Case Study 2 – Innovation Management consultancy

The second case study of this research (first using the ICMM v2) was with an innovation management consulting firm, specialising in developing, facilitating and managing their clients‟ innovation process in a collaborative manner, i.e., in conjunction with the client. Specific activities include: critical analyses of business processes, systems and structures; opportunity identification considering both the internal and external environments; solution development; process design including both green-fields and re-design; and programme and project management. The organisation has various value offerings that facilitate the above mentioned including: software for supporting and managing the information and knowledge requirements of the innovation process; frameworks, methodologies and tools describing and enabling the innovation process; and an approach that assimilates these software tools and methodologies (or processes) into a coherent package to manage the innovation process (referred to as roadmapping).

7.1.1 Context

An essential part of an innovation capability evaluation and improvement initiative is to clarify and make explicit the context of the initiative. In this particular case, the context was discussed with the management of the organisation and decided upon as follows:

 Evaluation of innovation capability would be of an internal organisational perspective, i.e., relating to policies, practices, tools and structures for internal innovation and not what is offered to clients.

 Individuals would take a perspective of the organisation as a whole when answering questions (as opposed to a departmental view) and all available employees would complete the questionnaire.

This section will briefly describe the various activities undertaken during the Evaluate stage (see Section 6.2.1) of the case study. Being the first case with ICMM v2 and the methodology, this procedure was less refined than it was in the latter cases. With that said, each of the activities performed proved useful, from both a model evaluation perspective and an organisational innovation capability evaluation perspective. Activities are presented in the order in which they were performed, except where it made sense to group certain activities (and which has no influence on the readers‟ interpretation).

7.1.2.1

Initial exposure

The expertise held within this organisation in the field of innovation management provided an ideal opportunity to evaluate the model from a slightly more detailed point of view than what would normally have been done at another organisation. Thus, the basics of the model‟s structure and content were presented to the various experts within the organisation with the objective of identify obvious deficiencies therein. The experts included the CEO, Business Engineering Services Manager, Research Manager, Integrated Services and Support Manager and Marketing Manager. The basic conclusion reached was that the fundamental structure was sound. However, while obvious gaps were not apparent then and there, going through the complete exercise (including the evaluation, interpretation of results, prioritising of opportunities for improvement, etc.) would provide improved clarity and highlight less obvious gaps.

7.1.2.2

Management workshop and preliminary results

This session was the first introduction of the model in a format that would become part of the overall innovation capability evaluation and improvement initiative. It was here, with the management of the organisation, that the context (as described in Section 7.1.1) was discussed and decided upon. Further, the evaluate section of the Innovation Capability Improvement Methodology was performed. This included an introduction to the process and the basics of the ICMM v2, an introduction to the questionnaire and assistance with the completion of the first section thereof. Thereafter, the participants completed the remaining 42 questions pertaining to the Innovation Capability Requirements in an uninterrupted manner.

Once all participants had completed the questions, various points were discussed, including:

 Having post-evaluation discussions with each participant to ensure accuracy of the role profiles (due to it having a significant impact on results).

 Whether the model basics and structure should be presented before or after the evaluation and how this may impact the responses.

 Providing the initial context is essential to obtain appropriate and accurate responses.

 The value of understanding the ICMM v2 in context with other organisational improvement models such as EFQM, 6σ, CMMI, etc. (discussed in the Preamble to this dissertation).

preliminary results (therefore, the perspective of management alone) presented in a second session. Because these results are similar to the overall results and where differences did arise, are highlighted as part of the consolidated summary (see Section 7.1.3); these results are not discussed here. Basically, the conclusion from these results was that the organisation would need to:

 Formalise and make explicit a relevant innovation strategy that is aligned with the overall business strategy.

 This would provide the framework for establishing and/or improving:

o The testing, screen and prioritising of opportunities and concepts

o Development and/or acquisition of new competencies and technologies

o _{The identification, reduction and mitigation of uncertainty and risk}

o _{The measurement of innovation-related outputs.}

Management confirmed that the summarised results, conclusions and proposed actions were representative and that the initial improvement tasks could be instigated. However, the perspectives of the remaining individuals within the organisation needed to be gauged before the improvement initiative could commence fully, as these perspectives may have presented a different view.

7.1.2.3

Workshop with clinical psychologist

A session was held with the organisation‟s clinical psychologist that would serve a dual purpose. He was tasked with taking two perspectives during the session that would enable this dual purpose. The two perspectives were:

 As a clinical psychologist with experience in performing questionnaire-based assessments and in understanding peoples reaction to, and interaction with, similar processes. From this perspective, suggestions and critique of the questionnaire (initial questions, structure, “look and feel”, wording, etc.) and the associated process, could be obtained.

 As the organisation‟s clinical psychologist, implying that he take a human resources- and organisational culture-based role. From this, a very specific view could be obtained of the organisation‟s innovation capability.

The process after explaining the abovementioned was very similar to the one taken with management. This included an introduction to the evaluation and model, an introduction to the questionnaire and assistance with the completion of the first section thereof. Thereafter, the remaining 42 questions were completed in an uninterrupted manner.

most important of which were (relating to the first perspective taken as discussed above):

 The importance of the initial context to ensure accurate and appropriate responses.

 The importance of getting the participants‟ initial response to a question, i.e., avoid over rationalisation which often leads to biased responses. Related to this, participants should not back track and change answers based on other questions and answers.

 Developing an infrequency test to determine whether responses are inconsistently doctored.

Other considerations included having different languages for the questionnaire and various aesthetics- related aspects. In general, the questionnaire (and the associated process) was found to be appropriate, with wording sufficiently simple and generic, the required time and effort suitable, and the questions being suitably independent to stimulate individual answers, but showing sufficient interdependence to give the impression that a background framework exists.

7.1.2.4

Internal sessions

In order to get responses from and accommodate the remaining members of the organisation, 2 sessions were held in which the evaluation was introduced and the questionnaire answered. These sessions did not present the background information on the model, as it was decided during the previously discussed sessions with management and the clinical psychologist, that this may have a biasing effect of the responses. As would be the case for all other evaluation sessions from here on, a brief introduction was presented, highlighting the purpose of the evaluation and the context for answering the questions (discussed in Section 7.1.1). This introduction included the following aspects not presented to management and the clinical psychologist:

 Basic definitions of certain terms used in the questionnaire that have a specific meaning therein.

 A specific request to give “gut responses” to questions.

 The importance of providing a fairly accurate role profile and that each respondent would be met with after the session to clarify this section of the questionnaire.

This session was not followed by discussions as were the other sessions. This was postponed to the presentation and discussion of results.

7.1.3 Summarised results

For the purpose of privacy, very detailed results are not presented in this section. The intention is to highlight a few of the aggregated results that led to the conclusions made and discussed below. Basically, it is the responsibility of the analyst (in this case the author) to consider the discussions of the evaluation sessions and the questionnaire responses, and translate them into a concise but accurate representation of

the Innovation Capability Improvement Methodology to provide the primary input for the Plan stage thereof.

There were 21 respondents in total. The overall, normalised average innovation capability maturity level was 2.7. The average standard deviation between respondents11 _{was 1.0 and between roles}12 _{was 0.2. A}

summary of the organisation‟s innovation capability, based on the 3 Innovation Capability Areas (discussed in Section 6.1.1.1), is presented in Figure 45 from the perspective of the participants and in Figure 46 from the perspective of the roles.

Clearly evident from a comparison between these 2 figures is the reduced variance in the perceived innovation capability maturity from a respondent view, to a roles-based view (the detailed reason for and intention behind this, is discussed in Section 6.1.4.2). Basically, the roles-based perspective intentionally assigns more weight to the responses of individuals that have more exposure to and responsibility for specific Innovation Capability Requirements, thereby reducing the variance in the overall representation of the results (as seen in Figure 46).