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Consider this scenario: A company presents an ingenious new product, whose design delights its customers and creates a new market. Interviewed in the trade press, the CEO is asked: What is the secret of your success? Innovation, he or she says—innovation. But three years later, we find that innovative company has sunk back to the level of its erstwhile competitors. It wants to hang on to the very market it has created, and it is rapidly abandoning its “innovation culture.” No wonder we’ve evolved the insidious belief that innovation belongs to the startups, the smaller firms. They have so much less to lose!
Consider, for instance, the world of software development. As computing platforms have stabilized over the past decade, even while the Internet exploded, software products in both consumer and professional markets also stabilized—to the point of stagnation, says Peter Jones. As principal of Redesign Research, a consulting practice for interactive product design, customer research, and innovation strategy, Jones has been studying this phenomenon for some time. He believes there is much that the already-successful company can learn from startups about energizing its culture and organizational innovation.
At the organizational level, some thinkers have promoted corporate reorganization as necessary for ensuring user-centered design, for instance. Others might recommend a values-leadership approach. But even a visionary leader will have trouble motivating large-scale change quickly in a large organization. And what will Wall Street make of such a move?
Jones points out that several firms found success, at least during the Internet peak, with spin-offs, which can accomplish innovations the parent firm would never dream of. By establishing success criteria “appropriate for the opportunity,” says Jones, “the spin-off creates a team-based organization sheltered from the concerns, processes, metrics, and business values of the parent firm.” Of course, spin-offs take time to grow, and not all situations are appropriate for creating them. In such cases, it may be better to encourage a more strategic approach to design—but this must be supported by executives, as well as by designers. “If design activities remain tactical, relegated to specific projects,” Jones points out, “design-led innovations will not break through the process.” Design must be involved in strategy, and design managers must learn the language of project management, build business cases for high-value activities, and create approval authority for design. Jones reminds us that “processes change over time with successful engagements—build a repertoire of new activities after proving their value to project goals.”
Another tool Jones offers is letting designers and developers self-organize as communities of practice. This gives a firm’s creative practitioners the space to build best practices and negotiate processes.
Above all, managers should bear in mind that it is not sufficient to have a “strategic intent to innovate”—the practice of innovation can only be achieved if the organizational pathways that promote it are present. “Start down your own path,” Jones concludes, “by just noticing the values exhibited in critical projects, and observe whether these support innovation.” If they don’t, it’s time to think about how your leadership—as a designer or as a CEO—might be brought to bear to inspire a better innovation strategy.
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