BQF Innovation

We had a fascinating meeting on April 20th on the subject of Open Innovation.  To paraphrase Henry Chesbrough, Open Innovation is a systematic business model for combining internal and external ideas to make innovation happen.  Andrew Gaule explained how the model works and quoted case studies including Tate and Lyle and Proctor and Gamble.

Kevin McFarthing, Global Director of Strategic Alliances at Reckitt Benckiser, explained how his company was directly encouraging external contributors to collaborate on inventions and innovations for their product range. 

RB Idealink is their initiative to publicise their intent and to invite alliances for innovation. They are looking for partners with technologies, products and brand licensing opportuntities.  They specifiy a list of areas in which they are interested in ideas - e.g. bleaching, dyes, fragrances, non-wovens etc.  Once an idea is submitted they guarantee to respond in less than three months.

For more details see the Idealink website.

If you want to see copies of Andrew or Kevin’s presentations please ask me or Pat Myles.

The meeting concluded with a lively discussion on what is stopping more companies from investing in open innovation.  A lack of leadership commitment to the open approach was identified as one of the key barriers.

Paul Sloane

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Innovation is a team activity, a contact sport.  One person may have a great idea but normally the implementation of the idea requires a team.  That team needs a mix of skills and attributes in order overcome all the obstacles that get in the way.  In a corporate environment the people who are best at conceiving bright ideas are often not the best at making them happen.  So what skills do you need in your innovation implementation team?

Here are some of the key roles:

Leader - The team leader has the drive, determination, managerial and motivational skills to accomplish the task.

Sponsor - A high-level executive who oversees the project and can help overcome some of the political and organisational roadblocks.

Explorer - A curious person who is constantly searching, brainstorming, reinventing, adapting and discovering.  Sometimes this is also the Inventor who had the bright idea in the first place.

Judge - This person acts as the analyst.  They ask tough questions and help to ground the group the reality.  Sometimes this person also acts as Purser and controls the budget.

Planner - Someone needs to co-ordinate resources and use project planning skills to keep the show on track.

Scrounger - This person is highly effective at getting resources, improvising and making things happen.

Advocate - Someone needs to continually sell the innovation and its benefits to stakeholders.  At each stage the advocate explains and promotes the concept.

Builder - the person (or people) who constructs the prototypes and continually improves them.

Many innovation projects fail because the team is unbalanced and lacks some of these players.  A team full of explorers will be enthusiastic but not build much.  The right mix of skills at each stage of the project is essential.

For a more detailed explanation of these roles see ‘Roles for Innovation’, a report from IBM Consulting Services.

Paul Sloane