Technology and Organizations

What critical innovation activities must be supported by an innovation infrastructure? Short answer is that innovation infrastructure must keep the project’s top goals… top of mind, through…. TOP Management. Whether you’re working with a group of enthusiasts or a formal network of company partners, keeping the team moving in the same direction is key. (I’ll take on the longer answer in Part 2.)

Wednesday I have the privilege of speaking at a workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The workshop’s goal is to develop projects related to reducing time and cost overruns in large innovation systems (space, aviation, etc.). The audience includes engineers, systems designers, and academics from across engineering, economics, and organization science. My 15 minutes of fame will be focused on the role of innovation infrastructure — built with technology support and organizational practice — to help make large efforts feel small. This post is my trial run.

I went into the project thinking about how, whether, the needs of community-based innovations were different than those of large formal projects. My conclusion is that even though the community/enthusiast-based projects may be smaller in terms of investment, they are likely to be larger in terms of perspective. This breadth is both a benefit and a burden.

Breadth is a benefit in that innovation needs breadth to help us find new ways to put together solutions. Breadth is a burden in that our focus must be narrow to succeed. Informal communities of enthusiasts are likely to have more varied goals and less oversight to keep them on a particular path.

NASA’s Mark Moore helped me understand the innovation importance of focus on top goals. I had contacted Mark (thanks Bob!) as he was the lead on NASA’s Puffin single-person vertical take-off and landing project. The Puffin project is a great innovation example as it moved quickly and so far is tracking on its design goals. Contrast this with the many delays we see in larger space and aviation projects.

Mark’s says it is critical to keep the top goals on the table throughout the project. The tension here is that an innovation project is likely to be made up of experts from a variety of different areas. (Recall that breadth is good for innovation… but also recall that breadth means people may bring differing goals to the project.) Each area of engineering wants to do its best, though what the project may need is trade-offs across the best possible outcomes. Mark’s phrase: “Every optimal aircraft is filled with non-optimal tradeoffs.”

Both formal and informal innovation projects need to focus on their top goals:

..don’t confuse collaborative innovation with a headless organization. Leadership still plays a critical role in mobilizing and aligning any organization. But the role of the leader is not to create the innovation but to create the environment in which it will thrive (p. 17, The Innovation Zone).

People need to understand the ultimate design goals and how the innovation as a whole must support those goals.

How can TOP Management support our ability to keep top goals, top of mind? TOP Management is the intertwining of technology, organizational practice, and people. In the Puffin case there was an understanding of the human desire to optimize around one’s area of expertise -- and how to manage that tendency via particular practices and simple technologies:

We did not use any advanced collaboration tools, but simply email and WebEx conferencing. The key to our successful collaboration was to keep a small core team that had very clear objectives, with the detailed discipline efforts tied together by a top-down systems analysis understanding of the design problem.

Technology played a supporting role, using tech to support the focus on the top goal. Email served to document decisions and keep track of the trade-offs. (Value of documentation, even in face-to-face meetings.)

While the O and the P of TOP management were highlights of Puffin’s success, I expect that technology could play a stronger role, especially in larger projects. Project communications and workspaces can be designed to highlight the top goals both formally and informally (for no clear reason I keep thinking of Google’s changing logos). Technology could also support the organizational practice of evaluating trade-offs vis a vis the top goals. As ideas role in, the “crowd” can give electronic thumbs up or down similar to the voting possible in some innovation platforms (e.g., Spigit), “liking” on Facebook, or Digg. Puffin was a small project and so I doubt if hardwiring practice would have added much, but for larger projects hardwiring the systems focus on the top goals may be necessary to keep goals from diffusing as you move away from top leadership.

Key to innovation infrastructure is the development, focus, and support of overarching system goals.

“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth” (John F. Kennedy). This was a clear goal statement and ran counter to what many of his advisers thought was prudent (audio track from a meeting where the issues are debated). Many of the advisers wanted to take a building block approach. They wanted to know more about things like the the surface of the moon (would the lander sink) and the implications of weightlessness. Kennedy, however, had a better understanding of political and human needs. You need a clear goal and a clear metric of success. We went to the moon, on time.

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What’s the best support system for open, collaborative innovation? There are sites to help you find collaborators (e.g., Build It with Me) and there are sites focused on collaboration around specific areas of interest (e.g., DIY Drones, Local Motors, & AeroInnovate). Should you add collaboration to community of interest pages or should projects build their own collaboration spaces (perhaps with Google Sites, Huddle, or within the enterprise, Brainstorm)? These are the questions my Managing Technology & Innovation students will be addressing in their Spring term (focusing on Electric Aircraft collaborations). But first, I’m going to spend some posts following my own advice: doing an audit.

First audit question: Who are the participants? Ans: Companies, individuals, and teams.

Henry Chesbrough, David Teece, Eric von Hippel and others have drilled holes in the traditional innovation funnel. “With knowledge now widely distributed, companies cannot rely entirely on their own research, but should acquire inventions or intellectual property from other companies when it advances the business model.” Instead of companies having closed R&D processes where ideas are generated and developed within the walls of the company, we now see ideas coming from non-research focused employees, customers & users; collaborations across past competitors; alliances; and acquisitions as being the dynamics of R&D.

At the same time, individuals and teams are seeing the value of small batch entrepreneurship, hackerspaces, and the Do It Ourselves (DIO) economy. Wired Magazine’s Chris Anderson presents this shift as “The Next Industrial Revolution:”

The tools of factory production, from electronics assembly to 3-D printing, are now available to individuals, in batches as small as a single unit. Anybody with an idea and a little expertise can set assembly lines in China into motion with nothing more than some keystrokes on their laptop. A few days later, a prototype will be at their door, and once it all checks out, they can push a few more buttons and be in full production, making hundreds, thousands, or more. They can become a virtual micro-factory, able to design and sell goods without any infrastructure or even inventory; products can be assembled and drop-shipped by contractors who serve hundreds of such customers simultaneously.

In the case of electric aircraft the list of participants is long, and diverse: Enthusiast organizations, foundations, and government agencies (e.g., EAA, NASA, CAFE Foundation, FAA); companies like Boeing and Yuneec; and component firms and inventors (see the preliminary program for Cafe Foundation’s 2010 symposium for a flavor).

Next up: What activities does an open innovation infrastructure need to support? Hint: I’ll be building from Gibson & Gibb’s discussion around innovation teams. Thanks in advance for comments that suggest sources outlining the activities that companies, individuals, and teams need to be supported by an innovation infrastructure and/or tools that support these activities. Personal favorites or ones to avoid especially appreciated. For some background, check out Open Innovators and their list of platforms.

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Recently I had lunch with Godfrey Mungal, Dean of Santa Clara University’s Engineering School. We were talking about the benefits of MBA students and engineering students working together on innovation projects. Eventually the conversation turned to aviation and my thoughts about how our students could play a supporting role for the Experimental Aircraft Association and the nascent electric aircraft industry. Much to my surprise, Godfrey took me for a walk — to show that Santa Clara University already had a rich history of aviation innovation.

John Joseph Montgomery was a pioneer in the design and development of control systems for heavier-than-air flight. Many of these flights took place on the campus of Santa Clara University and I’ve been walking by the commemorative obelisque for almost ten years…

While thoughtful innovators understand that success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration — we cannot deny that inspiration is a motivator. Joining with other enthusiasts or just seeing a personal connection to a historic innovation makes success seem more of a possibility, and thus we can maintain or increase our own motivation. Take a walk and see what connections to innovation are just around the corner.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers is building an endowment for the John Joseph Montgomery Gold Medal for Distinguished Innovation in Aeronautics. To learn more: pdf.

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The energy around innovation activities is keeping me sane as we get to the shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere. Web 2.0 infrastructures and Enterprise 2.0 ideals are energizing innovation in a way not possible with just a few people in a garage. Recruiting, Knowledge, Evaluation, Tools, and Market seem to be five foundational ways Web 2.0 supports innovation.

Last week I ran across BuildItWith.Me:

Build It With Me is a tool that connects design & development entrepreneurs. It exists to make creating apps easier by connecting you with like-minded designers & developers with the same goal: create cool & useful apps. Getting funding for your app idea is hard and often unrealistic. Most of the time you may just need to connect with a partner who has a skill set you lack to finish off your app. This is where Build It With Me is comes in, connecting you to those people. Skip the funding. Build It With Me will help you bootstrap your ideas into actual apps.

Recruiting

Build It With Me supports innovation through both knowledge and labor. You may be able to find someone with a skill you don’t have, but need, for your innovation — or you may be able to find someone to just share the workload. Key is that you find them by skill/interest rather than location or ad hoc connections.

Knowledge

But not everyone who helps your with your innovation has to be a member of the team.

Communities of practice have always shared knowledge amongst their members. Knowledge sharing is one of their hallmarks. Web 2.0 versions of Communities of Practice increase the reach, speed, and ease of the process. For example, the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Home-Builders Corner was part of their 1953 newsletter (pdf). Through the wonders of the Internet I can find not only that 1953 information, but of course have access to the current 24/7 searchable discussion board version of Homebuilders Corner.

Evaluation

Not all ideas are good ones.

Many innovation support systems allow people to rate the idea, point to where aspects of the project might have already being done, etc. Cisco used a hybrid social networking approach in its I-Prize. The I-Prize was an open innovation prize competition, but the early stages were evaluated by the community. Intuit’s Brainstorm tool similarly provides a hybrid approach offering evaluation and more (recruiting, workflow support, etc.) across either an internal audience, or one that crosses organizational boundaries.

Tools

In this first example, when I say tools, I mean tools: lasers, saws, 3D printers:

TechShop is a 15,000 square-foot membership-based workshop that provides members with access to tools and equipment, instruction, and a creative and supportive community of like-minded people so you can build the things you have always wanted to make. You can think of TechShop as a health club but with tools and equipment instead of exercise equipment.

Technically the tools themselves aren’t Web 2.0, but the Web 2.0 connection is there in that members collaborate and share knowledge via the TechShop Member Forum.

Other examples of Web2.0 tools are more straightforward (e.g., open source software), but not as likely to throw off sparks.

Market

One of the keys to user innovation (versus closed corporate innovation) is that it be able to compete (Von Hippel, p. 118, free pdf of book). Software/web innovation has it easy in that transportation costs are virtually nil, but all innovations can take advantage of social media to gain immense marketing reach for little to no money. (Perky video on Social Media ROI: Socialnomics.)

Recruiting, Knowledge, Evaluation, Tools, and Market. Web 2.0 provides us with collaborative avenues toward innovation. What have I left out? How about incentive? Are we more likely to participate in innovation activities when we can interact with many more like-minded collaborators – even if we never get to meet? Are we more more or less likely to participate when our actions can perhaps been seen on a global stage? I’m hoping to write a follow-up post on Generating and Maintaining Energy for Open Innovation Platforms and would be happy to collaborate….

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For more on Open Innovation – with a review of some of Carliss Baldwin & Eric von Hippel’s recent work, please see More proof that sharing is good, von Hippel style.

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Some organizations get it, and some just don’t. ASTM International (previously known as American Society for Testing and Materials) is among the organizations that practice TOP Management as part of their DNA. ASTM supports the development and archiving of high-quality, market-relevant standards — beginning with a standard for railway steel in 1901. They understand how technology fits into both what they do (for example, the creation of new standards around new technologies) – and how they do it. You may recall that Earl Lawrence of EAA mentioned that the process of how Light Sport Aircraft standards came into being seemed to him to be an example of TOP Management. ASTM’s Dan Schultz was the staff manager for the LSA standards development process. I had the opportunity to talk with Dan a couple of weeks ago and I came a way with a new understanding of how TOP Management can be as much a part of the organization as is it a part of its peoples’ skills.

What does ASTM do? You know those standards you see quoted on airplane parts, Federal regulations, and baby strollers? Things like “meets ASTM standard….” I now have a better understanding of where standards come from and how they are used by industry and government. Key is that standards are not handed down from on high. Not at all. Standards, at least those developed via ASTM’s process, are a community effort created explicitly via a “balanced” process where all stakeholders are heard and decisions are made by a fair and transparent ballot process. In the case of the Light Sport Aircraft process, ASTM facilitated the creation of 30 standards in 30 months.

That statistic, 30 standards, 30 months (recall this is a voluntary process) and the resulting creation of an industry around this new form of recreational aircraft lead me to stamp the process with the TOP Management sticker of approval. The task itself focused on technical issues of aircraft design and manufacturing, organizational issues of certification, and the realities of the people involved in terms of weight and risk assessment. The process also involved TOP Management: on-line support of pre-meeting work, identification of stakeholders, and balloting; the ASTM organizational process of consensus and balance; and the ability to draw out perspectives from all stakeholders. Dan’s management of this process (and all the varied committees he supports) suggested a high level of personal systems savvy.

I asked Dan how he came to see the need for technology, organization, and people dimensions to be combined as part of his facilitation process. His background was engineering, yet given the quick overview he gave me of standards facilitation it was clear he has the people skills you’d expect from a psychologist.

His answer took me a bit by surprise. Systems savvy: That’s what ASTM is all about. He put the heavy lifting on the organization.

Walking into the mid-90s [growth of the Internet] with 90 years of experience, the organization knew exactly what it had to do…. In order to maintain commercial advantage, the standards development of tomorrow has to develop the most technically competent standard in shortest amount of time or industry won’t select you.

He said ASTM formally sketched out the digital path – cradle to grave standards development given new technologies. They made sure that their products, standards, could be created quickly and in a form that the customer wanted, and easily accessible. They made sure that their process was improved by use of electronic collaboration – they haven’t replaced face-to-face collaboration, but rather steamlined those face-to-face meetings by their new pre and post-meeting processes.

I generally talk about TOP Management being practiced by a person — and clearly Dan Schultz is a TOP Manager (managing technology, organizations, and people in an integrated way) — but the ASTM example highlights the value of embedding TOP Management into the organization itself. My colleagues and I have also talked about embedded TOP Management strategies into technologies, but I’ll save that discussion for another time.

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