7. Organizing Innovation

Question 1

7 organizational models that support innovation

Answer 1

1. Informal interaction between functional groups.
2. Innovation project team
3. Expert network
4. Shared Services-organizations
5. Innovation Community of Practice
6. ‘Smart’ Organization
   - Innovation Council

Question 2

What does it take to be innovative? 6 things that contribute to the culture and organization of innovation

Answer 2

• Imagination
• Thinking outside the box
• Willingness to take risks
• Accept failure and even celebrate them
• Openness to the new and untried
• Sufficient resources to generate and develop ideas.

Question 3

2 things needed to break down silos and achieve integrated relationships

Answer 3

1. Collaboration

2. Commitment from top management

Question 4

80/20 rule at Google

What is it and what is the risk?

Answer 4

Google employees to spend 80% of their time on core projects, and roughly 20% (or one day per week) on “innovation” activities that speak to their personal interests and passions.
The risk is that it might become 100/20, i.e., the employees does not cut down their core projects, but just increase their workload..

Question 5

What does disruptive innovation do that incremental does not?

Answer 5

The incremental is just replacing current products with new versions and sell more to existing customers. Radical/disruptive innovations are instead reaching out to new customers and creating new markets.

Question 6

What is core, adjacent and transformational projects? Where does companies earn most money?

Answer 6

Core - optimizing existing products for existing customers.
Adjacent - expanding from existing business into “new to the company” business.
Transformational - Developing breakthroughs and inverting things for markets that don’t yet exist.

–> transformational innovation will often lead to winner-takes-all markets and hence contribute most to revenues.

Question 7

How should the optimal innovation/agile team look like? And what is important for this team to work well? (5 things)

Answer 7

1. Team size up to 6 people
2. Psychological safety is key to innovation (see TU6 Ecosystems)
3. More radical projects, the more autonomy the team needs (see TU 8. agile forms)
4. Key performance measurements (KPIs) must be known in advance
5. Interdisciplinary team set-up (mix/heteroenous).

Question 8

5 keys that lead to successful teams (Google example)

Answer 8

1. Pschylogical safety
2. Dependability
3. Structure and clarity
4. Meaning
5. Impact

Question 9

How is a Risk Matrix structured?

Answer 9

It looks for the potential consequences on one side and how likely each consequence is to actually happen. This will lead to quadrants being either green (not risky), orange (moderate) and red (very risky).