182 Volume 65: Issue 3 I May/June 2011 www.engineersjournal.ie 1. Balancing different mindsets Encouraging different mindsets in your company can balance your team and help expand innovation and get it ‘out the door’ and into the market. In a 2009 research study (Introduction to Type and Innovation; www.cpp.com), the authors, Killen and Williams looked at four innovation types, grounding their 500-participant study in the well-known Meyers-Briggs personality assessment. If you know your M-B type, or can guesstimate it, then it makes finding yourself in their innovation type report all the more interesting as you link to stages of an innovation process (see Panel 1): If you build an innovation organisation with people from each type, applying their strengths at the right time during product develop- ment and understanding each others’ perspectives, then the inno- vation process can be smoother and quicker. Idea refiners like to simplify matters and wait to move forward until an accurate definition of the problem is found, so that time isn’t wasted later. This is great for the Define phase – these are the people who will look at all the potential their team members and executives have brought to the first meetings, and make some sense out of it in a way that will frame a brief for the project work ahead. Those who like to have different ideas are naturals in the second phase, Discovery, where adequate exploration is key to the great- est innovation success later. At this point in the project, more ideas and wilder ideas are what’s needed. During the remaining phases, the brilliance unearthed here will be honed to something increas- ingly practical. The team needs a couple of people who can expand options at this wide open end of the innovation funnel. Idea adopters like to align ideas to real needs and then move forward with at least one - which is perfect for progressing into and through the Decide phase. Some teams remain in the Define and Discover phases too long if they are lacking the team members who are itching to focus the work by prioritising stakeholder needs, play- ing to target customers’ desires, or otherwise evaluating and choos- ing the path forward. The final Delivery phase plays to the strength of those who like efficiency ideas, since they like to realise practical outcomes and complete a process. It’s something to be grateful for, that 38 per cent of the population is this type, for two reasons: (1) the greater part of the work is in the implementing, rather than the initial idea generation and (2) a good idea simply evaporates without someone to make it happen. 2. Balancing team functions The Define, Discover and Decide phases require inspired and dili- gent exploration to bring high value ideas to an innovation devel- opment team, followed by expert and intuitive winnowing and refining of the opportunities into a development roadmap and specific project plan and product requirements. IDEO, the world’s largest Innovation and Design consultancy, advocates 10 perspec- tives or functions for people on your team to take on (see Panel 2). This does not mean you will need 10 people to run a good explo- ration, but you do want your team to wear the different ‘hats’ to achieve the richest results. These functional strengths produce surpassing results across a range of endeavours, including strategy, product and service development, and even organisational change. As an example of seeing this at work in an organisational change project, IDEO worked with a large healthcare organisation, compris- ing 30 medical centres across several US states. IDEO’s team The I-Team: how to develop innovation teams Christine Kurjan and Keith Finglas of innovation consultancy Innovation Delivery have extensive experience in managing innovation teams. Here, they present three approaches to building such teams looking in particular at the mindsets, functions, and skills required of team members Panel 1: Four innovation phases With relevant innovator types: Phase 1 Define Refining Ideas: Doing Things Better (aligns with ‘SP’ types, sensing/perceiving) Phase 2 Discover Different Ideas: Doing Things No One Else Is Doing (NP types, intuitive/perceiving) Phase 3 Decide Adopting Ideas: Doing Things Others Are Doing (‘NJ’ types, intuitive/judging) Phase 4 Deliver Efficiency Ideas: Doing the Right Things and Doing Them the Right Way (‘SJ’ types, sensing/judging) EI_Journal_June_2011.indd 182 03/06/2011 11:16:10
Transcript
182 Volume 65: Issue 3 I May/June 2011 www.engineersjournal.ie
1. Balancing different mindsetsEncouraging different mindsets in your company can balance your team and help expand innovation and get it ‘out the door’ and into the market. In a 2009 research study (Introduction to Type and Innovation; www.cpp.com), the authors, Killen and Williams looked at four innovation types, grounding their 500-participant study in the well-known Meyers-Briggs personality assessment. If you know your M-B type, or can guesstimate it, then it makes fi nding yourself in their innovation type report all the more interesting as you link to stages of an innovation process (see Panel 1):If you build an innovation organisation with people from each type, applying their strengths at the right time during product develop-ment and understanding each others’ perspectives, then the inno-vation process can be smoother and quicker. Idea refi ners like to simplify matters and wait to move forward until an accurate defi nition of the problem is found, so that time isn’t wasted later. This is great for the Defi ne phase – these are the people who will look at all the potential their team members and executives have brought to the fi rst meetings, and make some sense out of it in a way that will frame a brief for the project work ahead. Those who like to have different ideas are naturals in the second phase, Discovery, where adequate exploration is key to the great-est innovation success later. At this point in the project, more ideas and wilder ideas are what’s needed. During the remaining phases, the brilliance unearthed here will be honed to something increas-ingly practical. The team needs a couple of people who can expand options at this wide open end of the innovation funnel. Idea adopters like to align ideas to real needs and then move forward with at least one - which is perfect for progressing into and through the Decide phase. Some teams remain in the Defi ne and Discover phases too long if they are lacking the team members who are itching to focus the work by prioritising stakeholder needs, play-ing to target customers’ desires, or otherwise evaluating and choos-ing the path forward. The fi nal Delivery phase plays to the strength of those who like effi ciency ideas, since they like to realise practical outcomes and complete a process. It’s something to be grateful for, that 38 per cent of the population is this type, for two reasons: (1) the greater part of the work is in the implementing, rather than the initial idea generation and (2) a good idea simply evaporates without someone to make it happen.
2. Balancing team functionsThe Defi ne, Discover and Decide phases require inspired and dili-gent exploration to bring high value ideas to an innovation devel-opment team, followed by expert and intuitive winnowing and refi ning of the opportunities into a development roadmap and specifi c project plan and product requirements. IDEO, the world’s largest Innovation and Design consultancy, advocates 10 perspec-tives or functions for people on your team to take on (see Panel 2). This does not mean you will need 10 people to run a good explo-ration, but you do want your team to wear the different ‘hats’ to achieve the richest results. These functional strengths produce surpassing results across a range of endeavours, including strategy, product and service development, and even organisational change. As an example of seeing this at work in an organisational change project, IDEO worked with a large healthcare organisation, compris-ing 30 medical centres across several US states. IDEO’s team
The I-Team:how to develop innovation teamsChristine Kurjan and Keith Finglas of innovation consultancy Innovation Delivery have extensive experience in managing innovation teams. Here, they present three approaches to building such teams looking in particular at the mindsets, functions, and skills required of team members
Panel 1: Four innovation phases With relevant innovator types:
Phase 1 Defi ne Refi ning Ideas: Doing Things Better (aligns with ‘SP’ types, sensing/perceiving)
Phase 2 Discover Different Ideas: Doing Things No One Else Is Doing (NP types, intuitive/perceiving)
Phase 3 DecideAdopting Ideas: Doing Things Others Are Doing (‘NJ’ types, intuitive/judging)
Phase 4 DeliverEffi ciency Ideas: Doing the Right Things and Doing Them the Right Way (‘SJ’ types, sensing/judging)
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TechnologyPeople
Business
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of eight (four consultants and four clients), including co-au-thor Christine, visited four medical centres for a month each. Each member of the team adopted the anthropologist and set designer personas, observing patients and staff and creating spaces for collaboration at each hospital. One consultant/client pair took on the director/hurdler/collaborator roles, effectively leading the project and working with the administration.Other pairs naturally took on cross-pollinator, and experimenter roles, seeking great ideas, trialling compelling ones, drawing on networks and knowledge. And one person was experience archi-tect and storyteller, bringing a portfolio of 20 concepts to their fi nal stages. This collaboration left the healthcare fi rm in a state of high enthusiasm to carry the work forward across further sites. In the years since, they’ve created their own prototyping centre in Oakland, California which other healthcare entities are invited to use as well. This was real success – to inspire the internal team to continue and to build further.
3. Balancing skills within the team and wider organisation Leading edge innovation companies use people with a variety of backgrounds in technology, business and human factors to get all-round views on new products and services. This improves the feasibility, viability and desirability of new products or services for end users, partners, distributors and agents.Within the organisaton, mixing people from different departments, such as engineering, manufacturing or operations, IT and fi nance, helps by building more grounded solutions that take into account
Learning
Anthropologist: understands stakeholders and consumers in order to identify value to offer them
Experimenter:jumps into the defi ned challenge and trials fresh ideas
Cross-Pollinator: brings relevant inspiration from tangentially-related areas
Organising
Hurdler: breaks through impasses the teamfaces, whether political or technical
Collaborator: dissolves traditional boundaries to form a cohesive team, able to perform
Director: helps to inspire and shepherd the vision; brings out everyone’s best
Building
Experience architect: produces positive ‘encounters’ for others with your products and services
Set designer: creates a space for the team to work in creativity
Storyteller: from the vision, the connections, the designed experience creates video, text, narrative and/or visuals to bring a concept into focus for the team, stakeholders, customers and end-users
Caregiver: understands customer and provides them with a comfortable, human-centred experience
Panel 2: Personas/functions that team members can adopt
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184 Volume 65: Issue 3 I May/June 2011 www.engineersjournal.ie
more considerations than simply those of the new idea. How can this help? Innovation efforts are often carried out in pilot projects, at a distance from the company’s main operations effort. At the point where the concept has proven successful and needs to scale, you will need someone on the team who can successfully bridge to the manu-facturing or operations world, who knows their culture, language and day to day interests and challenges.If a manufacturing or operations representative has been on the team from early on, there is a better chance that the needs and challenges of the manufacturing environment will have been taken into account. Otherwise, manufacturing groups can be resistant to what they see as interference with their primary role – typically a volume/quality challenge, since many do not have any responsibility for the success-ful implementation of new products or services. We had a few similar requests in recent weeks from operations reps who wished to be kept in the loop early to facilitate improvements in resulting products and experiences; these were from packaging departments, in both the consumer and food industries, and from a support services depart-ment in an automotive company. As well as mixing your employees’ core skills on projects, you may want to develop innovation skill-
sets for your specific industry or sector, particularly around strategy, projects and culture. Developing these innovation-oriented skills can take longer than the time available on one project – but keeping an eye on their development across multiple projects means the learn-ing can be captured, disseminated and grown. One of our mantras is ‘innovation can scale.’ Whether at SME or MNC level, these perspec-tives on attitude, practices and skills can be applied to create a well-rounded team. Whether developing your internal resources or relying on external partners, bring together broad thinkers and focused deci-sion-makers, explorers and storytellers, customer- and experience-focused people, mixing in those from other disciplines and stages of development to create and maintain a vision and bring it to market.The concepts discussed in this article are being put into practice in an innovation boot-camp which Innovation Delivery is running at UCD’s Computer Science Department. The course targets industrial projects with a range of companies participating, from start-ups through SMEs to MNCs. The course is intended to replicate the operation of world-class innovation centres like those at IDEO and Fraunhofer - matching industry needs with academic capabilities to generate commercially successful solutions.
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www.engineersjournal.ie Volume 65: Issue 3 I May/June 2011 185
Christine Kurjan has led product, service and organisational develop-ment efforts while working 15 years with IDEO, a world-class innova-tion consultancy, and four years with Innovation Delivery in Dublin. She explores new concepts and has brought high and low volume products to market in medical and consumer industries. Her work crosses a broad range of sectors,
company sizes, and global locations. Exciting work lately includes leading concept workshops for a solar panel start-up, coaching managers in innovation techniques at an interna-tional polymer company in Japan, facilitating brainstorms and knowledge sharing at Tesla Motors in California, and benchmarking innovation in Irish food and fi nancial sectors. Christine graduated from Georgia Tech and Stanford University.
Keith Finglas spent 20 years in programme management with G.E. (US), Guinness and Intel in Europe, the US, South America and the Far East. His ultimate role in Intel was managing the Project Management Offi ce for Intel’s world-wide Inno-vation Centre, before leaving to start Innovation Delivery with his co-founders in 2006. Keith has managed project groups
and large projects in areas such as IT, Finance, HR and Construction. He teaches project and programme manage-ment, as well as the development and application of innova-tion techniques within projects to achieve higher value solu-tions across many industries.
References:https://www.cpp.com/en/detailitem.aspx?ic=6185http://www.gesher.org/Myers-Briggs/Myers_Briggs.html The 10 Faces of Innovation, Tom Kelley; 2005, Doubleday. ISBN-10: 9780385512077www.InnovationDelivery.com
