Creating Internal Innovation
" Doing Work Efficiently Is Often An Excuse For Doing Work
You Shouldn't Be Doing 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
Innovating Internal Operational Platforms
Internal Operational Platforms can be often be easily innovated to eliminate whole workstreams and resource requirements.
These operational platforms mostly do not directly interact with external stakeholders such as vendors and clients so the modifications can be made with little to no external impact if designed, deployed, and implemented with optimal methodologies.
Some samples of the operational platforms that can achieve large returns are
- Access To Information
- The Information Technology Function
- The Marketing Function
- The Sales Function
- The Credit & Collections Function
- The Purchasing Area
- The Poduction Area
- The Finance Function
- The Back Office Function
A Reminder "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
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