Посты автора Amnon Levav

Amnon Levav

Co-Founder and C-IO (Chief Innovation Officer) at SIT

From Nano to Mega Sessions: 9 Tips for an Innovation Coach

Published date: February 14, 2019 в 12:31 pm

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Category: Innovation,Innovation Facilitation,Methodology

When SIT started teaching coaches to facilitate internally in their organizations, we taught them to facilitate SESSIONS. But very quickly we realized that this could be– and was –misunderstood, which led us to add the qualifier and coin the expression, still used today, 14 years later: MINI-SESSION. It soon became apparent, though, that even this newly minted term did not solve two opposing but strongly related problems:

 

1. Plenty of coaches did not dare to assume the responsibility of running a SESSION, even if it was only a MINI session.

And, on the other hand;

2. Quite a few coaches took it upon themselves to run what we could only describe as MAXI or MEGA-SESSIONS, involving up to 50-60 participants, for as much as 2 consecutive days.

Both phenomena have a certain charm, but both pose some serious challenges that merit careful consideration.

Type 1: Not daring to jump in.

We respect these coaches very much for their modesty and responsible approach but are obviously worried that they are not utilizing their new knowledge to its full extent. Conversations and observations show that, in most cases, coaches in this group find it difficult to take the first step for the following reasons:

  • They are not sure they possess the skills required to apply the tools successfully;
  • They are wary of encountering resistance among their colleagues;
  • Their bosses think the course was a waste of time, and therefore do not support them in spending more time on this “extracurricular” activity;
  • They are not sure how to translate real-life situations into a script for conducting a mini-session;
  • The Coach Training did not build up their confidence to a sufficient degree.

Type 2: Daring to find a cure for cancer and/or achieve world peace

We are obviously impressed with these coaches’ confidence and ambition. We are concerned, though, that the probability of success in these efforts is fairly low, since the coach obviously lacks sufficient skills, experience, and usually also time and resources to perform the task successfully.

Key reasons for this phenomenon are:

  • Great enthusiasm at the end of the course, combined with an exaggerated sense of one’s power;
  • Pressure from the coach’s boss, who figures if they already invested 3 or 5 days of their associate’s time, they might as well make up for it by getting a huge benefit from their newfound skills;
  • The coach training did not indicate clearly enough what the criteria are for selecting a topic, and how to delineate its scope properly.

Rising to this double challenge, here are some helpful tips and recommendations:

 

1. Remind yourself, your boss, and/or your topic owner that this is a MINI Session, not a maxi-nor mega-session. This means that you do not chew off more than you and the team can swallow (type 2). It also means that you (type 1) can be much more relaxed about taking on the responsibility of facilitating since you are not really facilitating a SESSION, just a MINI session.

2. Very often, we encourage coaches to change the name of the Mini Session and replace it with Micro Session, or even Nano Session. This helps in communicating the correct scope and align expectations.

3. Communication with the coach’s boss is crucial. This can and should be conducted by the SIT trainers, by Corporate Innovation, and by the coach him/herself. Bosses often fail in supporting their coaches by expressing either under- or overwhelming expectations from them. They usually drastically improve in this respect once the situation is pointed out to them.

4. Pay special attention to the exercise of converting a story into a session (read the document as well). Also, we recommend taking full advantage of remote support given to coaches to help them plan sessions.

5. Work both in “pull” and in “push” modes: coaches should be trained to identify opportunities for offering their coaching services and, in parallel, encourage line managers and other stakeholders to turn to coaches and ask for (reasonable) support.

6. Coaches, remember, your first 1-3 or 1-4 or to 5 (depending on your feelings) mini sessions should be

  • conducted with a small number of participants, carefully selected to be supportive and constructive in their participation style;
  • about a topic you can understand without too much preparation;
  • no longer than 3 hours, but also no shorter than 2, so you have time to execute your script properly.

7. Coaches’ supervisors or Innovation Managers: if you want your coach to tackle a relatively large or challenging task, it should definitely not be their first mini session. If you absolutely must challenge them in such a way, make sure you first invent 1-3 small opportunities for them to practice on in order to gain confidence. Don’t hesitate too much – give them whatever small task comes to mind that they can tackle relatively easily.

8. Coaches should work in pairs. A co-coach helps in preparation, offers support during the session, and helps extract learnings after it. The co-coach can and should then also provide hugs, encouragement and – if needed – consolation.

9. A crucial step in preparing a session is defining and sharpening the brief with the topic owner. Special emphasis should be given to the question of scope, so that:

  • It does not require knowledge beyond that of the session’s participants, whose number should not exceed (4-6-8 according to the Coach’s experience);
  • The topic can be explained in no more than 7 minutes, with a corresponding number of slides;
  • The owner can define what kind of results are required, and why they think it is reasonable to achieve them;
  • The session is not used to solve a problem that has been tackled repeatedly over the years without success.

In short…

A motivated coach, with a supportive boss and environment, usually develops his/her skills and capabilities swiftly and consistently. But the first steps are crucial. The key is to start out gradually and raise the bar to always be challenged slightly beyond one’s comfort zone. It is the best way to ensure the coach’s personal development and to create valuable results for their managers and colleagues.

How to Choose an Innovation Consulting Firm

Published date: July 3, 2018 в 7:46 am

Written by:

Category: Innovation,Strategy

innovation consulting firm

The Innovation Consulting Firm Landscape

The innovation consultancy landscape has become immensely complex, dynamic, and varied in the last several years, especially when discussing quantity. There are a variety of methodologies, approaches, as well as consultancies of all sizes. McKinsey and large accounting firms have made acquisitions of innovation consulting firms, which means the distinction between the mega-consultancies and the more boutique consultancies has become blurred.

Since the innovation consulting firm atmosphere is so dense, there are some common sense rules of thumb one must use when choosing an innovation consulting 

dynamic innovation consulting firm

firm. Luckily, our good friend, Drew Boyd, created a list of criteria that you can utilize when choosing an innovation consulting firm.  However, due to the richness of the current marketplace and the dynamic approach, some of this list is no longer relevant. While this may be the case, it still includes a lot of useful advice. The below advice and tools will help you make an informed and educated decision when choosing an innovation consulting firm.

Choosing Innovation Consultants

By: Drew Boyd
Choosing an innovation consulting firm is challenging for two reasons: the client is not always clear what type of innovation they want, or they are not sure what type of innovation a consultant offers.
Here are three factors to consider when choosing an innovation consultant:

1.  TYPE of consultant

2.  METHOD used

3.  ROLE of the consultant.

The innovation space has become so crowded that I group them into four types (I-D-E-A):

INVENTION:  These are consultants that help you create new-to-the-world ideas.  They have particular expertise in creativity methods or idea generation tools.  Their main focus is the generation of many new product or service ideas.

DESIGN:  These are consultants that take an existing product, service, or idea and put some new, innovative form to it.  They have particular expertise in industrial design or human factors design.  Their main focus is transforming the way a product is used or experienced.

ENGINEERING:  These are consultants that help you make the new idea work in practice.  They have particular expertise in technology, science, research, and problem-solving.  Their main focus is building it.

ACTUALIZATION:  These are consultants that help you get the innovation into the marketplace.  They have particular expertise in marketing processes, brand, or commercial launch of a product or service.  Their main focus is selling it.

Step One: The challenge is many consultants claim to be all of these.  While true for some, my sense is that all firms started off as one type and then expanded to cover the others.  The question to ask yourself is: would you be better off matching your need to their original core expertise, or would you be better off going to a one-stop shop…a firm that can do it all even though their core expertise is, say, design.  How do you know what type the firm really is?  Study the biography of their founder.  What was the founder’s education, experience, work background, interests, etc?  The founder is where the core orientation of the firm begins.  The other practice types get bolted on later.

Step Two: Understanding their method.  The first question I ask consultants is, “Do you know how to innovate?”  The second question is, “How?”  I want to understand their method of innovation, and I want to be able to explain it to other people.  I want to know the efficacy.  Has it worked in the past and will it work on my project?  Show me the data.

Step Three: Understanding the role of the innovation consultant.  Is this a DIY (do-it-yourself) approach, where you are given some software or other resources to create innovation on your own?  Is this a DIWY (do-it-with-you) approach where the consultant leads and facilitates groups of your employees to innovate together?  Is this a DIFY (do-it-for-you) approach, where the consultant takes your problem specification and comes back with their recommended solutions?  Or, is this training?  All of these roles are valid depending on your need.

I am impressed with the talent and variety of consultants in the innovation space today.  It becomes even more impressive when you select the right one for the job.

I hope the above will help you in finding the right innovation consultancy. Since we are always on the look-out for the right clients to work with, here is a short questionnaire. Please fill in and, if relevant, we can have a short 20-minute chat to see if we can fit each other’s needs. We look forward to hearing from you.

How To Optimize Your Innovation Strategy by Making Your Idea a Sweet Idea

Published date: January 25, 2018 в 11:11 am

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Category: Innovation,Methodology,Strategy

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innovation strategy

What’s the perfect New Year’s Resolution?

 

Hint: think re: innovation strategy

Well, if that wasn’t sufficient, here are two additional hints…

(1) It’s not only challenging but actually promises a significant change in your life;

(2) It’s not pie in the sky, but applicable to your daily life.

 

Let’s take a more practical approach…

If your goal is to get in shape, watching TV while standing is maybe not the most effective initiative. However, regular mountain climbing is probably a bit of a stretch if you are a fairly immobile city dweller.

This is the Near-Far-Sweet Idea Mapping Model as applied to your daily life.

Near – ideas that are pretty close to current practice. They are new, but probably not impactful enough to be worth your attention.

Far –  exciting ideas, but not viable. Either the market is not ready to accept them, or you will not be able to implement them.

When optimizing your innovation strategy you want your ideas to be neither too close to home (“Near”) nor too challenging to be implementable (“Far”). You want your ideas to be new and exciting but at the same time realistic and useful. This is your Innovation Sweet Spot.

 

Learn How To Enhance Your Innovation Strategy By Making Your Ideas Sweet:

This all sounds pretty obvious and common sense. Surprisingly, the distinction is often overlooked, or at least not given systematic treatment. Categorizing the results of an ideation session or workshop into Near, Far and Sweet – as seen in the visual on the right – will give you an important indication as to the practicality of your ideas. It can also be a useful tool to improve the outcomes of your innovation strategies, by pushing some Nears and Fars into the Sweet Spot.

But before we share a quick guide to applying NFS to NPD, here are some thoughts of how it can serve as a practical tool to support the “Dual Innovation Approach” as defined by Ralph-Christian Ohr. Ohr cites research that shows that the Dual Innovation Approach is used by 70% of the most innovative companies:

innovation strategy

[With Dual Innovation] innovation management follows a balanced portfolio approach. The entire innovation portfolio is divided into exploitation-oriented and exploration-oriented innovation initiatives, where the following characterizations hold:

 

  • Exploitation-oriented initiatives are related to running the core business by executing and enhancing existing business models or technological capabilities. The primary direction of impact is valued capturing (commercialization). Examples: Product, service or process innovation, portfolio extension, innovation of selected business model components (e.g. channel or operations), market research.
  • Exploration-oriented initiatives are related to developing future business by searching for the novel, and often disruptive, business models or technological capabilities. The primary direction of impact is value creation (configuration). Examples: Business model development, platform/ecosystem innovation, basic technology research & development, startup engagement, innovation intelligence.

(https://dual-innovation.net/a-model-for-dual-corporate-innovation-management/) Ralph-Christian Ohr

 

Ralph-Christian further introduces three playing fields of dual innovation:

  • Optimize the Core (Optimization of existing business models and technologies)
  • Reshape the Core (Transformation of existing business models and/or scaling up new business models/technologies)
  • Create the New (Creation of new-to-the-company business models and Technologies)

(http://integrative-innovation.net/?p=1765) Ralph-Christian Ohr

 

Integrating Ideas

He then elaborates on the true challenge of dual innovation: neither developing extensions of the product/service portfolio within the existing business model, nor coming up with completely new ideas, but integrating new ideas into your existing innovation strategy:

When it comes to integration, most companies face huge problems. This is the space where two main activities need to be conducted to achieve business impact from innovation and to future-proof the existing business model:

  • Validated breakthrough or even disruptive innovation concepts need to be scaled up for achieving business impact. If a company does not master Scaling-Up there is a high chance that all ideation will remain only innovation theatre.
  • In the light of Digital Transformation, adapting the established core business models by innovating selected elements (e.g. platform strategies, x-as-a-service business models, bypassing the middle man or automatization of service processes) is mandatory. If a company does not master adaptation it risks to lose in Digital Transformation.

(http://integrative-innovation.net/?p=1765) Ralph-Christian Ohr

Ohr presents a challenge: strategic ideas ought to be transformed to have maximum impact – to be innovative enough but not too disruptive. Through the NFS model, the SIT (Systematic Inventive Thinking) methodology invites you to apply two principles that, together, cover both directions:

1. Qualitative Change. Very often, “near” ideas are generated by incrementally improving on existing offerings, making them “bigger, faster, better”, i.e a quantitative change. The QC principle calls you to observe the basic logic of your product or service but change a fundamental relationship in this logical structure. Example: don’t offer your product at a discount, but offer it for free, generating revenue by a totally different business model. This is easier said than done, of course, but using the right tools, it allows you to push Near ideas into the Sweet Spot.

2. Closed World. The second basic principle of SIT is rather counterintuitive: when innovating, try as much as possible to utilize only those elements that already exist in the system.

innovation strategy

Instead of reaching out of the box, innovate inside the box. Instead of searching for new elements, find new angles and possibilities in the existing ones. By applying several tools under this principle, you will be able to pull in some Far ideas, turning wishful thinking into viable options and improve your innovation strategy

So, here’s a NY’s resolution that hopefully resides within your Sweet Spot: Map your new ideas on an NFS diagram, consider whether enough of them are in the Sweet Spot, and then push and pull those that are not to create exciting but viable options for development of your innovation strategy. Enjoy.

Want to keep learning? Check out what you can learn from an innovation facilitation session.

Useful Lessons to Learn from an Innovation Facilitation Session

Published date: November 1, 2017 в 7:58 am

Written by:

Category: Innovation,Innovation Facilitation

Innovation Facilitation Session

Several years ago…

I facilitated a New Product Development workshop (innovation facilitation session) at a large corporation in the American Midwest.  At our insistence, a Sales Manager was added to the team.  Why did his presence require an effort? Pulling a sales rep from his/her daily toil is not an easy task, but we insisted their presence is crucial in a product development effort.

As expected, this extremely energetic, intelligent and experienced Sales Manager, who we shall call Dale, was the soul of the innovation facilitation session. He readily shared his understanding of the company’s clients, their needs, wants, fears and motivations. He also possessed – pardon the stereotype – the classic sales-champion talent for engaging his colleagues in entertaining conversation, and generally spreading around an excellent vibe, telling jokes and recounting sales-battle stories where relevant.

So, it isn’t surprising that we started a bit of back-and-forth good spirited banter. At some point, Dale came up with an idea. And when another colleague pointed out an obvious flaw, Dale immediately pivoted, without losing a second, and came up with an improved version. “That reminds me of a joke,” I said to Dale and the team, and proceeded to tell it:

A Joke or a Misunderstanding?

 

One guy, call him Dale, in my home town of Tel Aviv, applies for a job in a supermarket. After a short conversation, the manager says to Dale: “There’s a customer, let’s see how you assist him.”  Dale walks over and the customer hands him a watermelon that he had just picked up from the shelf and asks to buy only half of it. Dale takes the watermelon, walks over to the manager, and says: “Some idiot asked for half of this watermelon.” The manager, in distress, tries to signal to Dale that the customer had walked behind him and heard Dale’s words. Dale immediately understands, and completes the sentence: “…and this gentleman here, would like the other half.”

 

watermelon innovation facilitation

Laughter, laughter, but the joke doesn’t end here…

 

The manager is really impressed with Dale’s agility and ability and says: “Listen, Dale, that was impressive. How would you like the job of manager of our store in Jaffa?” “Jaffa?” Dale says. “They say everyone there is either a prostitute or a soccer player.” The manager is a bit taken aback and says “Actually, my sister is from Jaffa.” “Which team does she play on?” answers Dale without a second’s hesitation.

Big laughter in the room, but I detect some ambivalence and unease. Was it my mention of the word “prostitutes” (not sure I would dare repeat it nowadays in a corporate setting)? No. Something else, which I discovered only at the end of the day when the two project owners invite me to dinner. One detail I failed to mention: Dale (the real one, not the joke character) was African-American. And to my utter surprise, that evening I learned that “watermelon” has a special connotation in this context. From Wikipedia: “Watermelons have been viewed as a major symbol in the iconography of racism in the United States since as early as the nineteenth century.”

First thing I did the next morning was, of course, have a conversation with Dale. He had noticed obviously in the innovation facilitation session, but he assured me he had no doubt whatsoever that I had been ignorant of the context and connotations, so he was not offended in any way. He did feel uncomfortable though with his colleagues’ looks and concern. He knew it was nonsense. They knew it was nonsense.

So why the unease? A hard loop to get out of, but, as often happens in the corporate context, we had a task to accomplish which didn’t leave time for brooding. We went back into the room, and I shared with the group that my blunder had been pointed out to me.  I was using my privilege as an ignorant outsider to point out the absurdity of it all. The ice was then broken, and we jumped back into the work.

Now that you’ve read about a pitfall that can happen in an innovation facilitation session, check out how you can overcome your innovation challenges.

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