Dealing with discontinuity managing innovation beyond the steady state

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Dealing with discontinuity - managing innovation
beyond the steady state
John Bessant Innovation Studies Centre Imperial
College London
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The innovation imperative ...
New response needed
Low uncertainty
High uncertainty
Old response appropriate
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Innovation leadership .

• Innovation as a survival/ growth imperative
• Effective innovation leadership needs
• Direction exploring the innovation space
• Philosophy models and understanding which shape
  action
• Execution creating enabling conditions
• A moving target constant review and learning,
  dynamic capability

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Five challenges ..

• Spengler ..
• Spaghetti ..
• Sappho ..
• Strategy ..
• Search ..

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When did you last use your Spengler?
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Understanding innovation
How we think about something.
shapes the way we manage it
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Partial models of innovation
Innovation invention
Star turns
Knowledge push
Single enterprises
Radical change
Market led

High technology
A solo act
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Five challenges ..

• Spengler ..
• Spaghetti ..

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The spaghetti challenge ....
Success (?)
Process
How innovation happens?
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How it really happens ...
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Open innovation
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Spenglers to spaghetti - innovation is about
connections

• its a multi-player game
• complex knowledge flows, not just knowledge
  creation
• the spaghetti model of innovation inside and
  outside
• mixnmatch - recombinant innovation
• How to make it happen? - brokers, bridges,
  gatekeepers.
• far from linear, Rothwells 5th generation
  networked model

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Five challenges ..

• Spengler ..
• Spaghetti ..
• Sappho ..

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The SAPPHO challenge ....

• Project SAPPHO, Sussex University, 1972
• Users matter in innovation!!!
• Users arent passive (especially in services)
• Active users and the democratization of
  innovation
• Extreme users and crossing the chasm

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The transformation of LEGO
NEW!
2000
2001
2002
2003
2008
2004
2006
My Own Train
LEGO Factory
LEGO Factory (Online Customization)
My Own Creation
LEGO Digital Designer
???
Mosaic
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User Developed, LEGO published products
March 2006 June 2006 March 2007
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The transformation of LEGO
NEW!
2000
2001
2002
2003
2008
2004
2006
My Own Train
LEGO Factory
LEGO Factory (Online Customization)
My Own Creation
LEGO Digital Designer
???
Mosaic
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Five challenges ..

• Spengler ..
• Spaghetti ..
• Sappho ..
• Strategy ..

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The strategy challenge ....
do better do different
Innovation
Process
Product
Position
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Position innovation
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The strategy challenge ....
Paradigm ( mental model)
do better do different
Innovation
Process
Product
Position
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Watch the ball
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The strategy challenge ....
Paradigm ( mental model)
do better do different
Innovation
Process
Product
Position
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Five challenges ..

• Spengler ..
• Spaghetti ..
• Sappho ..
• Strategy ..
• Search ..

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A successful innovator?

• Medproducts Danish medical devices producer
• Dominant market position, multiple award winner
  for innovation
• Founded 1957, close user/producer synergy
• Developed deep competencies around skin/wound
  care
• Developed close market linkages user active
  paradigm e.g. nurses panels
• Developed robust innovation management routines -
  e.g. AIM process
• What do they do on Monday morning? More of the
  same?

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More of the same may not be enough ..

• 'people get all these good ideas but there's
  nowhere to take them ...'
• 'it's so structured there's no real room for
  radical ideas'
• I think we do too little for the radical side -
  but were too busy'
• ''out of the box' - the words are there but
  there is no commitment
• 'the improvements have just been minor things in
  the past few years - not so big innovations' ...
  it's a long time since we have had a real
  innovation, a new concept'.

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Is there a problem?

• Not just the old question of explore/exploit
  balance
• Smart firms like Medproducts can manage this
  but what happens when the game changes?
• e.g. disruptive innovation (Christensen)
• e.g. technology discontinuities
• e.g. new business models
• The discontinuity challenge to existing
  incumbents what capabilities do they need to
  deal with it?
• Exploration yes. But how to do it beyond the
  lamp-post?

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The search challenge
Radical
Bounded exploration
Co-evolve
Innovation
Reframing
Exploit
Incremental
Established frame
New frame
Environmental complexity
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Disruptive innovation .....
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Innovation leadership .

• Innovation as a survival/ growth imperative
• Effective innovation leadership needs
• Direction exploring the innovation space
• Philosophy models and understanding which shape
  action
• Execution creating enabling conditions
• A moving target constant review and learning
• Innovation as dynamic capability learning to
  meet the challenge

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Learning isnt easy .
Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now,
bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind
Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows,
the only way of coming downstairs, but
sometimes he feels that there really is
another way, if only he could stop bumping for a
moment and think of it .
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For more resources, etc.........

• For updates and useful innovation materials visit
  my wiki at http//innovationresources.wetpaint.com
  /
•  
•  Preview of new edition of 'Managing innovation'
  - comments and involvement welcome!  See it at
  www.wiley.com/go/innovation

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Multiple search mechanisms
Use the Web
Active users
Futures
Deep dive
Idea hunters
Probe and learn
Search
Mobilise mainstream
Idea generators
CV units
Deliberate diversity
Intrapreneurs
Brokers