Based on the results presented above and other detailed analyses, the following recommendations were made:
Formalise and make explicit an innovation strategy, or integrate the need to innovate with existing business strategy – provides the guidelines for all innovation activities and decisions.
Continue to probe and understand the market and identify opportunities, but implement a screening & prioritisation process to pursue only the most promising and relevant opportunities and improve the allocation of resources.
Continue to place emphasis on their existing values and policies, but translate those into practices and procedures that drive innovation – especially when growing as an organisation.
Also consider managing intellectual property and investment in innovation (once the previously mentioned have been addressed).
Ensure that the strengths remain in place while addressing the abovementioned aspects – avoid negatively impacting the existing strengths by “losing touch” with what were core competencies.
And finally, clarify and discuss the differences in perspective, with attention to hiring and aligning people's values and skills with organisation and task, and the championing and encouraging of innovation within the organisation.
1 2 3 4 5
Contextualising opportunities & concepts Identifying and planning for key decision points Formal & informal internal networking & collaboration Championing & encouraging innovation Motivating, rewarding & celebrating success Hiring & aligning people's values & skills with organisation & task
This section describes the activities of the Plan stage that were completed for this case study. They included the presentation of results and the discussions that ensued based thereon.
7.5.4.1
Presentation of summarised results and discussion
As has consistently been the case, the participants responded very positively towards the accuracy and relevance of the presented results and recommendations. Individuals related to the presentation, and the discussions that ensued from each slide were rich with detailed reasons as to why certain aspects were depicted the way they were in the results. To reiterate a regularly mentioned point, this discussion between the participants is the most beneficial result of having executed the process to this point. The fact that the participants walk away with improved understanding of their innovation capability, and the fact that this understanding is now common, places them in a position to effectively and rapidly improve their capability.
There was one particular result that a few of the respondents disputed – Managing tacit knowledge being one of their strengths. These individuals stated that they certainly did not have specific and explicit practices to manage and transfer tacit knowledge. The author responded with the argument that the explicit documentation of specific practices is not a necessity for an organisation to be strong in the fulfilment of a particular requirement. What is required is common understanding between the individuals and the actual execution of those practices – this may be achieved verbally. In a large organisation, it may be necessary to document such aspects to achieve this commonality, but in an organisation of this nature, the individuals could share a basic practice without it having to be explicit. Basically, managing and transferring tacit knowledge at maturity levels 4 and 5 requires individuals to readily feed off of and learn from others within the organisation.
Also discussed was the fact that organisational values and policies were perceived as conducive to innovation, whereas the specific practices and procedures necessary to drive the innovation process and improve the consistency of its outputs were perceived as ill-defined and/or ad hoc. To avoid unnecessarily stereotyping or over-generalising small organisations of this nature, it must be mentioned that this was found to be consistent with only certain other small organisations having completed the process. Furthermore, there are too few completed cases to claim the existence of such a trend.
7.6 General remarks
This section presents the various lessons learnt during the execution of the case studies discussed in this chapter. Certain lessons are as a direct result of the interactions with the organisations and their representatives (Section 7.6.1) and others are as a result of specific findings that were investigated further (Sections 7.6.2 and 7.6.3).
The reader may note the progressive incorporation of various learnings as these case studies were executed (and reported on). In other words, the process and methodology used in the later case studies had included more aspects of the Innovation Capability Improvement Methodology as discussed in Section 6.2. This also implies that the process used in CS2 was less refined than the one presented in Section 6.2. These refinements included, for example, the inclusion of the Innovation Capability Portfolio in CS5 (Figure 54, Section 7.4.3) to improve the visual interpretation and presentation of results. Also included were slightly altered mechanisms of initiating the evaluation workshop to improve clarity in terms of the objectives, while minimising the possibility of influencing the participants‟ responses. These lessons were, therefore, broad in nature and varying in terms of their impact on the overall process. The most prominent of these lessons include:
It is essential to provide context for answering the questionnaire – such as a specific department to relate the questions to. This ensures, as much as possible, that the respondents begin the questionnaire with the same frame of mind.
Provide the respondents with definitions and descriptions of the words that have specific meanings in the context of the questionnaire.
When presenting the results and their interpretations, be sensitive that what is being discussed may seem to be targeted at certain individuals. Warn against this and reassure the participants that the assessment is of the organisation or business unit as a whole. Further, use the phrase “opportunities for improvement” rather than “weaknesses”.
Before the initial interactions with an organisation, establish a basic understanding of their business (via internet research or visiting their offices). This is useful during the initial meeting to plan the context and essential during the interpretation of results. While this does not negate the need to properly understand the results by involving the respondents, it does assist in the process of identifying those requirements that may be more important than others (whether for strategic or other reasons).
Having the aforementioned in mind, no Innovation Capability Requirement is irrelevant. Certain requirements may be irrelevant at a specific point in time due to organisational circumstances, but that will change with improved capability. The requirement of Meta-innovation surfaced on several occasions to demonstrate this point.
Emphasise to respondents, after completion of the questionnaire, that the 42 questions establish whether the 42 generic Innovation Capability Requirements of the ICMMv2 are being fulfilled. How they are being fulfilled is not being assessed because this is unique to the organisation and based on many aspects (including size, industry, etc.). The questionnaire, therefore, does not prescribe
the involvement and commitment of participants. This establishes buy-in and ensures relevance.
Discuss the concept of “appetite” for improving innovation capability as the organisations‟ willingness to improve therein. This should be related to the competiveness of the organisation and the specific industry in which it operates. While it is important for all organisations to be innovative, it is not necessary for all organisations to be at and/or target innovation capability maturity level 5.
Questionnaires in multiple languages may be necessary. This will ensure that the individuals‟ whose first language is not English will have a better understanding of descriptions and, therefore, provide more accurate responses. This may also reduce the variation in the time required to complete the questionnaire – witnessed most clearly in CS5 as a result of the large and diverse group of respondents.
Prepare participants for the fact that they will be completing a questionnaire before the workshop – it places the individuals at ease. Providing no upfront information (with the objective of eliminating any possible response biasing) can cause individuals to feel intimidated – as if their ability is being assessed. Emphasise that the questionnaire is there to understand the individual‟s perspective of the organisation.
The “mood” of a certain group within the respondents can have a significant impact on the overall results that would be difficult to normalise for with any of the currently implemented mechanisms (normalisation parameters). However, by capturing the appropriate meta-data (such as the groups to which respondents belong) these differences in perspective can be identified and appropriately dealt with. In fact, the ability to identify these differences in perspective or “moods” allows for the necessary communication and clarification of such aspects that will eventually ensure alignment between the individuals and groups.
7.6.2 Normalisation mechanism sensitivity analysis
In an effort to establish the effect of the roles-based normalisation mechanism on the results, a sensitivity analysis was performed. Basically, the objective was to better understand the impact of the mechanism on the results, particularly the seemingly convergent effect that it has on the high variation in responses obtained from participants. The implications of the various normalisation parameters severely complicated the mathematical determination thereof. The next option was to perform a sensitivity analysis. This analysis could also be performed in various ways by adjusting the different parameters (as described in Section 6.1.4.2) to identify the effect that this have on the results. Eventually, the following conditions and assumptions were applied in the execution of the analysis:
The results of CS1 would be used as the reference data, because of the substantial amount of time (more so than in the other cases) expended on ensuring that the individual role profiles were accurate.
rating for the Innovation Process, Knowledge & Competency and Organisational Support capability areas, as well as the overall normalised average innovation capability maturity level.
Using the original role profiles as the basis, the variations therein would be generated by adding a random integer between -x and x to each of the original values in the 5 by 21 matrix.
The value of x was assigned the values of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 30 to vary the potential difference between the original and adjusted roles profile matrices. The randomisation of the matrix was performed 5 times for each of the abovementioned values for x.
The measure of the difference between the original roles profile matrix and the randomly generated profile matrix is calculated as follows (referred to as the Frobenius norm – Schatzman and Taylor (2002)): 𝑦 = (𝐴𝑖𝑗 − 𝐵𝑖𝑗)2 5 𝑗 =1 21 𝑖=1 Where:
y = consolidated measure of the difference between the profiles Aij = the value in column i and row j of the original roles profile matrix Bij = the value in column i and row j of the random roles profile matrix
The resultant dataset totalled 30 entries including the following statics: the difference between the organisational (original) roles profile as provided by the respondents and the adapted roles profile – y; the normalised average maturity rating for the Innovation Process, Knowledge & Competency and Organisational Support capability areas; as well as the overall normalised average innovation capability maturity level calculated based on the adapted roles profiles and the original responses of the participants. This data was then plotted on a graph of the ratings versus the differences between the matrices – Figure 59.
The results of this analysis clearly indicate an increase in the dispersion of the normalised innovation capability results with an increase in the difference between the organisational (original) roles profile and the adapted roles profile (solid bars represent each of the original statics). This provides evidence of the fact that the roles-based normalisation mechanism is sensitive to the relative accuracy of the profiles provided by the respondents.
The convergent effect that the mechanism has on the results is based on the respondents providing a representative role profile. Thus, if the profiles provided are not representative, excessive variation (in both relative and absolute terms) may be witnessed in the results. This analysis, therefore, provides evidence that the roles-based normalisation mechanism is performing the intended function. It also highlights the importance of the respondents providing an accurate roles profile.