Even within a firm, innovation is difficult to pull off. Ask any innovator about the hurdles they’ve had to clear, the disappointments and the outright failures. Working outside the firm just multiplies the issues because culture, law, goals, perspectives, values and even the meaning of word may not be aligned. Nevertheless, IBM’s First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) had pulled innovation off repeatedly over 14 years, and all of projects have been open in that a client has been a partner. What are the critical success factors? The lessons learned? The book is full of examples, but here are six insights that are vital:
Make sure all parties have skin in the game - Early FOAK projects that had no costs to clients went nowhere. People really do perceive something that is free as something that is worthless.
- Set expectations early and clearly - FOAK saw this in two ways. Innovation means magic to some people and is sure to disappoint. And in the normal course of things, IBM is pretty much bulletproof, which is impossible to guarantee in an innovation experience.
- Engage commercialization owners early and keep them engaged - This is probably the most important finding from FOAK. Prototypes don’t become part of project plans unless they are aligned from their inception and unless those commercializing are regularly kept informed and involved.
- Balance process with creativity - With FOAK, the emphasis is on a light but fairly inflexible process. Innovators don’t like limits, but the deadlines and commitments can’t be changed.
- Manage exceptions to maintain program integrity - Every project team thinks it has special circumstances that require bending the rules, but most don’t. While growth and change comes from exceptions, these are all high risk for the program.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate - This may seem obvious. But, even among those who accede to the value of communication, two problems crop up. First, there is a tendency to get focussed on people you are working with directly and neglect other (vital) stakeholders, so communication activities need to be tracked. Second, people forget that communication isn’t just talking, it’s listening.
Certainly IBM has a history of creating large, innovative programs, such as the manufacturing of Cell processors for video games (STI alliance with Toshiba and Sony). These are strategic plays that involve big investments by the partners and lots of work by lawyers. Such joint programs can be compared to corporate mergers, and their lessons are hard to apply to any attempts at repeatable innovation initiatives.
Another program, Innovation Discovery, is more modest in scale but ambitious in terms of collaboration. The premise for this program is that the creativity, insights and capabilities of IBM’s clients are essential for important next generation products, services and business models. While IBM has walked into Innovation Discovery workshops with plenty of ideas, facts and expertise, they are all predicated on the concept that these are incomplete. The projects that may come out of the workshop are not known in advance.
The spirit of Innovation Discovery is partnership where no one has, at least in the beginning, a senior role. The right partner, therefore, is essential. Here are some of the prerequisites:
- Commonality - If the values, goals and vision of the partners are too different, it will be difficult for them to move forward together.
- Complementary capability - Each partner must bring something essential that will be used in the innovation project. They need to be the only reasonable source of this capability so that there is mutual dependency.
- Trust - Are both partners invested in the success of each other? Can they deliver on their promises? When things get rough, will they? The relationship is sure to be challenged by the circumstances of innovation, so doubts about the partner can lead to disaster.
- Change management - Sometimes the closest relationships include not just the comforts of a tried and true marriage, but the drawbacks. Something new is about to happen. If the ingrained patterns of who does what and who owes what to whom are too strong, that can limit the extent of the innovation.
FOAK and Innovation Discovery are not the whole story. IBM and others are involved in a variety of collaborative ventures. Collaboratories, which seem to be a cross between FOAK and joint programs, are helping IBM establish closer connections with technical communities and governments in countries such as Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Ireland and Taiwan. One thing that successful collaborators in the innovation space have learned is that the goals -- which can extend beyond successful innovations -- must be clear to all parties.
Still, I think that the future for collaborative innovation will reach beyond new mixes of the forms we have today and of the admixtures of goals beyond innovation. I see fragmentation and deepening as possible and desirable. This is because the workforce has become more mobile and more virtual, and this is especially true of the best of the best talent upon which innovation depends. Let’s call the next step Promiscuous Innovation.
While matching the right talents to the right opportunities may sound like a good idea (and follows a model that has worked in Hollywood), there are a number of practical limitations that must be overcome.
- Richness of interactions - With many talented people working remotely from each other, it might be difficult or even impossible for key people to develop trust, initiative and impromptu creative exchanges that lead to the best insights.
- Authenticity - Knowing at every turn that the person you are dealing with is who they say they are and has the claimed qualifications is difficult when there are no organizations (with reputations at stake) standing behind them. This is especially true for people who exist mainly as an email address.
- Fairness - How credit, cash and other benefits are shared among members of a group of talented people is a problem even within traditional structures, and those with more tenuous ties may have more concerns. In addition, there is a real risk that some talented people will become increasingly closed over time and may have no reason to be inclusive. “Good old boy” networks may become a real problem.
I’m particularly concerned about the risks around trust and misunderstandings. As participation becomes broader and as the projects become bigger and of greater consequence, the whole approach could breakdown and lose credibility. The same kind of human drives that introduced malware, viruses and firewall penetrations into the world of the Internet are likely to keep Promiscuous Innovation from fulfilling all its potential.
On the other hand, we already have open software as an example of community-driven innovation. This is a hopeful sign that, within limits, the promise of bringing the best talent together to take on significant challenges and opportunities might just happen.
Peter Andrews
(I do not work for IBM and my views do not reflect IBM's views.)
