success AND investigative enumeration is the surest way to increase breakthrough products and services.

  

                    

   

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