Bringing Clarity and Purpose to Innovation
A Q&A with members of IBM's integrated product development team
Commentary accompanying PDC
DiscoveriesVolume 2, #3, March 2004
In 1999, IBM's then-CEO Lou Gerstner called his executives to task. Why, he wanted to know, was IBM missing market opportunities on which other companies were capitalizing? That question revved up IBM's Emerging Business Opportunities (EBO) initiatives and jump-started the activities of the company's integrated product development team.
EBO Team members Tom Luin (Business Transformation Architect) and Dave Coughlin (Executive Consultant) were involved in the task force and resulting recommendations for change to promote and enable growth. More recently, they have worked with PDC to develop a framework for measuring innovation maturity. They recently discussed their experiences with Discoveries.
Q. The impetus for pursuing the innovation maturity framework came from the highest levels at IBM -- first, from Lou Gerstner, and now from senior vice president of strategy Bruce Harreld. Why is this high-level support so crucial?
A. We're in the culture change business. Look at it from the perspective of an IBM executive who's been with IBM for, just pick a number, 28 years. He's moved up and now he's general manager of a multi-billion dollar business unit with some EBO activity. History tells him that he has been successful so far doing exactly what he's accustomed to doing -- which probably involved making decisions based on hunches, gut feelings, and intuition. Now we're asking him to rethink his decision-making methodology, and also get his team involved in taking a different view of the marketplace. It's a leap. That leap will be much easier if it's supported by two things: success stories from peer-level executives who have been through the same transformation, and the appropriate high-level sponsorship to ensure that the new way of doing things will stick.
Q. What does PDC bring to the process of creating and implementing the innovation maturity model?
A. PDC's presentation about benchmarking a company's innovation capabilities, which we saw at a conference, really resonated with us. Later, we found PDC's network of clients and contacts in a variety of industries has been very beneficial during our validation of the innovation maturity model.
Q. Where are you now in the process of developing and implementing the innovation maturity model?
A. The innovation maturity model is still considered a work in progress within IBM. Our initial executive education session was well received. We are currently in talks with EBO leaders about how and when to best apply the maturity model. IBM is very interested in using the model for internal assessment to help develop execution improvement plans. We have begun using the EBO maturity model framework for benchmark discussions with external companies. We feel the model will continue to grow in value, once practitioners become familiar with the potential to quickly identify areas needing improvement in execution and the ability to identify specific gaps that need to be addressed in corrective planning.
Q. What words of wisdom would you offer colleagues who are interested in better understanding and measuring innovation?
A. There are a few things companies can do:
- Try to gain high-level executive support and sponsorship for adoption of the maturity model, since its use is, in itself, a culture change.
- Focus on both internal and external application of the maturity model so that you have an opportunity to compare and contrast the results of others in a more comprehensive manner.
- Identify the key execution elements for innovation within your company that need improvement, select/prioritize the ones that you feel will make the biggest short-term impact to execution improvement, then tackle the longer term areas with equal voracity.
- Make sure you periodically monitor progress by re-applying the maturity model, so that you not only continually improve, but also force the use of the model into the fabric of your company's culture.
