(Update 11 Nov 2008 – link to IMD article posted at bottom of article)
I recently attended an IMD Alumnus Event with the rather innocuous title Heineken: The Booster Program.
The fact that the event was being hosted by the famous beer brewer Heineken at one of their production facilities, with product samples available before and after the presentations helped convince me to attend.
The content of the presentations blew me away completely.
Prof. Corey Billington from IMD presented on how Seeker Solver networks are revolutionizing the innovation process. Organizations seeking answers to their business problems are using knowledge brokers like IMD or Innocentive (amongst others) to access wide networks of external solvers.
By doing this they find innovative solutions in 1/10th of the time and at 1/20th the cost of doing it purely with internal resources.
Heineken then presented a concrete example of how they had used this process, facilitated by IMD, to develop a solution to a specific business strategy issue.
The key underlying concept is that innovation is moving away from being an in-house DIY process of painful invention. In this age of Google and Wikinomics it’s faster to find an existing solution that someone already thought of and applied in another industry (where solving the problem might be a basic requirement to staying in business) and adapt that to your situation. Adopt and adapt.
An example might be a bank or industrial company struggling with the speed of opening new offices. They could check out McDonalds or Domino’s where rapid opening of new franchise locations is an entry requirement to just staying in business.
After sampling Heineken’s fine products I briefly chatted with Prof. Billington and got to thinking about how this paradigm of innovation would apply in the Project Lifestyle.
Two questions occurred to me.
- How could customers use open innovation to improve IT project outcomes?
- How can we (Oracle) do the same (to improve project outcomes for our customers)?
Here some brief thoughts and notes – but any comments from the field are more than welcome
Customer Side: Climate and Visibility
It seems to me that the very act of engaging a consulting supplier to help with the delivery of an IT project starts a process of open innovation.
The consulting organization brings with it the experience of similar projects with other customers in other industries who have the same business problem. Some of that experience might be embedded in their methodology or in their prepackaged business process definitions (who does a business requirements study these days anyway?). Most of the experience, however, is walking around between the ears of the individual consultants on your project. So how do extract that (short of brain surgery)?
An initial thought of mine is you can get more innovation (=solved issues & new ideas) from your entire project team (not just the consultants or the participants in the relevant project track) by providing public visibility of the project issue register (for example) and creating a climate of expectation that anyone is empowered to suggest a solution. What are some of the consequences of this?
- You need a suitable infrastructure to register and publish the issues/problems/whatever, register the (potential) solvers and record their submitted solutions
- You need to act on the solutions and possibly award a bounty for successful solutions to some issues. A Terms and Conditions or Service Level Agreement might be appropriate.
- The previous bullet points both build toward the concept of truly branding the process as open innovation and avoid it being written off as “oh, just another suggestion box”
Oracle Side
In addition to the points made above we in Oracle have been working very hard on Knowledge Management for many years.
In the EMEA region we have placed a lot of emphasis on developing internal Professional Communities. These are voluntary membership organizations focused around knowledge management and professional development of their members in specific areas, for example Project Management or Applications Technology.
As knowledge brokers these communities also act as seeker solver networks. A consultant with an AppsTech related issue at a customer has immediate access to 1000+ other AppsTech colleague community members in 40+ countries. Answers to a specific question or problem can come back in as little as a few minutes.
This does raise two other observations however.
The quality of the answer or solution depends heavily on how you frame the problem or question.
The speed of response often depends on your previous contributions and profile in the network you are accessing.
Postscript
In looking more closely at the Innocentive website I noticed that our respected competitor SAP has sponsored an sub-network area devoted looking at SAP-specific or related questions and innovation. This reminded me of the Basic Rule of Competition.
BROC assumption is IQthem ≥IQus
For additional reference here is a link to an article on this subject published by Prof. Billington and Rhoda Davies. Want to improve your below-average business processes? - innovate don't invent
Comments (2)
Andrew,
This is an interesting post. Companies should certainly look to at other industries for similar solutions. The comment I have heard quite often is that our business is different or our industry doesn't work like that.
That attitude highlights an insular corporate culture. A company's management really needs to BELIEVE in open innovation. Too many companies pay lip service to it and don't follow through with it. Then it does become the "oh, just another suggestion box” . This goes back to the climate of expectation you write about.
From an Oracle perspective, the professional development communities are great assets that Oracle brings to any implementation.
One final note, framing the question is where many people fail. Framing the question requires that the individual to do some research (perhaps the solution has already been documented) and then think about the abstract issue trying be resolved. This is a skill that needs to be developed and nurtured.
(In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a former Oracle consultant.)
Posted by Nilo Paredes | April 16, 2009 3:12 PM
Posted on April 16, 2009 15:12
I do not agree with those people who think than Innovation is not grow.I think that Innovation is grow day by day.
Posted by Project Management Procedures | September 7, 2009 2:19 PM
Posted on September 7, 2009 14:19