Measuring Innovation

Image courtesy the BCG

To all my fellow innovation managers out there who are trying so desparately hard to measure the value of innovation in your organizations, I wanted to share something that struck me as so simplistic yet so profound that in and of itself, was truly innovative.

Rick Weaver posted an article about measuring project success and the impact Cloud services could have on these measures.  One of his measurements focused on an "Innovation Ratio" where we consider how much we are spending on reducing technical debts versus the amount of new capabilities we are adding.  More simplistically put:

                           Amount spent on reducing technical debts
      Innovation =  ------------------------------------------------------------
                                Amount of new capabilities added

To me we could keep this very simple on figuring out hard numbers of Innovation.  Consider what   are you spending to ensure your current technology does not become obsolete?  Are we buying the latest and greatest versions or upgrading legacy equipment?  Are we removing manual systems that lead to errors?

And then capabilities are easily accounted from a basic features list.  What can you do now that you could not do before is a great measurement for any change project or initiative.  Those are the benefits that are quickly tangible!   You can worry about culture change and measuring shifts in dynamics later once you have buy-in with your metrics!

So where to look for these things?  Again, keep it simple - where are you manually addressing processes?  Where are you using outdated technology (easy answer is where do people ignore the technology provided and instead use their own manual process - these are anyone creating their own spreadsheets and databases or emailing items or worse, printing!!)?

What ideas do you have?  Again, this equation struck me as a great way to help MEASURE INNOVATION and the value that you are bringing to an organization!

Building Leadership Skills on Project Teams

I recently had the pleasure of sharing this as a presentation at PMI HNL Professional Development Day 2015 and enjoyed the feedback that I've incorporated into this posting to continue to share and build on thoughts that makes us successful when working with people!

If you want a different outcome, ask yourself what are you doing differently to achieve this outcome.

Requirements

Understand that project teams are made up with people of diverse experience & expertise; while valuable to the team, realize that they each take a different view of the challenge at hand

Physically displaying items – whether in pictures of end result or large words posted on the wall – help clarify and ensure everyone is literally on the same page.

Consider “Draw the Pig” icebreaker – instructions available at:  http://www.whiteman.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-130408-056.pdf  

Risk

Draw out the potential outcomes (comic strips are great for actions) – how likely are they to occur?  Are they worth prioritizing? 

Getting Feedback

Post ideas on a large easel sheet of paper (one idea per page) and post in a common area.  Leave markers and encourage people to comment over a few days.  Great for identifying what’s in and out of scope!

Listening

Listening is about asking the right QUESTIONS (not the right answers – if you knew the answer, why are you asking the question?)

Listen to all the information the person shares versus focusing on just what you want to hear – you may miss out on valuable information!

Get a scribe – someone NOT a stakeholder to take notes so that you may engage with your stakeholders.  Then review afterwards with the scribe and highlight key insights from your listening.

Process Definition

How a process works is sometimes better to see in person.  If you can’t physically see the action then act it out (think charades!). 

Brainstorming

Use the “Red Cup” or other object – one idea per person, must say an idea before passing, can only say one idea and continue for a short amount of time with a hard time limit (push people to go faster!) – focus is on QUANTITY not quality.  It removes the “analysis paralysis” by focusing on the object while getting equal participation by all, regardless of position or expertise.  There are no right or wrong answers, just ideas to grow on.

     Question from presentation: Brainstorming in this way could still allow influence on others - YES!  Participants, even though the focus is on equal pariticipation by all, could still be influencing others; however, the goal of brainstorming is quantity.  If you're more focused on not influencing, then anonymous techniques (via email and a facilitator) or non-verbal techniques (using post-its on a wall) may be preferred.  Adjust to your situation!

Prototyping

Build something a user can interact with – SHOW what the envisioned end result is, do not tell them.  Give them something to interact with.

Prioritizing

Write out each item on a post-it, one per post-it.  Then provide stakeholders with poker chips (or other voting item) and have them vote.  They can place as many as they want on each, but no “buying” more.                                                     

Just TRY it!  And build on Lessons Learned!