6.2.2.2
Analysis and verification of findings
Once the areas for improvement have been identified and prioritised, it is necessary to spend a period of time (possibly 1 or 2 weeks) analysing the actual situation within the organisation to establish the reasons for the perspectives of the participants, i.e., determine what caused them to give the responses they did. This is essential to realise an improvement in the organisation‟s innovation capability through an initiative. To solve (or rather mask) the symptoms that surfaced during the evaluation will not improve anything, particularly not over the long-term. It is therefore vital that the root causes of these symptoms be identified before specific improvement plans be developed and initiated. Various established techniques can be used in this exercise, including root cause analysis, cause and effect (or fish-bone) diagrams, Theory of Constraints‟ affinity diagrams, etc.
6.2.2.3
Development of improvement plan
Based on the prioritised requirements and the analysis and verification activity, an innovation capability improvement plan can be developed. This is where the generic nature and applicability of the ICMM begins to reduce substantially in favour of a customised solution that is unique to the organisation. In the case studies of Chapter 7, several discussions were held on the applicability of this approach (ICMM and improvement methodology) to organisations of different sizes, from different industries and with different value offerings. In each case, it was discussed how the Innovation Capability Requirements are relevant to all organisations, but that unique instantiations of those requirements were necessary to realise improved innovation capability within a particular organisation. Therefore, the manner in which an organisation fulfils these requirements is unique to that organisation.
There are however certain aspects of the ICMM v2 that can be used to facilitate the process of identifying the best possible means for fulfilling those requirements. The first is to use the table presented in Appendix D as a lookup for best-practices that have been used previously by other organisations to fulfil their specific (or similar) requirements. Alternately, a benchmark organisation may be referenced which has been
Understanding the market
Benchmarking innovation
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Evaluate and identify strengths and opportunities Strategic relevance, available resources, appetite, etc. Understanding the marketBenchmarking innovation
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Understanding the market
Benchmarking innovation
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Execute improvement planThis organisation may even be in a different industry with different needs. The point is to ascertain what works for other organisations and, from there, adapt and develop the specific instantiation that is suited to the organisation. Involving the relevant stakeholders from the organisation in this activity is essential to ensure that the eventual solution is an appropriate one.
Other literature and research may also be used as a guideline for fulfilling the specific needs of the organisation. An interesting tool that may be used in the execution of this activity is that of CAT (Corpus Analysis Toolkit – as used in the development of the ICMM v2 and discussed in Section 5.3.4). Having used the tool to identify the various topics within the Innovation Capability Corpus (discussed in Section 5.3.1), it can now be used to search that corpus for relevant literature that relates specifically to the Innovation Capability Requirements being targeted. Furthermore, the corpus should grow over time with the identification of new best-practices and CAT can be used contextualise these practices in light of the existing frameworks.
Note: 2 of the case studies of Chapter 7 reached this stage of the overall Innovation Capability Improvement Methodology and were, therefore, instrumental in the development of the methodology to this point. Remaining discussions propose the necessary activities to complete the improvement cycle.
6.2.2.4
Project portfolio workshop
Having analysed the situation within the organisation and developed the improvement plan therefore, it is now necessary to discuss (in detail) these aspects with the relevant stakeholders within the organisation. This may require a workshop-type environment, where participants can interactively discuss the plan and the implications thereof. The following aspects (at least) should be considered in this workshop:
The findings of the analysis and verification activity (Section 6.2.2.2), and the implications thereof in terms of the prioritised capability requirements.
The planned solutions and how they will improve and impact the overall innovation capability of the organisation.
The project plans to implement those solutions and their impact on the operational environment, existing innovation projects, other projects and the portfolio as a whole, and the resources available to execute those projects.
The outcome of this workshop should be a planned and coordinated portfolio of projects that have been rated according to factors including (but not limited to) strategic alignment (relevance to organisation), importance (potential to improve capability), risk, urgency (timing), and so on. The detailed project plans may require additional refinement given the events and discussions of the workshop. However, the foundation for the innovation capability improvement initiative should have been finalised.
Basically, this stage of the methodology deals with the execution of the plans developed and discussed in the previous section. As opposed to the previous 2 stages of the methodology, this stage has not been developed and refined through the activities of the case studies. Thus, these activities are proposed based on what would typically be necessary to complete the innovation capability improvement process. This primarily involves the utilisation of established portfolio and project management tools, techniques and methods. Two additional aspects that form part of this stage of the methodology deal with a generic improvement framework for the 42 capability requirements and coordinating the improvement of innovation capability with the actual execution of innovation projects. These aspects are depicted in Figure 40.