Innovation & Creating A Cuture Of Innovation

 

 

"There is Nothing Quite So Useless, As Doing With Great Efficiency, Something That Should Not Be Done at All." Peter Drucker

Innovation Framework Diagram :

Download A PDF of this chart: click here

Understanding The Cycle Of Innovation

The cycle of innovation can be reduced to a set of components:

• Ideation, create ideas for innovation
• Define, validate the opportunity, does it align with strategy? , critical customer requirements?
• Measure (Feasibilty), define operational definitions, collect critical data and insights,
• Analyze, statistical analysis, validate opportunity,
• Improve - Implement, develop process and workflow, implement new innovation,
• Control, monitor proactively , correct course plan where required

It is imperative to creat a common language among team members for innovation and omprovement. Once that is done the process will take substantially less effort with much less disruption.

Another View From The Control Step Of DMAIC Lean Six Sigma
Control - Maintain The Solution

How do you sustain the newly achieved improvement? This phase is a mini version of process management. The team has been building a form of infrastructure throughout the life of the project, and during the Control Phase they begin to document exactly how they want to pass that structure on to the employees who work within the process.

Continuously improve the process using Lean principles

The four principles of Value, Flow, Pull and Perfection should remain a constant focus for every organization. As Continuous Improvement teams hand over the results of each project, they must make efforts to relay this focus to the employees using the newly improved process. The process can always be improved.

• Value: Determine what steps are required (are of “Value”) to the customer
• Flow: Remove Waste in the system to optimize the process to achieve a smoother pace
• Pull: Ensure the process responds to customer demand (“Pull” = want)
• Perfection: Continuously pursue “Perfection” within the process.

Ensure the process is being managed and monitored properly

In order to maintain this focus, the team must narrow down the vital few measurements they want to maintain for ongoing monitoring of the process performance. This monitoring is accompanied by a response plan indicating the levels at which the process should operate and what to do in the case that the process should exceed those levels. This may lead to continued process refinement.

Expand the improved process throughout organization

At this point, the team must update their documentation: process maps, document checklists, cheat sheets, etc. The better their final documentation, the easier it will be for process participants to adopt the new way of doing things.

Apply new knowledge to other processes in your organization

One of the ways to increase the power and “bang for the buck” of Lean Six Sigma efforts is to apply the gains from one project into other areas within the organization. This transfer of improvement ideas can come from large and small efforts but quickly multiplies the impact for each business.

" Doing Work Efficiently Is Often An Excuse For Doing Work
That Shouldn't Be Done At All"

The approach of Operational Innovation or Constant Innovation can be firm changing, but requires some prerequisites.

The proposition is not to make work more efficient but eliminate the work requirement if all possible in contrast to only approaching improvement of the existing processes and workflows.

Constant Improvement's experience over nearly two decades has seen this play out again and again as a firm changing experience with one caveat, it has to be approached correctly, with the right committments, and prerequisites in place.

These include for a sample:

• Understanding what is currently happening within your organization from a workflow perspective,
• Management commitment to the process,
• Designated and enabled authority to make the changes,
• Designated resources with applicable skills & experience,

For further reading on this approach the article below provides insights and backgound.

For an article from Harvard on Operational Innovation ...click here

Understanding "Perfection Is The Enemy Of The Good"

Voltaire's observation that perfection is the enemy of the good is especially applicable to operational innovation.

Companies that strive to design the ultimate new way of doing things usually do nothing at all; they lose momentum while tinkering and revising, and the resulting solution is too grandiose to be implemented. Avoiding this trap is of utmost importance in creating a bias for action.

Use A principle of "70 percent and go": Develop a solution that provides most but not all desired capabilities, get into the field quickly, and then enhance it over time.

This approach allows concepts to be tested, builds momentum and credibility, and delivers early benefits that silence critics and sway doubters.

"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week." George S. Patton

Creating Constant Innovation

Creating this method as a normal part of the business work cycles yields long term benefits of the firm and especially its personnel.

Imagine your firm or organization where the team is always interested in trying to find new ways to do things. But even more so the involvement and ownership created in the team members involved in designing and implementing the new ideas.

Innovation does have its downsides and should be approached with caution related to the rate and scopes being manageable and non destructive. The article below is excellent reading on the topic of innovation

Balancing Constant Improvement & Constant Innovation

One of the most important cornerstones in understanding Constant Improvement Vs Constant Innovation is balancing these approaches .

• Constant improvement is to make work more effective,
• Constant innovation is to eliminate portions, or all of selected work requirements completely.

The two of these initiatives can be in direct conflict and must be balanced in their application. If work can be eliminated then making it more effective is absolutely redundant and a waste of resources. Getting your firm or organization's team to that skill set as soon as possible will reduce spent resources substantially versus the gains acquired. Once innovated, processes would resume a cycle of Constant Improvement

Innovation is better approached with a strong internal team with developed skills in process/workflow improvement and change management skills to increase positive outcomes and reduce the potential for negative issues that can be avoided.

For an article from Harvard on Operational Innovation ...click here

For more on Innovating Internally...click here

For more on Innovating Externally...click here

For further information or to speak with an Advisor Free Of Charge contact us: by email ... click here or call 888-980-7520

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Constant Improvement Group

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