The Future of Innovation

In large organisations people generate many creative ideas, but often these vanish soon afterwards and rarely translate into the very innovations that these organisations ask for. Why do ideas vanish? It is because ideas are not followed through. It is the 'following through' that needs attention and support. Identifying, developing and nurturing ideas is a far greater challenge for innovation in an organisation then coming up with those ideas in the first place. Therefore, we need to focus on the post idea generation-phase: orchestrating ideas through to performance in front of an audience - the market.

'Orchestrating ideas for innovation' means marrying ongoing routine operations (the support structure) with non-routine and uncertain elements (the 'experiment'). Are they incompatible? On the contrary, they are mutually dependent and mutually beneficial.

As an analogy, take Jazz music. It has structure and it is improvisation, a fluid join between converging and diverging. Jazz ensembles vary in style, size, and instrumentation. Yet, there are uniting elements on which musicians need to agree, such as chord progression, rhythm, improvisation, lead, and ending. Within that frame, Jazz musicians collaborate with each other, compose when playing, throw in ideas, pick other ideas up, and extend them. Jazz musicians answer calls from their fellow players and inspire them through their response.

Compositions may well not be played again, yet, ideas have been followed through. Communication is a vehicle by which ideas are followed through.

This communication is often unspoken, coming from a clear understanding of each others' roles and intentions und the willingness to let others take the lead. In a similar way, ideas need to be orchestrated through communication.

Orchestrating ideas for innovation through communication is the subject of our research. We emphasise the importance of communication for improving the new product development process. Our empirical investigations indicate that many non-technical problems in organisations are - mostly unintentionally - labelled communication problems. Which, upon scrutiny, however, appear to be caused, for example, by misaligned perceptions of factors, such as 'roles and responsibilities', 'autonomy of task execution', 'leadership', 'application of corporate vision', 'goals and objectives', and 'overview of the sequence of tasks in the process'.

In such situations, a communication problem might be the outcome rather than the cause. We argue that factors influencing communication provide levers through which communication can be improved. To address this, we have developed an assessment method of communication in new product development. The Communication Grid Method exposes differences in expectations and perceptions at team-interfaces with respect to a variety of factors influencing communication, such as the ones mentioned above. It is able to show important gaps between the current and desired states of factors as perceived by the people collaborating. Factors can act as enablers and barriers. Take 'leadership', for example. To stick to the analogy with Jazz music, there might be a superstar soloist inspiring all other players, setting a standard that lifts everyone's game, yet, even that star might behave in a way that can diminish the will of the other players to perform well.

In sum, consideration of these factors should be integral to managing any new product development process. It provides the structure within which ideas for innovation can be orchestrated through communication.

Article © 2009 Dr. Anja Maier. All rights reserved.