Is Innovation standard?
Dr. Lysander Weiss
Adjunct Professor • Management Advisor • Senior Research Fellow • Serial Book Author • Speaker
#futureproof - the newsletter around future readiness for companies! Here, Dr. Lysander Weiss regularly writes on current topics relating to strategic renewal, innovation and transformation of established companies on their way into the future. As an adjunct professor, senior research fellow and management advisor, the bestselling author bridges the gap between theory and practice with fresh impulses to "rethink companies for the world of tomorrow, today“.
Already innovating today?
Welcome to fall - a very busy time not only for me, but also for many companies after the summer, when there is often hardly any time left for one thing: Innovation.
Of course, the future development of the company and future offerings should not be a topic that is only tackled when there is some time and money left over. It is better to carry out strategic innovation on a regular, repeatable, systematic and planned basis. You could also say: standardized. If, in today's turbulent times, innovation becomes a “must have” instead of a “nice to have”, then it must be possible to work on it in a targeted manner instead of leaving ideas to chance. In that situation, it is no longer enough to hope that someone will have a flash of inspiration in the shower or that some employee will coincidentally find the new billion-dollar idea for their own company at the next conference. In other words, it is not enough to rely on chance encounters and innovation heroes.
From innovation hero to innovation system
We all know innovation heroes - they are the "employees of the month" who are recognized because, against all odds, they have achieved something that was not planned in the organization: an innovation. They saw a problem or an opportunity, developed and tested a new solution, spent time and found budget, connected with other people in the company, got various departments on board and finally implemented the innovative solution. Eventually, they then receive their innovation award, an Amazon voucher and afterwards everyone carries on as before.
While such initiatives are laudable on an individual level, they are unfortunately the sign of a dysfunctional organization on a general level, as Stanford lecturer and innovation guru Steve Blank describes in a nice blog article. Because if "heroes" are needed for innovation, innovation seems to happen as an exception rather than by design. In this case, organizations should ask themselves the following questions instead of presenting award after award without changing anything:
The answers then quickly lead to the diagnosis: Established companies are created for the efficient, optimized conservation and exploitation of existing competitive advantages, and cannot execute new solutions because processes, resources and structures for innovation are lacking (see Figure 1).
According to Steve Blank, such a strategic approach requires an "innovation doctrine" in the form of an overarching strategy and "playbook" for the entire organization. This includes the innovation pipeline, processes, leadership, etc. that are needed to bring new solutions and capabilities into the organization quickly. In other words, a strategic innovation management system is needed. By definition, this consists of interconnected and interacting building blocks, which together should create strategically defined value by enabling systematic and iterative innovation processes.
Standardizing Innovation?
Of course, designing, developing and introducing such a strategic innovation management system is no walk in the park. Fortunately, some smart people have come up with the idea that this undertaking can be simplified considerably by not requiring all organizations to reinvent the wheel over and over again. Instead, the most important building blocks can be defined equally for all organizations and then individually adapted to your own company and specifically implemented.
These smart people sit in the standardization institutions such as the ISO - International Organization for Standardization or the DIN Deutsches Institut für Normung e. V. as a local counterpart. Yes, exactly, the same people who “invented” the rectangular paper. These are perhaps not the people you would use as a telephone joker when it comes to innovation. But what they are good at is bringing together hundreds of people from all corners of the world and working on a common standard. And that's exactly what they did for innovation management systems and, after many years (!) of work, published "ISO 56001" as an international standard for innovation management.
ISO 56001 provides requirements and guidance for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and improving an innovation management system. This standard aims to enhance an organization's ability to innovate consistently and successfully. It applies to all types of organizations regardless of type, size, or the products and services they provide, offering a systematic approach to fostering and managing innovation.
Put simply, this standard describes the necessary system to ensure that innovation is not left to chance and becomes the rule rather than the exception, thus helping to ensure that good ideas are not only found but also realized without the need for extra innovation heroes. Such a standardized system enables, among other things,
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To this end, the standard basically describes all the important building blocks of an innovation management system (see Figure 2).
If you want to understand these building blocks in detail, you are welcome to deep dive into the 70 pages of the standard, but here is at least a brief overview for an easier entry point:
Innovation standard - an oxymoron?
Even those who have read this far may still be sceptical: aren't innovation and standardization contradictory? Isn't innovation precisely about doing things differently instead of "the same old way"? Thinking out of the box and being creative? Having freedom instead of fixed processes? These doubts are entirely justified, because innovation naturally always needs creative elements. But this is only one aspect, or to put it in the words of Tomas Edison:
Innovation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
And a good innovation management system must systematize the 99% "work" without stifling the 1% inspiration. This is why the ISO 56001 standard only specifies the necessary building blocks and describes them in general terms, but leaves it up to each organization to decide how exactly they are implemented. However, it still provides the basis for moving from a random to a structured approach to innovation - in which also creative and random ideas can be better absorbed, processed and implemented, and complemented with more planned idea development.
In practice, it is therefore advisable to use this standard as a guideline to check which building blocks are perhaps not yet so well developed in your own organization and to further develop your own innovation management system. In a previous article, we have described exactly how it can be designed in practice.
Even if it is worthwhile, the effort involved is naturally greater than with the isolated use of individual innovation practices. This is why the "Minimum Viable Innovation" proposed by innovation expert Scott D. Anthony is a good start, in which the most important components of an innovation management system are run through "on the job" within 90 days. Important aspects that we always use in practice are thus quickly set in motion, such as determining the "growth gap" to be filled by innovation, focusing on specific strategic focus areas, the targeted development and selection of strategic opportunities, streamlining the innovation portfolio and setting up a dedicated innovation team with a systematic approach (see Figure 7).
Systematic success
In today's fast-paced and ever-changing business world, the ability to innovate is critical to the survival and growth of organizations. ISO 56001 provides the basis for systematic innovation management that can handle uncertainty and increase the likelihood of achieving strategic impact with new products, services, processes and models. The resulting increase in companies' ability to innovate is a decisive factor for their (survival) viability, competitiveness, resilience and renewal, as well as for the sustainable development of society as a whole. And that is why it is perhaps worth overcoming your own scepticism and creating a "gold standard" for innovation in your own organization. All innovation heroes will thank you for it!
Disclaimer: The author is expert in the DIN working group and German delegate to the ISO working group for ISO56001 / innovation management systems. All views are his own.
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What an interesting topic, Dr. Lysander Weiß!
Great insights, Dr. Lysander Weiss! 🚀