Innovation

CHAPTER – 4 INNOVATION



The Importance of Innovation- Risk of Failure- Nature of creativity- Imagination- Managing Innovative Teams- Needs of Creative Teams – Team Dynamics – A software development Example- Manager’s Responsibility – Team‘s Personal needs - political versus Technical solutions – Team synergism.


The term innovation may refer to both radical and incremental changes in thinking, in things, in processes or in services (McKeon, 2008). Invention that gets out in to the world is innovation. In many fields, something new must be substantially different to be innovative, not an insignificant change, e.g., in the arts, economics, business and government policy. In economics the change must increase value, customer value, or producer value. The goal of innovation is positive change, to make someone or something better. Innovation leading to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy.

Innovation is an important topic in the study of economics, business, technology, sociology, and engineering. Colloquially, the word "innovation" is often used as synonymous with the output of the process. Since innovation is also considered a major driver of the economy, the factors that lead to innovation are also considered to be critical to policy makers.

In the organizational context, innovation may be linked to performance and growth through improvements in efficiency, productivity, quality, competitive positioning, market share, etc. All organizations can innovate, including for example hospitals, universities, and local governments.
While innovation typically adds value, innovation may also have a negative or destructive effect as new developments clear away or change old organizational forms and practices. Organizations that do not innovate effectively may be destroyed by those that do. Hence innovation typically involves risk. A key challenge in innovation is maintaining a balance between process and product innovations where process innovations tend to involve a business model which may develop shareholder satisfaction through improved efficiencies while product innovations develop customer support however at the risk of costly R&D that can erode shareholder return.


"Innovation, like many business functions, is a management process that requires specific tools, rules, and discipline."
The Innovation Equation she developed is:
Innovation = Creativity * Risk Taking
Using this inventory it is possible to plot on axis where individuals fit on their Risk Taking and Creativity.
Definition of Innovation:
A convenient definition of innovation from an organizational perspective is given by Luecke and Katz (2003), who wrote:
"Innovation is generally understood as the successful introduction of a new thing or method. Innovation is the embodiment, combination, or synthesis of knowledge in original, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services”
Innovation typically involves creativity, but is not identical to it: innovation involves acting on the creative ideas to make some specific and tangible difference in the domain in which the innovation occurs. For example, Amiable et al (1996) propose:
"All innovation begins with creative ideas we define innovation as the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization. In this view, creativity by individuals and teams is a starting point for innovation; the first is necessary but not sufficient condition for the second".
For innovation to occur, something more than the generation of a creative idea or insight is required: the insight must be put into action to make a genuine difference, resulting for example in new or altered business processes within the organization, or changes in the products and services provided.
A further characterization of innovation is as an organizational or management process. For example, Davila et al (2006), write:
"Innovation, like many business functions, is a management process that requires specific tools, rules, and discipline."
From this point of view the emphasis is moved from the introduction of specific novel and useful ideas to the general organizational processes and procedures for generating, considering, and acting on such insights leading to significant organizational improvements in terms of improved or new business products, services, or internal processes.
Through these varieties of viewpoints, creativity is typically seen as the basis for innovation, and innovation as the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization (c.f. Amiable et al 1996 p.1155). From this point of view, creativity may be displayed by individuals, but innovation occurs in the organizational context only.
It should be noted, however, that the term 'innovation' is used by many authors rather interchangeably with the term 'creativity' when discussing individual and organizational creative activity. As Davila et al (2006) comment,
"Often, in common parlance, the words creativity and innovation are used interchangeably. They shouldn't be, because while creativity implies coming up with ideas, it's the "bringing ideas to life" that makes innovation the distinct undertaking it is."

Economic conceptions of innovation
Joseph Schumpeter defined economic innovation in The Theory of Economic Development, 1934, Harvard University Press, Boston.[2]
1. The introduction of a new good — that is one with which consumers are not yet familiar — or of a new quality of a good.
2. The introduction of a new method of production, which need by no means be founded upon a discovery scientifically new, and can also exist in a new way of handling a commodity commercially.
3. The opening of a new market that is a market into which the particular branch of manufacture of the country in question has not previously entered, whether or not this market has existed before.
4. The conquest of a new source of supply of raw materials or half-manufactured goods, again irrespective of whether this source already exists or whether it has first to be created.
5. The carrying out of the new organization of any industry, like the creation of a monopoly position (for example through trustification) or the breaking up of a monopoly position
Schumpeter's focus on innovation is reflected in Neo-Schumpeterian economics, developed by such scholars as Christopher Freeman [3] and Giovanni Dosi [4] .
In the 1980s, Veneris (1984, 1990) developed a systems dynamics computer simulation model which takes into account business cycles and innovations.
Innovation is also studied by economists in a variety of contexts, for example in theories of entrepreneurship or in Paul Romer's New Growth Theory.
Sources of innovation

1. There are several sources of innovation. In the linear model the traditionally recognized source is manufacturer innovation. This is where an agent (person or business) innovates in order to sell the innovation. Another source of innovation, only now becoming widely recognized, is end-user innovation. This is where an agent (person or company) develops an innovation for their own (personal or in-house) use because existing products do not meet their needs. Eric von Hippel has identified end-user innovation as, by far, the most important and critical in his classic book on the subject, Sources of Innovation.[6]

2. Innovation by businesses is achieved in many ways, with much attention now given to formal research and development for "breakthrough innovations." But innovations may be developed by less formal on-the-job modifications of practice, through exchange and combination of professional experience and by many other routes. The more radical and revolutionary innovations tend to emerge from R&D, while more incremental innovations may emerge from practice – but there are many exceptions to each of these trends.

3. Regarding user innovation, rarely user innovators may become entrepreneurs, selling their product, or more often they may choose to trade their innovation in exchange for other innovations. Nowadays, they may also choose to freely reveal their innovations, using methods like open source. In such networks of innovation the creativity of the users or communities of users can further develop technologies and their use.

 User innovation:
User innovation refers to innovations developed by consumers and end users, rather than manufacturers. Eric von Hippel of MIT 'discovered' that most products and services are actually developed by users, who then give ideas to manufacturers. This is because products are developed to meet the widest possible need; when individual users face problems that the majority of consumers do not, they have no choice but to develop their own modifications to existing products, or entirely new products, to solve their issues. Often, user innovators will share their ideas with manufacturers in hopes of having them produce the product, a process called free revealing.
In 1986 Eric von Hippel introduced the lead user method that can be used to systematically learn about user innovation in order to apply it in new product development.
 Lead user is a term developed by Eric von Hippel in 1986. His definition for lead user is:
1. Lead users face needs that will be general in a marketplace – but face them months or years before the bulk of that marketplace encounters them, and
2. Lead users are positioned to benefit significantly by obtaining a solution to those needs.
In other words: Lead users are users of a product that currently experience needs still unknown to the public and who also benefit greatly if they obtain a solution to these needs.
 New product development (NPD)
In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) is the term used to describe the complete process of bringing a new product or service to market. There are two parallel paths involved in the NPD process: one involves the idea generation, product design, and detail engineering; the other involves market research and marketing analysis. Companies typically see new product development as the first stage in generating and commercializing new products within the overall strategic process of product life cycle management used to maintain or grow their market share.
There are several general categories of new products. Some are new to the market (ex. DVD players into the home movie market), some are new to the company (ex. Game consoles for Sony), and some are completely novel and create totally new markets (ex. the airline industry). When viewed against a different criterion, some new product concepts are merely minor modifications of existing products while some are completely innovative to the company.
• Changes to Augmented Product
• Core product revision
• Line extensions
• New product lines
• Repositioning
• Completely new

These different characterizations are displayed in the following diagram.



The process
1. Idea Generation is often called the "fuzzy front end" of the NPD process
 Ideas for new products can be obtained from basic research using a SWOT analysis (OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS), Market and consumer trends, company's R&D department, competitors, focus groups, employees, salespeople, corporate spies, trade shows, or Ethnographic discovery methods (searching for user patterns and habits) may also be used to get an insight into new product lines or product features.
 Idea Generation or Brainstorming of new product, service, or store concepts - idea generation techniques can begin when you have done your OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS to support your ideas in the Idea Screening Phase (shown in the next development step).
2. Idea Screening
o The object is to eliminate unsound concepts prior to devoting resources to them.
o The screeners must ask at least three questions:
 Will the customer in the target market benefit from the product?
 What is the size and growth forecasts of the market segment/target market?
 What is the current or expected competitive pressure for the product idea?
 What are the industry sales and market trends the product idea is based on?
 Is it technically feasible to manufacture the product?
 Will the product be profitable when manufactured and delivered to the customer at the target price?
3. Concept Development and Testing
o Develop the marketing and engineering details
 Who is the target market and who is the decision maker in the purchasing process?
 What product features must the product incorporate?
 What benefits will the product provide?
 How will consumers react to the product?
 How will the product be produced most cost effectively?
 Prove feasibility through virtual computer aided rendering, and rapid prototyping
 What will it cost to produce it?
o Test the concept by asking a sample of prospective customers what they think of the idea. Usually via Choice Modeling.
4. Business Analysis
o Estimate likely selling price based upon competition and customer feedback
o Estimate sales volume based upon size of market and such tools as the Fourt-Woodlock equation
o Estimate profitability and breakeven point
5. Beta Testing and Market Testing
o Produce a physical prototype or mock-up
o Test the product (and its packaging) in typical usage situations
o Conduct focus group customer interviews or introduce at trade show
o Make adjustments where necessary
o Produce an initial run of the product and sell it in a test market area to determine customer acceptance
6. Technical Implementation
o New program initiation
o Resource estimation
o Requirement publication
o Engineering operations planning
o Department scheduling
o Supplier collaboration
o Logistics plan
o Resource plan publication
o Program review and monitoring
o Contingencies - what-if planning
7. Commercialization (often considered post-NPD)
o Launch the product
o Produce and place advertisements and other promotions
o Fill the distribution pipeline with product
o Critical path analysis is most useful at this stage
These steps may be iterated as needed. Some steps may be eliminated. To reduce the time that the NPD process takes, many companies are completing several steps at the same time (referred to as concurrent engineering or time to market). Most industry leaders see new product development as a proactive process where resources are allocated to identify market changes and seize upon new product opportunities before they occur (in contrast to a reactive strategy in which nothing is done until problems occur or the competitor introduces an innovation). Many industry leaders see new product development as an ongoing process (referred to as continuous development) in which the entire organization is always looking for opportunities.
For the more innovative products indicated on the diagram above, great amounts of uncertainty and change may exist, which makes it difficult or impossible to plan the complete project before starting it. In this case, a more flexible approach may be advisable.
Because the NPD process typically requires both engineering and marketing expertise, cross-functional teams are a common way of organizing projects. The team is responsible for all aspects of the project, from initial idea generation to final commercialization, and they usually report to senior management (often to a vice president or Program Manager). In those industries where products are technically complex, development research is typically expensive, and product life cycles are relatively short, strategic alliances among several organizations helps to spread the costs, provide access to a wider skill set, and speeds the overall process.
Also, notice that because engineering and marketing expertise are usually both critical to the process, choosing an appropriate blend of the two is important. Observe (for example, by looking at the See also or References sections below) that this article is slanted more toward the marketing side. For more of an engineering slant, see the Ulrich and Eppinger reference below.[1]
People respond to new products in different ways. The adoption of a new technology can be analyzed using a variety of diffusion theories such as the Diffusion of innovations theory. It includes economical support of social sector.
Diffusion theory of innovations
Once innovation occurs, innovations may be spread from the innovator to other individuals and groups. This process has been studied extensively in the scholarly literature from a variety of viewpoints, most notably in Everett Rogers' classic book, The Diffusion of Innovations. However, this 'linear model' of innovation has been substantially challenged by scholars in the last 20 years, and much research has shown that the simple invention-innovation-diffusion model does not do justice to the multilevel, non-linear processes that firms, entrepreneurs and users participate in to create successful and sustainable innovations.


Rogers proposed that the life cycle of innovations can be described using the ‘s-curve’ or diffusion curve. The s-curve maps growth of revenue or productivity against time. In the early stage of a particular innovation, growth is relatively slow as the new product establishes itself. At some point customers begin to demand and the product growth increases more rapidly. New incremental innovations or changes to the product allow growth to continue. Towards the end of its life cycle growth slows and may even begin to decline. In the later stages, no amount of new investment in that product will yield a normal rate of return.
The s-curve is derived from half of a normal distribution curve. There is an assumption that new products are likely to have "product Life". i.e. a start-up phase, a rapid increase in revenue and eventual decline. In fact the great majorities of innovations never get off the bottom of the curve, and never produce normal returns.
Innovative companies will typically be working on new innovations that will eventually replace older ones. Successive s-curves will come along to replace older ones and continue to drive growth upwards. In the figure above the first curve shows a current technology. The second shows an emerging technology that current yields lower growth but will eventually overtake current technology and lead to even greater levels of growth. The length of life will depend on many factors.

1. Diffusion curve

The S-Curve and technology adoption



The adoption curve becomes an s-curve when cumulative adoption is used.

Everett M. Rogers in his 1962 book, Diffusion of Innovations, theorized that innovations would spread through society in an S curve, as the early adopters select the technology first, followed by the majority, until a technology or innovation is common. According to Rogers, diffusion research centers on the conditions which increase or decrease the likelihood that a new idea, product, or practice will be adopted by members of a given culture. According to Rogers people’s attitude toward a new technology is a key element in its diffusion. Roger’s Innovation Decision Process theory states that innovation diffusion is a process that occurs over time through five stages: Knowledge, Persuasion, Decision, Implementation and Confirmation. Accordingly, the innovation-decision process is the process through which an individual or other decision-making unit passes 1. from first knowledge of an innovation, 2. to forming an attitude toward the innovation, 3. to a decision to adopt or reject, 4. to implementation of the new idea, and 5. to confirmation of this decision. (Rogers, 2003, p. 161) {Ebenezer}
The speed of technology adoption is determined by two characteristics p, which is the speed at which adoption takes off, and q, the speed at which later growth occurs. A cheaper technology might have a higher p, for example, taking off more quickly, while a technology that has network effects (like a fax machine, where the value of the item increases as others get it) may have a higher q.
Caveats and criticisms
Critics [who?] of this model {weasel words} have suggested that it is an overly simplified representation of a complex reality. [Citation needed]
A number of other phenomena can influence innovation adoption rates, such as -
1. Customers often adapt technology to their own needs, so the innovation may actually change in nature from the early adopters to the majority of users. This is acknowledged, discussed and included in later additions of the Rogers book.
2. Disruptive technologies may radically change the diffusion patterns for established technology by starting a different competing S-curve.
3. Lastly, path dependence may lock certain technologies in place, as in the QWERTY keyboard.
Various computer models have been developed in order to simulate the diffusion of innovations. Veneris (1984, 1990) developed a systems dynamics computer model which takes into account various diffusion patterns modeled via differential equations.

2. Emerging Technology:

Emerging technologies and converging technologies are terms used interchangeably to cover the emergence and convergence of new and potentially disruptive technologies such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, cognitive science, robotics, and artificial intelligence.


Types of Innovation:

Innovation used to be a linear trajectory from new knowledge to new product. Now innovation is neither singular nor linear, but systemic. It arises from complex interactions between many individuals, organizations and their operating environment. Firms which are successful in realizing the full returns from their technologies and innovations are able to match their technological developments with complementary expertise in other areas of their business, such as manufacturing, distribution, human resources, marketing, and customer service.
Innovation is not divisible – ‘good in parts’ is no good at all. Innovation systems are only as strong as their weakest links. "You can't do carpentry if you only have a saw, or only a hammer or you never heard of a pair of pliers. It's when you put all those tools into one kit that you invent," advised Peter Ducker.







1. Business Innovation:

Business innovation involves a wide spectrum of original concepts, including development of new ways of doing business, new business models, business application of technology and communications, new management techniques, environmental efficiency, new forms of stakeholder participation, telecommunication, transport and finance.
In some cases the innovation rests not in the technology or product or service, but in the business model itself. Business model is a broad-stroke picture of how an innovative concept will create economic value for the ultimate user, for the firm and its shareholders and partners. It considers the infrastructure required to move the product/service to the market in a manner that it both easy and convenient for customers and profitable for the firm. Business model converts innovation to economic value for the business. The business model spells-out how a company makes money by specifying where it is positioned in the value chain. It draws on a multitude on business subjects including entrepreneurship, strategy, economics, finance, operations, and marketing. Simply put, a business model describes how a business positions itself within the value chain of its industry and how it intends to sustain itself that is to generate revenue. In the most basic sense, a business model is the method of doing business by which a company can sustain itself – that is, generate revenue.

Six Components of Business Model
According to Henry Chesbrough and Richard S. Rosen bloom


1. Value Proposition – a description of the customer problem, the solution that addresses the problem, and the value of this solution from the customer's perspective.


2. Market Segment – the group to target, recognizing that different market segments have different needs. Sometimes the potential of an innovation is unlocked only when a different market segment is targeted.

3. Value Chain Structure – the firm's position and activities in the value chain and how the firm will capture part of the value that it creates in the chain.
4. Revenue Generation and Margins – how revenue is generated (sales, leasing, subscription, support, etc.), the cost structure, and target profit margins.
5. Position in the Value Network – identification of competitors, complementors, and any network effects that can be utilized to deliver more value to the customer.
6. Competitive Strategy – how the company will attempt to develop a sustainable competitive advantage and use it to improve the enterprise's competitive position in the market.

2. Organizational Innovation:
Organizational innovation reflects the recognition that new ways of organizing work in areas such as work-force management (such as employee empowerment, new people partnership, or positive action to involve all employees in order to make work organization a collective resource for innovation), knowledge management, value chain management, customer partnership, distribution, finance, manufacturing, etc. can improve your competitiveness.

Using the 7-S Model



"Seven-S" Formula - a Comprehensive Guide to Analyzing the Culture and Behavior of Corporations
By Tomas J.Peters, Robert H.Waterman, and Julian R.Phillips

The Seven-Ss is a framework for analyzing organizations and their effectiveness. It looks at the seven key elements that make the organizations successful, or not: strategy; structure; systems; style; skills; staff; and shared values.
Consultants at McKinsey & Company developed the 7S model in the late 1970s to help managers address the difficulties of organizational change. The model shows that organizational immune systems and the many interconnected variables involved make change complex, and that an effective change effort must address many of these issues simultaneously.
7-S Model – A Systemic Approach to Improving Organizations
The 7-S model is a tool for managerial analysis and action that provides a structure with which to consider a company as a whole, so that the organization's problems may be diagnosed and a strategy may be developed and implemented.
The 7-S diagram illustrates the multiplicity interconnectedness of elements that define an organization's ability to change. The theory helped to change manager's thinking about how companies could be improved. It says that it is not just a matter of devising a new strategy and following it through. Nor is it a matter of setting up new systems and letting them generate improvements.
To be effective, your organization must have a high degree of fit, or internal alignment among all the seven Ss. Each S must be consistent with and reinforce the other Ss. All Ss are interrelated, so a change in one has a ripple effect on all the others. It is impossible to make progress on one without making progress on all. Thus, to improve your organization, you have to master systems thinking and pay attention to all of the seven elements at the same time.
There is no starting point or implied hierarchy - different factors may drive the business in any one organization.
1. Shared Values
Shared values are commonly held beliefs, mindsets, and assumptions that shape how an organization behaves – its corporate culture. Shared values are what engender trust. They are an interconnecting center of the 7Ss model. Values are the identity by which a company is known throughout its business areas, what the organization stands for and what it believes in, it central beliefs and attitudes. These values must be explicitly stated as both corporate objectives and individual values.
2. Structure
Structure is the organizational chart and associated information that shows who reports to whom and how tasks are both divided up and integrated. In other words, structures describe the hierarchy of authority and accountability in an organization, the way the organization's units relate to each other: centralized, functional divisions (top-down); decentralized (the trend in larger organizations); matrix, network, holding, etc. These relationships are frequently diagrammed in organizational charts. Most organizations use some mix of structures - pyramidal, matrix or networked ones - to accomplish their goals.

3. Strategy
Strategy are plans an organization formulates to reach identified goals, and a set of decisions and actions aimed at gaining a sustainable advantage over the competition.
4. Systems
Systems define the flow of activities involved in the daily operation of business, including its core processes and its support systems. They refer to the procedures, processes and routines that are used to manage the organization and characterize how important work is to be done. Systems include:
• Business System
• Business Process Management System (BPMS)
• Management information system
• Innovation system
• Performance management system
• Financial system/capital allocation system
• Compensation system/reward system
• Customer satisfaction monitoring system
5. Style
"Style" refers to the cultural style of the organization, how key managers behave in achieving the organization's goals, how managers collectively spend their time and attention, and how they use symbolic behavior. How management acts is more important that what management says.
6. Staff
"Staff" refers to the number and types of personnel within the organization and how companies develop employees and shape basic values.
7. Skills
"Skills" refer to the dominant distinctive capabilities and competencies of the personnel or of the organization as a whole.
3. Strategy Innovation:

Strategy innovation is about challenging existing industry methods of creating customer value in order to meet newly emerging customer needs, add additional value, and create new markets and new customer groups for the sponsoring company.





To survive in today's tidal wave of global economic, technological, and social change, you must understand how powerful forces are aggregating once-distinct product and geographic markets, enhancing market-clearing efficiency, and increasing specialization in the supply chain.
You should respond by adopting a new approach to strategy – one that combines speed, openness, flexibility, and forward-focused thinking.11
Never is strategy implementation more important than when innovation is at the heart of a strategy. Innovation always involves treading into uncertain waters. And as uncertainty rises, the value of a well-thought-out, but static, enterprise strategy drops. In fact, when pursuing entirely new business models, no amount of research can resolve the critical unknowns. All that strategy can do is give you a good starting point. From there, you must experiment, learn, and adapt.

4. Technology innovation:

Technology innovation covers innovation derived from research and technology developments that are independent of product and service initiatives. "The best companies maintain roadmaps that define the next technologies they will pursue and the requisite timing of each. These technology roadmaps are matched to their product roadmaps to ensure that the two are synchronized."3 As core technology developments take longer than shorter product and service initiatives, by separating research and invention from product and service development, companies can achieve stretch without incurring too much risk.






Three Categories of Technology Innovation

Think of these three categories as small, medium and large.
Incremental Innovations are the small (perhaps 1-2% a year) improvements. These are described by the Learning curve, and by terms such as "learning by doing”. One example is the development of “creep capacity “in the chemical industry. Another is Moore’s Law. (Graphic) Improvements here are continuous, and these represent one of the few areas in innovation where future improvements can be predicted with any confidence. They cause relatively little disruption.
Radical Innovations are the situations where a totally new technology comes along and displaces the incumbent technology. Examples are transistor replacing the vacuum tube, compact disc replacing long playing records. These changes are discontinuous, not continuous, and frequently cause significant disruption involving changes in industry leadership.

General Purpose Technologies is the name that has been coined to describe the really big innovations such as the waterwheel, steam power, electricity, the internal combustion engine, railways, the internet, etc. These innovations are share four characteristics:
1. Wide scope for improvement and elaboration
2. Wide range of uses
3. Potential use in a wide range of products and processes
4. Strongly complementary with other technologies.


5. Process Innovation:

Process innovations increase bottom-line profitability, reduce costs, improve efficiency, improve productivity, and increase employee job satisfaction. They also deliver enhanced product or service value to the customer.

Process innovations focus on building an adaptive business process management system (BPMS). For manufacturing companies, process innovation include such things as integrating new production methods and technologies that lead to improved efficiency, quality, or time-to-market, and services that are sold with those products. For service companies, process innovations enable them to introduce "front office" customer service improvements and add new services.





6. Product Innovation;

According to Phillip Kotler, a product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a need or want. Thus, a product may be a physical good, retail store, person, organization, place, or idea.

Product/service innovation is the result of bringing to life a new way to solve the customer's problem – through a new product or service development – that benefits both the customer and the sponsoring company.

The myth that products are developed by lone geniuses in their labs, who turn sudden inspiration into practical innovation "wasn't quite true even in Thomas Edison's day, and it certainly isn't true today," writes Michael Hammer.2 "Reality is far more complex. Talent and inspiration are necessary but not sufficient. To create and launch nearly any new product today requires many people with many different skills."
• Engineers must envision and design the product, using customer input provides via sales representatives, then
• Marketing experts must assess the product's potential and help shape its specific features.
• Financial types must analyze the cost of marketing it and determine a competitive price.
• Manufacturing specialists must decide how to make the product in volume.
• Lawyers must assess how it can be protected from imitators.




7. Marketing Innovation:

"You don't decide what business you are in; the marketplace decides that for you... People will only buy what they want to buy, or are afraid not to buy, at a given moment in time."1 Tailoring your business plan to what the market will buy is always a better, more successful strategy than developing a new product or service without knowing precisely the customers for it and hoping that people would buy it because it's good.
Many things are good, and people need many things. But the "need" is not enough. "Nobody buys what they need. Before people will buy something they "need", two things have to happen:
1. They have to recognize and accept that they need it.
2. They must act upon that recognition and acceptance...
Before people know they need something, you often have to spend lots of money educating them about why they need it."1 While preparing your business and marketing plan, anticipate also the curveballs that the marketplace will throw at you and may cause you to change direction.
Marketing is positioning. You need to learn to position your product or service in the mind of the prospect. Remember also that test marketing of your product or service is a very important component of your entrepreneurial success.

Measures of Innovation:
There are a number of metrics that are commonly used as a basis for measuring innovation. According to Mark Turrell
1. Revenue growth from new products: This is the most widely used metric by the leading firms. It is based on strategic targets set by the business and an understanding of how the company can achieve its growth targets (the Innovation Gap).
2. Patent submission: This is an increasingly popular approach that is widely abused by many firms outside of the high tech and pharmaceutical industries. Patents are only one form of protect able intellectual property and many firms focus more on the legal aspects of protection than the business upside.
3. Idea submission and flow: The ideas flowing through an idea management system provide a visible reference point to the volume and quality of submissions.
4. Innovation capacity: Companies measure innovation capacity using survey tools such as KEYS, the Innovation Climate Questionnaire or other tools and use the information on a 12- to 24-month basis to determine whether the company has become more innovative.
Goals/ objectives of innovation
Programs of organizational innovation are typically tightly linked to organizational goals and objectives, to the business plan, and to market competitive positioning.
For example, one driver for innovation programs in corporations is to achieve growth objectives. As Davila et al (2006) note,
"Companies cannot grow through cost reduction and reengineering alone . . . Innovation is the key element in providing aggressive top-line growth, and for increasing bottom-line results" (p.6)
In general, business organizations spend a significant amount of their turnover on innovation i.e. making changes to their established products, processes and services. The amount of investment can vary from as low as a half a percent of turnover for organizations with a low rate of change to anything over twenty percent of turnover for organizations with a high rate of change.
The average investment across all types of organizations is four percent. For an organization with a turnover of say one billion currency units, this represents an investment of forty million units. This budget will typically be spread across various functions including marketing, product design, information systems, manufacturing systems and quality assurance.
The investment may vary by industry and by market positioning.
One survey across a large number of manufacturing and services organizations found, ranked in decreasing order of popularity that systematic programs of organizational innovation are most frequently driven by:
1. Improved quality
2. Creation of new markets
3. Extension of the product range
4. Reduced labor costs
5. Improved production processes
6. Reduced materials
7. Reduced environmental damage
8. Replacement of products/services
9. Reduced energy consumption
10. Conformance to regulations
These goals vary between improvements to products, processes and services and dispel a popular myth that innovation deals mainly with new product development. Most of the goals could apply to any organization be it a manufacturing facility, marketing firm, hospital or local government.
Risk Failure of innovation
Research findings vary, ranging from fifty to ninety percent of innovation projects judged to have made little or no contribution to organizational goals. One survey regarding product innovation quotes that out of three thousand ideas for new products, only one becomes a success in the marketplace. Failure is an inevitable part of the innovation process, and most successful organizations factor in an appropriate level of risk. Perhaps it is because all organizations experience failure that many choose not to monitor the level of failure very closely. The impact of failure goes beyond the simple loss of investment. Failure can also lead to loss of morale among employees, an increase in cynicism and even higher resistance to change in the future.
Innovations that fail are often potentially ‘good’ ideas but have been rejected or ‘shelved’ due to budgetary constraints, lack of skills or poor fit with current goals. Failures should be identified and screened out as early in the process as possible. Early screening avoids unsuitable ideas devouring scarce resources that are needed to progress more beneficial ones. Organizations can learn how to avoid failure when it is openly discussed and debated. The lessons learned from failure often reside longer in the organizational consciousness than lessons learned from success. While learning is important, high failure rates throughout the innovation process are wasteful and a threat to the organization’s future.
The causes of failure have been widely researched and can vary considerably. Some causes will be external to the organization and outside its influence of control. Others will be internal and ultimately within the control of the organization. Internal causes of failure can be divided into causes associated with the cultural infrastructure and causes associated with the innovation process itself. Failure in the cultural infrastructure varies between organizations but the following are common across all organizations at some stage in their life cycle (O'Sullivan, 2002):
1. Poor Leadership
2. Poor Organization
3. Poor Communication
4. Poor Empowerment
5. Poor Knowledge Management
Common causes of failure within the innovation process in most organizations can be distilled into five types:
1. Poor goal definition
2. Poor alignment of actions to goals
3. Poor participation in teams
4. Poor monitoring of results
5. Poor communication and access to information
Effective goal definition requires that organizations state explicitly what their goals are in terms understandable to everyone involved in the innovation process. This often involves stating goals in a number of ways. Effective alignment of actions to goals should link explicit actions such as ideas and projects to specific goals. It also implies effective management of action portfolios. Participation in teams refers to the behavior of individuals in and of teams, and each individual should have an explicitly allocated responsibility regarding their role in goals and actions and the payment and rewards systems that link them to goal attainment. Finally, effective monitoring of results requires the monitoring of all goals, actions and teams involved in the innovation process.
Innovation can fail if seen as an organizational process whose success stems from a mechanistic approach i.e. 'pull lever obtain result'. While 'driving' change has an emphasis on control, enforcement and structures it is only a partial truth in achieving innovation. Organizational gatekeepers frame the organizational environment that "Enables" innovation; however innovation is "Enacted" – recognized, developed, applied and adopted – through individuals.
Individuals are the 'atom' of the organization close to the minutiae of daily activities. Within individuals gritty appreciation of the small detail combines with a sense of desired organizational objectives to deliver (and innovate for) a product/service offer.
From this perspective innovation succeeds from strategic structures that engage the individual to the organization’s benefit. Innovation pivots on intrinsically motivated individuals, within a supportive culture, informed by a broad sense of the future.
Innovation, implies change, and can be counter to an organization’s orthodoxy. Space for fair hearing of innovative ideas is required to balance the potential autoimmune exclusion that quells an infant innovative culture.
Innovation Process
Process innovation can and should happen at various levels within the organization as no
Organization can depend solely upon innovation occurring at one level only. Successful
Organizations have an innovation process working its way through all levels of the organization. Hamel (Harvard Business Review) states, “Innovation has become a mantra: Innovate or Die. Accompany can’t outgrow its competitors unless it can out-innovate them. Surely everyone knows that corporate growth – true growth, not just agglomeration – springs from innovation.” This article will provide various examples of process innovation, using the various innovation drivers, which include technology.

CI is focused on conceptual design because it has long been clear that at least 70% of the cost, reliability, performance, safety, etc. of products are set during conceptual design. Conceptual design is the highest-leverage opportunity for innovation.
Conceptual design teams routinely struggle with 3 issues:
 Innovation effort can be focused on many different aspects of a product and its related processes. Conceptual design teams need to know where to focus their innovation efforts, strategically, to add the most value. Innovation for innovation's sake alone is not valuable.
 Unlike detailed design, conceptual design lacks detailed prototypes that can be "test-driven" by representative customers or subjected to instrumented testing. During conceptual design, teams typically consider between 10-100 rough-hewn concepts. It is impractical to either confront representative customers with, or test models of all of these concepts. Instead, the team needs a "value-based gauge" that it can use to evaluate and select concepts based on their potential to add stakeholder value.
 Once concepts have been selected, value can only be added if they are pursued; action is required. A pre-requisite to action is a development plan and a clear business case to proceed. There is risk inherent in product development, so decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty and the result is rework. Time and cost for rework can be substantially reduced by development plans that reduce risk as quickly as possible, so that decisions are made under conditions of greater certainty. Conceptual design teams need methods to create development plans that reduce risk as early as possible in the development cycle.
Detailed design involves optimization and determining precise values of design involves optimization and determining precise values of design parameters; conceptual design involves consideration of alternative product and process architectures and technological approaches. While bounding ranges for numerical design parameters may be assumed, specific numerical values are as yet unknown. Consequently, conceptual design teams demand quick, simple methods that are faster and less complex than detailed analyses and detailed requirements definition. They are unwilling to commit the time and effort required to apply detailed methods, since their information is in such rough form. For this reason, many methods that are best practices during detailed design must be simplified for concept design without losing their kernel of effectiveness.
Integrated Product Development (IPD) core teams are ideally composed of and supported by individuals having radically different backgrounds and areas of expertise. It is this diversity that brings a variety of perspectives to conceptual design and increases the likelihood that multiple design alternatives will be generated and evaluated and that life-cycle issues will be considered systemically, rather than as afterthoughts and engineering changes. But many of these diverse individuals are not experts on all facets of the existing product and its related life-cycle processes. They must be provided with appropriate documentation to enable them to understand and contribute to the conceptual design discussion. Available product and process documents are typically suitable for detailed design, involving considerable implementation detail that obscures the fundamental architecture of the product and related processes. Very often, the detailed design documents do not even address the primary conceptual design issues. Conceptual design teams need product/process architectural documentation, without the distraction of detailed-design issues.
This article introduces the Collaborative Innovation (CI) process and its steps for concept design. Each step is explained along with the methods used.
During the past 3 years, CI has been developed and used to support conceptual design teams within Business Units, including Pratt & Whitney (jet engines), Otis Elevator (elevator systems), and International Fuel Cells (power-generation systems). These teams' missions ranged from innovative conceptual redesigns for cost reduction of mature products to radically innovative designs of new types of products.
CI sets the stage for innovation by enabling the members of IPD teams, and those who support them, to rapidly engage and contribute, so that they readily add value through the diversity of their backgrounds and skills. CI accomplishes this by modeling the functional architecture of a product and its associated processes so that this information is accessible to the core team and those who support it.
CI explicitly captures the team's assumptions and decisions so that others in the organization can consider them and add value by identifying necessary adjustments and/or by embracing them based on clear understanding. This is accomplished openly, during frequent reviews, and privately, as individuals draw their own conclusions by examining explicit team documentation.
CI leads to action by presenting a clear business case for its proposed concepts, along with a logically organized wealth of supporting information so that individual assumptions and decisions can be readily substantiated.

Figure 1: CI Process Steps
The CI Process Steps:
CI consists of the 5 steps shown in Figure 1:
1. Value Modeling: Create a weighted stakeholder-value model. Based on input from stakeholder representatives, translate stakeholder needs into a value-based gauge that can be used to evaluate and select concepts.
2. Innovation Focus: Identify where to focus innovation effort to add the most value for stakeholders.
3. Innovation: Innovate in the focus areas, generating a wide variety of concepts that span the design space, minimizing the risk of being "blind-sided" by competitors' products and processes.
4. Concept Evaluation & Selection: Evaluate concepts, using the value-based gauge, and select those that can add the most value for stakeholders.
5. Risk-Reduced Development Planning (RRDP): Create a development plan to reduce risk as quickly as possible, reducing cost and time for rework.

Figure 2: Using the "Value-Based Gauge" for Value Modeling


Step 1: Value Modeling
The principle of value modeling is illustrated in Figure 2. If the team had an understanding of the relative value of a set of tangible, measurable characteristics of the product or process, and could take a proposed concept and place a gauge against it to measure its score on each characteristic, they would have a good idea of its value. They could readily determine the value of each of its characteristics and thus its total value.


Figure 3: Stakeholder-Needs Mode ling

Value Modeling consists of:
Stakeholder-Needs Modeling:
Relevant stakeholder* categories are identified (Figure 3). A short list of the stakeholders' top-level needs is developed. The best available stakeholder representatives are consulted to determine the importance of each need to each category of stakeholder. The stakeholder representatives also provide input to the IPD team's decision on the relative importance that each category of stakeholder's perspective will have on the design. A weighted average of these two types of input represents the combined stakeholder value associated with each need.


Simplified QFD
Quality-Function Deployment (QFD) [Hauser 88] or "House of Quality" is a well-known best practice to understand the relationship between customer needs and ways of satisfying those needs. Elaborate QFD methods have been applied for a wide range of applications, often involving a sequential multi-tiered "waterfall" approach.


Figure 4: Simplified QFD
Figure 4 shows how Simplified
Figure 4 shows how Simplified d QFD is used within CI. A short list of tangible characteristics of the product or process being designed and of related life-cycle processes is created. Each characteristic is believed to be important toward satisfying stakeholder needs and must be able to be assessed for proposed concepts before they have been implemented. The characteristics should be as independent of one another as possible, to avoid double counting. A weighted average of the stakeholder-need weights and the importance weights for the characteristics results in an overall rating of the importance of each characteristic toward providing value. This set of key characteristics, together with their relative weights, is the "Value-Based Gauge" that is later used to evaluate and select concepts.
The primary benefits of Simplified QFD are:
 Its use of only one QFD table: enhanced QFD methods use many cascaded tables, which consume substantial time and therefore limit their usefulness upfront in conceptual design.
 Its concurrency: both product and process characteristics are evaluated simultaneously.
 Its inclusion of "technical certainty" as a standard characteristic to assess the sensitivity of stakeholders to new technology that is not yet "tried and true" in this specific application.
 It combines requirements of all relevant stakeholders, rather than only the Voice of the Customer.
 It identifies contradictions that can be resolved using the TRIZ principles [Altshuller 84].
Step 2: Innovation Focus
History has shown the disadvantages of focusing innovation where it is technically easiest or where it is most “interesting” or technically challenging. Products and processes that have resulted from such misguided innovation have not generally been successful unless they also happened to add sufficient value.
Focusing innovation based on the actions of market leaders is disadvantageous because only the effect of their design efforts is visible, e.g., the results of their intellectual property (IP) strategy and their first preliminary product offerings. The IP strategy and product and process knowledge that produced these artifacts is not only hidden, but typically one design-cycle old. Focusing solely on these artifacts is likely to perpetuate a market-following position.
A healthier strategy is to evaluate the design space, quickly assessing each area to determine
its potential value, its value with current technology in the current marketplace, and the technology hurdles and market factors that must be overcome to yield its potential. This allows a design team to drill down in areas of the design space that present the most valuable innovation opportunities while understanding and managing the risk that competitors might pursue other areas. This strategy limits competitive risk and enables the business to react with agility when new technologies or market changes present opportunities.


Figure 5: Problem-Formulation (PF) Modeling
Innovation Focus consists of:
Problem-Formulation (PF) Modeling:
Problem-Formulation [Terninko 98] is a well-known TRIZ method. Figure 5 illustrates Problem-Formulation (PF) modeling as it is used within CI.
The problem-formulation model documents the rationale behind the existing (baseline) product or process design. Modeling begins with identification of the few Principal Useful Functions (PUFs). These are the primary reasons for the product or process’s existence. Next the Useful Functions (UFs), required to provide the PUFs, are modeled. (At this point, the problem-formulation model is essentially equivalent to a standard Functional Analysis Structured Technique (FAST) [Creasy 73] model (commonly used in Value Engineering).
Next, the Harmful Functions (HFs) and Principal Harmful Functions (PHFs), caused by these Useful Functions (Ufs), are modeled. While HFs are disadvantageous, they are not typically obvious or directly problematic to the user. PHFs are more serious than HFs and are typically obvious and problematic to the user. Finally, the UFs, used to mitigate the HFs, are modeled.


Figure 6: The structure of an actual Problem-Formulation (PF) Model (textual descriptors omitted)
Figure 6 shows an example of an actual problem formulation model (the descriptors have been omitted to protect proprietary information). Note that there is a band of PUFs at the top, which this system must perform. Below them is a band of UFs, which are the current design’s approach to performing the PUFs. Below them is a horizontal band of HFs and PHFs, which are caused by the current design’s approach to performing the PUFs. Below them is a band of mitigating UFs, which are useful, but which are only there to solve the problems caused by the current design’s approach to performing the PUFs. Finally, at the bottom of the PF diagram there is a band of HFs and PHFs caused by the mitigation. In this case it is system cost and complexity which feeds back to cause other HFs. In other cases HFs results from requirements on weight, volume, noise, vibration or parasitic losses.

Figure 7: Functional Modeling (FM)
• Functional Modeling (FM):
Functional modeling is a well-known method of understanding which system elements perform which useful and harmful functions. It is a common element in TRIZ analysis, although it takes different forms with different authors. Figures 7 illustrate Functional Modeling (FM) as it is used within CI.
The notation for functional modeling involves blue circles representing elements of the system being designed, green circles representing elements of the "outer system" (i.e., elements outside the system being designed), and yellow circles representing the stakeholders: outer system elements that are the primary beneficiaries of the system being designed. (Note that for sub-systems, the stakeholders in a functional model are typically other sub-systems, as opposed to the human stakeholders considered in Value Modeling.)
The functions are represented as arrows between elements. Useful functions are shown in blue and harmful functions in red. A function between two elements indicates that the origin element performs the function and consequently changes or limits an attribute of the destination element. This is analogous to the information in OAF tables, in Ford's USIT methodology [Sickafus 97], except that USIT acknowledges not only one, but two origin elements causing the function (as does the theory of Triads [Kowalick 98]). USIT also explicitly models the attributes of the two origin objects that cause the function to occur, as well as the attribute of the destination object.

Figure 8: An actual one-level Functional Model (textual descriptors omitted)

Figure 9: One page of an actual multi-level Functional Model (textual descriptors omitted)
Figures 8 and 9 show pieces of two different actual functional models in different formats (the descriptors have been omitted to protect proprietary information). Figure 8 shows a complete one-level FM. Figure 9 shows one page of a multi-level FM, in which each element is diagrammed at the center of its own page, showing all of the functional interactions it has with other elements. This approach shows the context, within which each element exists, along with its functional interfaces to that environment. This multi-level modeling is performed using a hierarchical, object-oriented network modeling tool that preserves network integrity, so that all views of the model that involve any particular link show it identically, with all of its relevant graphical and textual attribute information.

Figure 10: Value Analysis (VA)
• Value Analysis (VA):
Value analysis is the part of CI's innovation focus step that actually identifies where to focus to add value. Value engineering defines the Value of a design as its Functionality (its benefits) divided by its Problems and its Costs [Miles 61]. Figure 10 illustrates how Value Analysis is performed in CI. Functionality is plotted against the sum of Problems and Cost. Functionality includes contribution to PUFs, but does NOT include mitigating UFs. An ideal system element (shown in green) would provide excellent functionality with no problems or costs, while a worthless and harmful system element (shown in red) would provide no functionality but cause significant problems at high cost.
The system elements from the Functional Model are graphed based on their functionality, problems and cost. The diagonal lines are lines of constant value. The horizontal line indicates no value, the 22-degree line represents more value, the 39-degree line represents even more value, etc. So on this graph, element A is of extremely low value, while element B is of extremely high value. Note that cost-reduction teams are purely focused on moving the elements to the left on the VA graph (or eliminating them). Radical Product-Innovation Teams (clean-sheet designs and radical derivatives) are concerned primarily with moving the elements upward on the VA graph, adding substantial new functionality to them (in some cases, by satisfying previously unknown stakeholder needs). These teams may also reduce cost if possible.

Figure 11: PF model patterns and associated supported-brainstorming facilitation questions
Step 3: Innovation
As shown in Figure 11, from the Problem-Formulation model, there is a small set of possible patterns of useful and harmful functions, each of which corresponds to a logical question that should be asked to determine if there’s a better possible design. [Terninko 98] These questions are automatically generated from the PF model. The supported brainstorming process is facilitated using these questions in an order based on their height in the PF model (top to bottom) and proceeds down the branches of the PF model that the Value Analysis indicated were the best opportunities to add value. Since the questions are extremely open-ended for the purpose of facilitation, it is possible to generate questions that are one step less open, in that they pursue a particular conceptual line of change. There are many established sources of these conceptual lines of change, including the TRIZ principles [Altshuller 98], the USIT solution strategies [Sickafus 97], the Lateral Thinking techniques [De Bono 90], and "Thinker toys" [Michalko 91].

Figure 12: Pugh Concept Selection
Step 4: Concept Evaluation & Selection
As shown in Figure 12, CI uses “Pugh Concept Selection” [Pugh 91] to evaluate concepts and compare them against a common baseline concept. The Value-Based Gauge created as the result of Value Modeling is used as the weighted selection criteria. Pugh Concept Selection evaluates each system-level concept against a common baseline, which is either the current product design, or a surrogate (the same system that was used as the baseline for PF modeling and for Functional Modeling). For each concept, each product or process characteristic is assessed in comparison with the baseline design. The concept either performs better ("+") with respect to this characteristic than the baseline, the same ("S"), or worse ("-"). As a result, Pugh produces 3 values for each concept:
How beneficial the concept is, vs. the value of the baseline (the sum of the weights of characteristics scoring "+"),
How deficient the concept is, vs. the value of the baseline (the sum of the weights of characteristics scoring "-"), and
the total value of the concept, vs. the value of the baseline (the sum of the weights of characteristics scoring "+" minus the sum of the weights of characteristics scoring "-").
Note that the total doesn’t tell the whole story. For example, two concepts could have the same total, while one has excellent advantages along with terrible deficiencies, while the other could just have a few modest advantages and deficiencies. All 3 values are presented and the team's judgment is used to interpret the results.
Since Pugh Concept Selection compares all concepts against a baseline, it minimizes the number of comparisons that must be considered, as compared with methods such as "paired comparisons." [Kaufman 89] Since CI provides a direct computational chain, linking stakeholder needs weighting, QFD, and Pugh Concept Selection, validating the QFD and the concept evaluations is easy. Scenarios are used to establish extreme points at which they provide selections that agree with the team's perception. If a scenario doesn't provide sensible selections, the relevant portions of the evaluations and then the QFD are examined to determine whether the team's perceptions, the QFD or the evaluations are at fault. This quickly flushes out evaluation inconsistencies. Since the QFD is meant to explicitly capture the understanding of the team, if it yields results with which the team disagrees, then it is immediately clear where better information or clarification is required. Typical scenarios that can be usefully explored to validate the QFD and the concept evaluations are alternate markets, future markets, and "gut-feel" weightings. Once the QFD and the evaluations have been validated in this fashion, the individual stakeholder-need weightings can be validated by considering them individually and in meaningful groupings as the weights on the rows of the QFD.
Pugh Concept Selection also makes it easy to identify which features of different concepts should be combined to yield higher-value hybrid concepts.

Step 5: Risk-Reduced Development Planning (RRDP)
Once one or more concepts have been selected, the conceptual-design team must create a development plan so that the investment decision, to develop the concept, can be weighed against competing alternative investments (based on metrics such as ROI, NPV, expected value). Technology development and product development both involve considerable risk. Risk is defined as the product of uncertainty of failure and the associated severity of failure. Risk is reduced by either reducing uncertainty, by gathering information or conducting tests or analyses, or by reducing the severity of failure, by increasing the expected value of "fallback" or contingency plans.
It is clear that if risk can be reduced earlier within development, then decisions can be made with greater certainty, and consequently less rework will be necessary. Less rework means shorter time to market and reduced development cost. Risk-Reduced Development Planning is a combination of risk-management best practices [Duncan 96] that a team can use to create a development plan that reduces risk as quickly as possible.
A common problem during the development of product systems arises due to insufficient communication between sub-system organizational groups. When fallback plans are planned without sufficient communication, it is common that some of the sub-system fallback plans have unforeseen complications elsewhere in the system and are thus infeasible. A design team can improve the management of risk by planning system-wide fallback plans explicitly, so that their system-wide viability is assured.
A plan that identifies when risk will be reduced can be used to reduce time-to-market in another way. Passport ("stage-gate" or "tollgate") reviews can be scheduled to occur soon after significant risk reduction steps have occurred, to minimize the delay from the moment that information is gained to the moment that it is used to decide how to proceed. This delay is wasted time and should be minimized.
Risk-Reduced Development Planning consists of:
Uncertainty Assessment:
The primary uncertainty issues are identified and assessed based on their likelihood of failure. For each uncertainty issue, the likelihood of failure is comprised of four probabilities that are based on assessment of technology-readiness gaps that routinely lead product development programs to failure. For each uncertainty issue, these gaps assess its intellectual difficulty, the definition and stability of its requirements, the ability to measure its success, and the availability and capability of resources for it.

Figure 13: Evaluation of a risk portfolio along with the initial risk-reduction plan.
Risk analysis:
As shown in Figure 13, an initial development plan is formulated and the resulting risk portfolio is considered, along with the change in that risk portfolio that would result, if the plan were executed.
Risk involves three additional factors: "time criticality" (when the uncertainty is reduced), dependencies between uncertainties, and severity of adopting fallback plans.
Time criticality is a factor affecting uncertainty. It is the mean time, during the span of the relevant portion of the development program, at which the uncertainty is actually reduced. Clearly, if test results show, during the last day of the program, that the fallback plan must be adopted, then there is no choice -- time and budget are both exhausted. However, if test results yield the same result during the first days of the program, there are many options -- people are creative and there is plenty of time and budget to find viable alternatives. The later uncertainty is reduced, the higher the effective uncertainty and, consequently, the risk of failure. Time criticality is a multiplying factor that rises exponentially in time to penalize the late resolution of uncertainty.
Dependencies between uncertainties can either increase or decrease their effective uncertainty. When some uncertainty issues adopt their fallback plans, others automatically adopt their fallback plans, regardless of how well they were proceeding. For example, if feasibility of design of a new power supply is one uncertainty issue for a system, and feasibility of design of a multiplexing power-distribution system is another, then fallback to the existing power supply would force abandonment of the new power-distribution system, even if it was actually feasible. On the other hand, when some uncertainty issues adopt their fallback plans, other uncertainty issues are much more likely to succeed. For example, feasibility of design of the system's thermal-management may be assured to succeed once fallback to the existing power supply occurs.
For each uncertainty issue, the severity of adopting its fallback plan is the remaining element of risk. Severity indicates the loss of stakeholder value involved in adopting the fallback plan. This is the only element of value that is involved in risk. It can be assessed using either the weighted stakeholder needs or the value-based gauge.
Task segregation and re-sequencing:
The overall development plan is considered, and uncertainty-reducing development tasks are segregated from high-certainty “turn-the-crank” tasks. The entire product-development effort is re-sequenced to first complete the uncertainty-reduction tasks and then, once risk has been substantially reduced, to pursue the high-certainty tasks.
Conclusion
While there are some novel adaptations of best practices in the Collaborative Innovation (CI) process, its novelty is largely its integration and simplification of these best practice methods into a streamlined, repeatable process that can be taught, facilitated and used regularly to drive innovation and stimulate rapid business decision-making.

Creative Imagination
Our creative imaginations distinguish us as people with unique talents. Creativity allows us to connect the apparently unconnected and see uniqueness in events and situations that otherwise appear ordinary.
Mary Lou Cook defined creativity as "inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun." Creative effort uncovers new possibilities and options.
Each person is gifted with creativity; it lives just below the surface of our conscious thoughts. Yet we can nurture this divine gift to blossom and grow.
This is a process you can return to from time to time as new ideas occur. It is a fun and effective way to experiment and generate many ideas more quickly than otherwise. Best of all, awakening your creative imagination will bring authentic joy and fulfillment in the achievement of your goals.
A creative imagination is more than just an active imagination. To actively imagine things, and see and hear things in one's mind, is an important ability, but it doesn't have to involve much creativity, does it? For example, normal daydreaming is a process of imagination, and it can consist of an elaborate fantasy world, but one mostly full of things that many people think about.
More creative imagination, then, must include the ability not just to imagine things, but to imagine original things. This means seeing things that others don't see, and coming up with new ideas.
Imagination- Creative Thinking and Execution
In many ways, creative professionals are a unique category of workers. Although they enjoy rewards and recognition - like money, promotion and awards - their main motivation for working is the intrinsic interest of the work itself.
They often don't see themselves as part of a conventional 'business' culture, and develop idiosyncratic work habits to facilitate their individual creative process. Yet these very idiosyncrasies create the work that is your key competitive advantage as a creative business.
While there are plenty of technical and skills-based training programmes for creative, there are very few programmes designed to develop their core creative talent. Most 'creative thinking' workshops are too simplistic for the needs of professional creative, who need a more sophisticated approach that is flexible enough to facilitate their individual creative process.
What you want to avoid:

Demoralized creative

Because the creative process is mysterious and unpredictable, it presents a challenge to managers with commercial responsibilities. Some respond with inappropriate attempts to control and dictate to creative workers, while others stand back completely and 'let them get on with it'. Neither approach gives the creative proper support and respect for their talents - both are in danger of dampening their natural enthusiasm for their work.
Mediocre work

Motivation and creativity are closely linked. When creative' enthusiasm starts to wane, their creativity dips and the work suffers.’ Trying harder' doesn't solve the problem - perspiration may be 90% of the creative process, but clients and customers can see when the 10% inspiration is missing. And if they can see it, it won't be long before your accountant spots it too.
'Culture clash'

Many problems in creative businesses arise from perceived differences between the 'creative' and the 'suits'. When there is a perceived conflict between creative and commercial interests, the danger is that both sides will defend their positions rather than working out how to work together effectively. This leads to frustration on all sides, and is potentially disastrous for projects. If this process continues unchecked, you risk ending up with creative who spend less of their creative talent on your projects than on daydreaming about moves elsewhere.
What you want to achieve:

Inspired creative

Creative love a challenge. It brings out their natural enthusiasm and passion for their work. Great managers and coaches understand this, and know how to inspire creative people by presenting them with an inspiring goal and allowing them creative space to achieve it. They also know when support and encouragement are needed - and the best way to offer it to each individual. This finely-judged balance between challenge and support is one of the key factors leading to 'creative flow'...
'Creative flow'
When a creative person is working at the peak of his or her abilities, s/he enters a particular state of mind, in which the necessary ideas, words, images or actions seem to occur automatically. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes this as 'creative flow'. Flow is critically important for creativity, since it is both intensely enjoyable (providing motivation to experience it) and is synonymous with outstanding performance. For more background on creativity, flow and states of mind, see my blog posts on Creative Flow and How Coaching Creates Creative Flow, and my article for Creative Review about Hypnosis and Creativity.
Outstanding creative work

When you start with talented people and then provide them with an inspiring challenge and support tailored to their needs, you vastly increase your chances of producing outstanding creative work. Another key element is the ability to facilitate the idiosyncratic thinking and working process of professional creative. The work itself is always down to the creative, but there are many things a skilled manager or coach can do to facilitate individual creativity. If you get this right, your reward will be more than just the work - if a creative finds a manager who really understands and supports his/her talent, s/he has a powerful reason to stay with your company and contribute to your future success.
Integrated creativity

Creative love to see their work accepted and put into production. The chances of this happening are increased when managers, creative and other key players show respect for each others' talents and communicate clearly and openly at all stages of a project. If your managers can get the right balance between artistic freedom and commercial constraints, it leads to a 'win' for everyone involved: creative enjoy the recognition of seeing their work accepted and promoted; managers achieve the satisfaction of delivering on brief, on budget and on time; and you enjoy the rewards of presenting your clients, audience or customers with work that exceeds their expectations.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a psychologist who has devoted his career to researching happiness and fulfillment. His research has shown that although people enjoy indulging in pleasure, such as eating and drinking, sex and shopping, this eventually wears off, leaving us feeling unsatisfied. True happiness comes from learning and developing our skills to overcome meaningful challenges. When we are fully absorbed in doing this, we experience what Csikszentmihalyi calls ‘flow’:
Flow – “An almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness.”
When we are in flow, we are fully absorbed in whatever we are doing and find it easy to achieve peak performance. The experience is accompanied by intense feelings of pleasure and satisfaction.
Flow can occur in many spheres of human activity, physical and mental. Athletes call it being in the ‘the zone’, but we don’t have to run a marathon or win an Olympic medal do experience flow - we have all experienced the enjoyment of becoming absorbed in doing a task well.
Flow is particularly common in artistic and creative spheres, during those times when ideas, images, feelings and/or words seem to flow easily and the work takes on a momentum of its own. Many artists make big sacrifices in other areas of their lives so that they can pursue creative flow. Professional creative have typically had powerful experiences of flow, and can relate to the intense feeling of satisfaction when they enter flow – and equally intense feelings of frustration when they are unable to get into flow in their work.
Csikszentmihalyi identifies the following nine characteristics of flow:
1. There are clear goals every step of the way. Knowing what you are trying to achieve gives your actions a sense of purpose and meaning.
2. There is immediate feedback to your actions. Not only do you know what you are trying to achieve, you are also clear about how well you are doing it. This makes it easier to adjust for optimum performance. It also means that by definition flow only occurs when you are performing well.
3. There is a balance between challenges and skills. If the challenge is too difficult we get frustrated; if it is too easy, we get bored. Flow occurs when we reach an optimum balance between our abilities and the task in hand, keeping us alert, focused and effective.
4. Action and awareness are merged. We have all had experiences of being in one place physically, but with our minds elsewhere – often out of boredom or frustration. In flow, we are completely focused on what we are doing in the moment.
5. Distractions are excluded from consciousness. When we are not distracted by worries or conflicting priorities, we are free to become fully absorbed in the task.
6. There is no worry of failure. A single-minded focus of attention means that we are not simultaneously judging our performance or worrying about things going wrong.
7. Self-consciousness disappears. When we are fully absorbed in the activity itself, we are not concerned with our self-image, or how we look to others. While flow lasts, we can even identify with something outside or larger than our sense of self – such as the painting or writing we are engaged in, or the team we are playing in.
8. The sense of time becomes distorted. Several hours can ‘fly by’ in what feels like a few minutes, or a few moments can seem to last for ages.
9. The activity becomes ‘auto telic’ - meaning it is an end in itself. Whenever most of the elements of flow are occurring, the activity becomes enjoyable and rewarding for its own sake. This is why so many artists and creators report that their greatest satisfaction comes through their work. As Noel Coward put it, “Work is more fun than fun”.

Here is a short review of certain methods, techniques and games which are included into TRIZ courses of (CID). The majority of them were developed and published in Russian about 15-20 years ago. I feel that English speaking audiences and even professionals are not acquainted with these methods (ref.3). In my opinion the first reason is that Invention Machine Corporation specialists brought technological TRIZ to USA and "forgot" to bring the rest. In the late 80’s there were quite a few TRIZ parishioners, in addition to Invention Machine Corporation in the US, but they were all trying to figure out how to appeal to the American corporate customer with short classes.. The second reason is that in Russia more or less acceptable TRIZ courses begin from 140 hours and even there isn't enough time for CID. The fullest course of TRIZ takes more then 400 hours (4 h. two times every week during two years). In USA (like in Israel) as far as I know even 30-40 h. courses are considered as long enough.
I will not concentrate on methods like DTC-operator, System-operator and Small People Method, because these methods are part of "technological" TRIZ and therefore are more or less known to the English speaking audience (Refs. 1,2,4,5).
Register of Fantastic Ideas.
Many researchers asked themselves, "What is the source of human fantasy?" G. Altshuller says that he cannot answer this question, in spite of a lot of definitions of fantasy and creative imagination in literature (ref.7). However, during his work he found out that engineers who regularly read fantastic literature have more flexible imaginations than others who do not read it. The reason is, in Altshuller's opinion, that fantastic literature is a source of the high level ideas, which wake up the human imagination. That's why it is the usual practice in TRIZ courses to give as homework to read and then evaluate fantastic stories. But in order to do this effectively, one has to analyze the fantastic literature as the world patent fund was analyzed. This means to collect fantastic ideas, to classify them by levels, to choose and analyze the high level ideas in order to find principles and regularities and so on. As result of such a hard work was collected the register of fantastic ideas and were developed the following tools:
o Fantasy Scale - for fantastic ideas evaluation,
o The Four Floors' scheme of Fantastic Ideas’ Generation,
o Principles of the Fantastic Ideas Generation,
o Fantogramm
and other not so important but very nice tools, games and techniques were developed and/or improved like:
o The Trend Extrapolation Method
o Snow Ball Method
o The Value's Changing Method
o Silver Clouded Planet Game etc.
At the very beginning engineers considered to this work as to non-serious so the main part was done by high school students. By the way, to invent new fantastic idea or to write fantasy story using The Four Floors' scheme of Fantastic Ideas' Generation, Fantasy principles, Fantogramm or other tools as homework is usual practice on TRIZ courses. When students receive a fantastic story to read they have to evaluate it using the Fantasy Scale. Some low-level-idea stories the student are invited to improve. One of Altshuller's co-authors of this work Pesach Amnuel (Ph.D. in astronomy and fantasy writer) lives in Israel now. He works as a journal editor writes fantasy books and stories. During recent years Pesach Amnuel has been the author of TRIZ page in an Israeli newspaper.
The Fantasy Scale.
Working with the fantasy scale students have to give score from 1 to 4 according to the following points:
1. Newness (novelty ) of the idea;
2. Convincing presentation of the idea;
3. The additional knowledge about human nature and human society ;
4. Literature (arts) value;
5. Personal evaluation (depends on how much a specific student liked or disliked this thing)
To make the evaluation easier every point is divided into sub-points. Multiplying the scores each other one receives the general evaluation score.
The Four Floors' scheme of Fantastic Ideas' Generation.
1 step
On the first floor we have ideas connected with usage of an only one fantastic object in order to gain some fantastic results.
2 step
on the second floor we have ideas connected with usage of many fantastic objects in order to receive another fantastic result (the system effect).
3 step
On the third floor we have fantastic ideas connected with gaining of the fantastic result(s) without object(s) at all
4 step
On the fourth floor we have fantastic ideas connected with no need in previous fantastic result(s)
The fantastic ideas on every "floor" can be of high or low level. The fourth floor isn't better than third or first. It is different and simply internal logic of the fantastic ideas' development is considered. The four floor building can be built for every fantastic topic.
Principles of the Fantastic Ideas Generation and Fantogramm
These principles were developed by G. Altshuller on the basis of analysis of fantasy and fantastic literature. I will give the main principles of object changing:
1. To increase (to make bigger);
2. To decrease (to make smaller);
3. To join;
4. To separate;
5. To decompose;
6. To substitute property by anti-property;
7. To accelerate;
8. To make slower;
9. To move (in time) back or forward;
10. To make a property changeable in time or vice versa to make it constant;
11. To separate function from object;
12. To change connection with environment (including changing of the environment);
But G. Altshuller went farther. He related to every object as to SYSTEM. Thus in order to receive really strong fantastic ideas, analyzing every object we can make changes on the next levels:
1. Chemical consistency;
2. Physical state;
3. The object itself;
4. Elements of micro-structure of the object;
5. Super-system for the object;
6. Direction of the object's development;
7. Re-production, self re-creation, re-generation;
8. Energy feeding;
9. The method of movement;
10. Aim (what this object intended for)the sense of existence;
11. The field of distribution;
12. Control;
If we make a table with principles of object changing as horizontal titles and with levels of object's changing as vertical titles - we create the Fantogramm, one of the best and strong tools for fantastic ideas' generation. each cell of this table is connected with new strong ideas generation and vice versa - nearly every fantastic idea from existing fantastic literature could be placed into the certain cell.

The usual exercise in TRIZ courses is to challenge the student to try to invent any fantastic animal or try to invent a new natural phenomenon like rain, snow and so on, using the Fantogramm .
"The Silver Clouded Planet" Game.
Your space ship comes near an unknown planet. The planet is closed by silver clouds. The automatic stations can go through the clouds but any connection (wire and wireless) is impossible. At the planet are the same conditions, laws and factors like at Earth and there is only one "x-factor" that is changed. Giving to the automatic stations specific programs of research the space ship team has to find this x-factor with minimum attempts. Teacher plays for the planet and students for the space ship team.
During this game student loses station after station trying to find out what is this factor. The x-factor for example can be that speed of light is 1 millimeter in hour on this planet...
When students send next station and it does not return they ask - Why? It is your business to find out why - answers teacher.
But teacher (after student failure have to be ready to play for space ship team when student will play for planet). G. Altshuller was able. For less talented teacher the optimal strategy is to send station step by step. For example:
The program for station to "dive" 5 (1, 2 ,3) meters under clouds, to take probes and to return to the ship, or return after 1 (2,3)second.
Nice exercise for breaking PI and for experiment planning training, Isn't it?
The Snow Ball Method.
This method is aimed for development of any fantastic idea. The fantastic idea always is connected with a system changing. This system is connected with other systems. Thus they also are changed and so on. The feedback also is taken into account and this increase the quantity of changes. This quantity grows up like the snow ball. That's why this methods is called The Snow Ball Methods. By the way, does not this method reminds you of the so-o- technical Extra Effect determination Method? (ref. 6, 8)
The Value's Changing Method.
This method is aimed for new fantastic ideas generation. In order to do this we assume that something which has high value (gold for example) has zero value and vice versa the thing which has nearly zero value has high value (sand, for example). Then the idea is developed with help of the Snow Ball Method.
To the same group belongs also The Nature Law Removal Method. According to this method we "remove" some nature phenomena or objects (Moon, for example). It is interesting to imagine how would be changed our life without Moon. The recent science fiction novel Destiny’s Road by Larry Niven used this idea, exploring the kind of civilization that would develop if potassium (necessary for proper function of the human metabolism) was not available in the soil or water of a planet, and everyone had to trade for it with a group of wanderers.
The Trend Extrapolation Method.
According to this method we are extrapolating (increasing) one or number of trends until this begins to create contradiction with other sides of the human life. Resolving this
Contradiction we receive new high level fantastic idea or group of ideas, which is developed then with help of the Snow Ball Method. Does not this remind you well known step from ARIZ?

Good-Bad Game.
According to this game students try to find in every bad phenomenon good and vice versa.
For example, It is so bad - I got ill and cannot go to the work - It is good that I don't go to the work, because I can be home with my family- It is bad to be home with family,
because they will make me crazy with stories, which they will tell to me- It is good to get crazy, because I can kill this idiot from the flat above and not to get to the prison ....and so on.
Yes-No Game or Conversation with Computer.
The teacher gives some interesting situation and asks students to explain this, by asking minimum questions. The questions have to be asked in form that teacher could answer only "yes", "no" or "no information". The teacher has to be ready to explain situations brought by student in order to show the method of asking the "right" questions. The optimal way is to ask more general questions first, in order to cut of 'empty" fields and concrete questions at the end. This game reminds The Silver Clouded Planet Game. The stories one can find in the newspapers , journals, TV jokes etc.
For example, I get out of room. when I had returned my friend already died. Students have to find out that "friend" is fish. the jar with the fish was broken by window which was open by wind.
The sense of this game is deep, because we in our real engineers life have to plan experiments which cut-of "empty" probes as the answer to our questions to Nature. There is a giant fund of such yes-no problems in Russian.
The Golden Fish Method.
One of the main characteristics of creative thinking is the ability to see unusual inside of usual and vice versa. Every fantasy (or inventive) situation consists of two parts: real things and fantastic "grain". The aim of the "Golden Fish Method" is to extract this fantastic "grain". In order to do this a fantastic situation is divided step by step into two parts - real and fantastic until it could not be divided any more. This indivisible part is called "fantastic grain". G. Saltshaker gives formula of resolving every fantasy situation:
1. F0= R1 + F1; (R - real , F - fantastic)
2. F1 = R2+ F2; and so on until Fi will be so small that we may not to consider it.
Let's see how does this method works on example of "Story about the golden fish".
"The old man had come to the sea and begins to call the golden fish. The fish got to him and ask by human voice..."
Let's analyze this situation:
Could old man to come to the sea? - Yes, he could. So it is real.
The fantastic part of the situation now will look:
"The old men begin to call the golden fish. The fish got to him and ask by human voice..."
Could old man to call the golden fish? - Yes, he could. So it is also real.
"The fish got to him and ask by human voice..."
Could some golden fish (we know that there are such a fishes ) to get close near old man?- Yes, it could. So this bit is also real.
"The fish asks by human voice..."
Could the old man to hear some voice from fish? Yes, he could! We know that some fishes make voices. So it is also real!
"Human ..."
Could this voice be human ? No, this could not. That is it! The fantastic "grain" of the situation is that the voice of fish was human.
But if we will take even this fantastic thing of the golden fish story, we can not to consider it, because it has. Real explanation:
Could seem to old man that which does not hear well because of age, that the golden fish voice is human voice, saying some phrase?
By the way, if the situation was technical we would come to the physical contradiction determining the "fantastic grain" of the situation.
For example, let's take the problem of making pressure by liquid and with help of centrifugal forces on cylinder which is placed on axis of the centrifugal rotation. The "fantastic grain" of the situation is that direction of the centrifugal force is opposite to direction of the needed pressure...
One can easy to formulate the physical contradiction now. We had not made full analysis, but believe me that it is too long way to analyze technological situations, but it is very good exercise for creative imagination development.
The best recommendation for people who want more on this subject is simply to translate the chapter "Colors for Fantasy: An Introduction to The Theory the " written by G. Altshuller into English. The whole book which contains this Altshuller's part is called: "The chance for an adventure" under (Ref.7.) This book contains also very serious chapter - book of U. Salamatov "The system of the technical laws development."
The psychological inertia is based on "hard" connection between concrete object(s) and its image in mind of a specific human. Therefore the presented above methods and games are aimed to destroy this harmful connection. They achieve this by the following ways:
1. By changing the object and/or its functioning (DTC, System Operator, Fantogramm, Little People Method etc.) - object focused;
2. By correcting of the human behavior in the process of the problem solving (Yes-No, Golden Fish Method, Silver Clouded Planet etc.) - solver focused;
The methods and games of the second group (less objective) have clear trend to transfer to the first one (more objective) with increasing of our understanding of the regularities these methods are based on.

Managing Innovative Teams
Leaders and professionals pay attention to problem-solving and innovation. Because problem-solving is the essence of innovation. The world is moving at the speed of change. As such, businesses today face three realities:
“First, all advantage is temporary.
" Second, companies tend to decay over time unless they bring in new people and new ideas.
“Third, companies and markets are convergent - that is, products and services become more and more uniform, and differences between them tend to dissipate.
In order to deal with these problems, companies absolutely must innovate. Innovation means problem-solving. And, chances are, your business faces multiple problems when it comes to dealing with issues of innovation and change.
So, what can leaders and professionals do to face these issues:
Here are 6 things you can do to get better results from your problem-solving teams that lead to innovation.
1. Know your problem-solving style and appreciate the value of diversity of styles
2. Know and share your strategies
3. Empower people
4. Train people on creativity techniques
5. Help people understand how change happens
6. Create a database of problem-solving styles
Let's look at each of these in turn:
1. Help team members better understand their and their teammate's strategy for innovative problem-solving.
We believe one of the main things is to better understand how people think about problem-solving. All people have a particular style of thinking. What psychologists call cognitive style. We like to just call it thinking style. People have a certain preference for style of problem-solving and we believe it's better to help people understand and appreciate the diversity of styles. There is a definite advantage to having people with diverse thinking styles on problem-solving teams. Managing diversity is the foundation for managing innovative problem-solving.
2. Know and share your strategies.
Help people understand what your long-range goals and strategies are. Whether your company has an innovation strategy, a competitive strategy, or a quality strategy, they need to know what it is. Help them get a good understanding of what innovation and innovative problem-solving means for you and your company and how it relates to your overall business goals and strategies.
3. Empower people.
Train people on your problem solving process. Make sure you have a good process. If you don't have one, borrow one or develop one. Test to see that people have the time to work on problem-solving teams and work on innovative projects.
4. Train people on creativity techniques
All people are creative. Just follow them around and see what they do in their spare time or in their hobbies. But they can better exercise that creative ability when you create an environment where they can be creative and are given them the tools and training in good creativity techniques.
5. Help people understand and be able to deal with change resulting from solving the problem.
Innovation and problem-solving create change. But change has two faces: first of all, change itself is an event, a situation. But it's organizational. The other side of change is human - it's what some call Transition. Transition is the adjustment that people have to make in themselves in response to the situation that is changing.
6. And last, but most importantly, create a database of problem-solving styles.
This will make it easier to bring the right people together with the right talents to solve the right problems. There are many organizations who have applied these concepts. For example, DuPont, Procter & Gamble, the United States Army War College, and the Air Force Technical Applications Center have all used these methods to improve problem-solving and, thus, improve their overall effectiveness.
Here's a summary of what you'll get out of this: enhanced quality improvement efforts, teams will become more innovative problem solvers, more diversity of thought within teams, more and better generation of ideas, and greater cooperation among team members. They will also be more effective in dealing with change, and you'll get a greater return on people capital.

Needs of Creative Team
The thinking business is an international consultancy and training company specializing in creative and innovative thinking. A global Centre of Excellence for Creativity and Innovation, we are dedicated to delivering best practice and expert thinking in this field.
At the heart of everything we do is our 'thinking business' model which focuses on the four core areas of a creative and innovative company - it's people, the culture, the process and their ideas. Within each area of the model we have developed several initiatives which we deliver via our world-class consulting, training and facilitation programmes.

In essence, we help our clients to become 'thinking businesses' by developing the creative potential of their people, helping them to build a culture which inspires original thought, creating new ideas and innovations and establishing a process which turns their ideas into reality.


Creative People:
We provide a range of training programmes and a thinking styles profiling tool (HBDI) which are designed to unlock the creative potential of the individuals and teams within your business.
We can deliver any of the Creative People initiatives as independent programmes if you have a specific need in one or more of the areas. Or you can engage us to deliver the full 'Thinking Business' programme which will include the initiatives we recommend as a result of the Audit.

Every organization is a 'whole brain' in that all four thinking, learning and communication styles are represented and active within the business. Peak performing teams know how to harness and develop these mental preferences in order to optimize the thinking and communication both internally and externally. Specifically, the HBDI™ helps businesses and teams to:

 Build teams that think and work well together

 Effectively manage and embrace diversity

 Create a common language for understanding each other

 Harness and develop leadership skills

 Establish empathy amongst the team by understanding each other better

 Identify strengths and weaknesses in communication, decision making and problem solving

CREATIVE CULTURE
The Creative Culture element of the 'Thinking Business' model focuses on developing a culture which inspires and empowers original thinking throughout the business. Initiatives in the programme include:
Strategy
We can help you to develop a strategy for creativity and innovation.
Structure
We can help you to assemble creative groups, innovation teams and problem solving teams. We use the Herrmann Brain Dominance Profile (HBDI) to analyze individual thinking styles in order to identify the best group dynamics.
Style
We can help you to build a cultural style which reflects the right attitudes, values and mind-sets required to establish original thinking as an everyday behavior throughout the business rather than a sporadic activity.
Synergy
We can help you to define and establish team working practices to harness the power of creative collaboration.
We can deliver any of the Creative Culture initiatives as independent programmes if you have a specific need in one or more of the areas. Or you can engage us to deliver the full 'Thinking Business' programme which will include the cultural initiatives we recommend as a result of the Audit.


CREATIVE PROCESS
The Creative Process element of the 'Thinking Business' model focuses on establishing systems and processes which enable creativity throughout the business.
The initiatives in this area are designed to facilitate the contribution of ideas, the evaluation and selection of ideas and for the best ideas to move through the innovation process from conception to implementation.
We can deliver any of the Creative Culture initiatives as independent programmes if you have a specific need in one or more of the areas. Or you can engage us to deliver the full 'Thinking Business' programme which will include the cultural initiatives we recommend as a result of the Audit.
CREATIVE IDEAS
We use our pioneering thinking skills to invent creative ideas and find original solutions for our clients.
Our Creative Ideas programme focuses on two core areas:
Innovation - We invent new and creative ideas for products and services.
Problem solving - We help clients solve business problems by creating new solutions.
We can deliver any of the Creative Ideas initiatives as independent programmes if you have a specific need in one or more of the areas. Or you can engage us to deliver the full 'Thinking Business' programme which will include the initiatives we recommend as a result of the Audit.

A Software Development Example
Kano’s model of customer satisfaction – Agile software Development.

The Kano model is a theory of product development and customer satisfaction developed in the 80's by Professor Noriaki Kano which classifies customer preferences into five categories:
• Attractive
• One-Dimensional
• Must-Be
• Indifferent
• Reverse
These categories have been translated into English using various different names (delighters/exciters, satisfiers, dissatisfiers, etc.), but all refer to the original articles written by Kano.
The Kano model offers some insight into the product attributes which are perceived to be important to customers. The purpose of the tool is to support product specification and discussion through better development team understanding. Kano's model focuses on differentiating product features, as opposed to focusing initially on customer needs. Kano also produced a methodology for mapping consumer responses to questionnaires onto his model.



Quality Function Deployment (QFD) makes use of the Kano model in terms of the structuring of the Comprehensive QFD matrices. Mixing Kano types in QFD matrices can lead to distortions in the customer weighting of product characteristics. For instance, mixing must-Be product characteristics --such as cost, reliability, workmanship, safety, and technologies used in the product--in the initial House of Quality will usually result in completely filled rows and columns with high correlation values. Other Comprehensive QFD techniques using additional matrices are used to avoid such issues. Kano's model provides the insights into the dynamics of customer preferences to understand these methodology dynamics.
Software product management

Software product management is the process of managing software that is built and served as a product as opposed to a service
Software products

A software product is typically a single application or suite of applications built by a software company to be used by *many* customers, businesses or consumers. The mass-market notion differs from custom software built for the use of a single customer by consulting firms like IBM Global Services or Accenture.
Examples of business software products include the Oracle 10g database by Oracle Corporation, SAP R/3 ERP software by SAP AG, QuickBooks by Intuit, etc.
Examples of consumer software products include Microsoft Office by Microsoft, TurboTax by Intuit. Since the late 1990s, many software products have been offered as a service, so that the customers - businesses or end consumers - run the same application without installing the software on their computers. Examples include Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software by Salesforce.com, consumer shopping comparison software by Shopping.com, various web search tools offered by Google, Yahoo!, and the auction marketplace by eBay. Even though these applications are not packaged in media that can be touched and felt, they are software products nonetheless, and require the same product management rigor as packaged software do. In fact, they do require more rigor since the product manager's planning must now include operational concerns such as service availability.
The need for software product management
To develop, sell and support a successful software product a business needs to understand its market, identify the opportunity, develop and market an appropriate piece of software. Hence the need for product management as a core business function in software companies.
Hardware companies also have a need for software product management, since frequently operating system software needs to be installed on computer hardware before the hardware can be functional, and operating system software can be sold as a product separately. For example, Sun Microsystems is a hardware company, and is in the business of manufacturing and distributing Sun workstations (hardware) and the Solaris Operating System (software). Building and delivering Solaris as a product in the marketplace requires software product management.
Management of aspects of software development
Software product management deals with the following aspects of software development within a software and/or hardware firm:
• Idea generation on whiteboards for a new software product, or for the next version of an existing product.
• Gathering of business and/or market requirements from prospects, customers of earlier versions of the product, domain experts, technology visionaries, market experts, products / solutions from competing vendors, etc.
• Crafting of Marketing Requirements Documents, or MRDs, which synthesize the requirements / needs of various stakeholders as outlined above.
• Using the MRD as a basis, come up with a product requirements document or PRD, as an input to the engineering team to build out the product. A PRD is also known as a functional specification. Frequently, a PRD can be a collection of UML Use Cases, UML Activity Diagrams, HTML mockups, etc. It can have other details such as the software development environment, and the software deployment environment. For example, where as the development environment can be J2EE / Java IDEs, the deployment environment can be the WWW (worldwide web) or the Internet.
• Deliver the PRD to the software engineering team, and manage conflicts between the business units, the sales teams, and the engineering teams, as it applies to the software products to be built out.
• Once the software development gets into build / release cycle, conducts acceptance tests, if required by the firm / software manufacturer.
• Deal with the packaging of the product. This can vary from demonstrating the product to customers using web-based conferencing tools, to building a flash/captivate demo and deploying it on the company website, to other placement and promotion tactics. Frequently, in Silicon Valley, these two aspects of marketing, and sometimes also pricing, are dealt with by Product Marketing Managers, as opposed to Product Managers.
• Once the product is deployed at a customer site, solicit customer feedback, report software bugs, and pass these on back to engineering for subsequent build / release cycles, as the product stabilizes, and then matures.
• Perform competitive analysis as to how this product is behaving in the market, vis-à-vis other products catering to the same / similar customer segments. In the software space, this might require the product manager to take the opinion of analysts, who can come from name brand market research firms like IDC, Forrester Research, and Gartner Group.
• Solicit more features and benefits from the users of the software product, users of competitive products, and from analysts and craft / synthesize these requirements for subsequent product build / release cycles, and pass them on to the software engineering team.
The above tasks are not sequential, but can co-exist. For a product manager to be efficient in the above tasks, he has to have both engineering and marketing skills. Hence, frequently, Silicon Valley firms prefer engineers who are also to do software product management.





























Managers Responsibility


Managers - Roles and Responsibilities.

Managers are responsible to supervise and take charge of the activities and productivity of their workers. They play an important role in managing the performance of their staff.
They are also involved in employee selection, career development, succession planning and working out compensation and rewards. They are responsible for the growth and increase in the organizations' finances and earnings.

What are your roles and responsibilities?
Decision making.
A manager makes organizational decisions and handles a variety of problems that arise on a daily basis. You have to identify the problems, create choices and alternative courses of actions.
The daily routine of making decisions include determining how to approach an employee who is not performing or lacking progress and how to bring about change to the organization and its team.
It involves thinking and planning out strategies on how to improve quality and also being cost conscious and effective.

Goal setting, planning and organizing.
In order for you to achieve long term goals and commit to strategies for substantial earnings, you have to communicate the vision of the company to your subordinates. You break down and clarify the goals that each team or individual have to perform and assign work schedules and strategies.
Having goals and planning out the directions allow for effective time management and saves cost and resources.
Guiding and giving directions.
Your role as the head of an organization is to guide and give direction so that the team can perform effectively. You offer on the job coaching, training and support. In order for individuals to meet the needs and objectives, they may need extra input, information or skills.
Empowering others.
The performance of your team depends on your abilities to empower them. How well a person performs depends on his motivation. Your task is to encourage and coach others to improve themselves and the quality of their work. You need to instill in them the desire to excel and accept responsibility and self-management.
Communication and people skills.
As the boss, your ability to develop trust and confidence, resolve problems and issues will result in a productive, goal oriented work group. You should encourage your team to ask for help, get involved and participate.
Practice empathy and respect their personal values, opinions and ideas. Listen and respond and offer praises and encouragements when they make progress. By doing that you will enhance their self-esteem and they will offer you the cooperation.
A manager is the middle person in between the top management level and the team that reports to him. He has to ensure that communication is smooth and conveyed clearly to avoid misinterpretations and dissatisfaction.
Evaluating and analyzing.
You need to have the capacity to evaluate and examine a process or procedure and decide on the best choice to produce an outcome. You look at the importance, quality and values and then taking the best approach.
You are also expected to track the progress of each individual's activities and effectiveness, review them and offer feedback and counseling.





Provide satisfaction among the staff and the customers.
Your subordinates are happy when they know that their supervisors provide them with the necessary tools and resource. They feel secure if the management puts priority on health, safety and cleanliness issues.
You satisfy customers by giving good quality of service or product and take care of their needs.
Being an exemplary role model.
Managers who set high standards or goals and achieve them are great leaders by examples. The ability to tolerate stress and remain poise under job pressures and still maintain a high activity and energy level are contagious.
You should set the example by being accountable for your own activities and performance. Work harder on your personal growth and you will become a respected and efficient leader.



























Seven Personal Qualities Found in a Good
Team’s personal Need

Whether in fact a person is born a leader or develops skills and abilities to become a leader is open for debate. There are some clear characteristics that are found in good leaders. These qualities can be developed or may be naturally part of their personality. Let us explore them further.
SEVEN PERSONAL QUALITIES FOUND IN A GOOD Team
1. A good leader has an exemplary character.
It is of utmost importance that a leader is trustworthy to lead others. A leader needs to be trusted and be known to live their life with honestly and integrity. A good leader “walks the talk” and in doing so earns the right to have responsibility for others. True authority is born from respect for the good character and trustworthiness of the person who leads.
2. A good leader is enthusiastic about their work or cause and also about their role as leader.
People will respond more openly to a person of passion and dedication. Leaders need to be able to be a source of inspiration, and be a motivator towards the required action or cause. Although the responsibilities and roles of a leader may be different, the leader needs to be seen to be part of the team working towards the goal. This kind of leader will not be afraid to roll up their sleeves and get dirty.
3. A good leader is confident.
In order to lead and set direction a leader needs to appear confident as a person and in the leadership role. Such a person inspires confidence in others and draws out the trust and best efforts of the team to complete the task well. A leader who conveys confidence towards the proposed objective inspires the best effort from team members.
4. A leader also needs to function in an orderly and purposeful manner in situations of uncertainty.
People look to the leader during times of uncertainty and unfamiliarity and find reassurance and security when the leader portrays confidence and a positive demeanor.

5. Good leaders are tolerant of ambiguity and remain calm, composed and steadfast to the main purpose.
Storms, emotions, and crises come and go and a good leader takes these as part of the journey and keeps a cool head.
6. A good leader, as well as keeping the main goal in focus, is able to think analytically.
Not only does a good leader view a situation as a whole, but is able to break it down into sub parts for closer inspection. While keeping the goal in view, a good leader can break it down into manageable steps and make progress towards it.
7. A good leader is committed to excellence.
Second best does not lead to success. The good leader not only maintains high standards, but also is proactive in raising the bar in order to achieve excellence in all areas.
These seven personal characteristics are foundational to good leadership. Some characteristics may be more naturally present in the personality of a leader. However, each of these characteristics can also be developed and strengthened. A good leader whether they naturally possess these qualities or not, will be diligent to consistently develop and strengthen them in their leadership role.