Archive for the 'Innovation Questions' Category

Feb 23rd 2010 What is a Business Model Innovation Questions

BMI begins by assessing the company’s current context, the needs of its customers, and the models of its competitors. These steps should be completed with sufficient clarity and honesty to reveal what is currently working, what is not, and what might constitute a better value proposition. To that end, we offer the following questions for executives and managers seeking to create a shared awareness of threats and opportunities.

  • What compromises does our current business model force customers to make?
  • Why are nonusers or defectors dissatisfied with our offering?
  • Do we offer customers a better value proposition than that of the competition?
  • What alternative models are gaining share at the edges of our industry?
  • If we were an industry outsider, what would we do to take advantage of the gaps or weaknesses in our business model?
  • Do we have a plan for identifying potential business models, implementing them, and embedding BMI capabilities within the organization?
  • What do we need to change in our organization and operations to implement a new business model?
  • What information would we need to make a commitment to a new business model?
  • How urgent is the perceived need for change in our organization?
  • How should our ideas be championed?

Source: Business Model Innovation: When the Game Gets Tough, Change the Game by Zhenya Lindgardt, Martin Reeves, George Stalk, and Michael S. Deimler | Boston Consulting Group (BCG), December 2009

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Jun 26th 2007 The “Good Enough” Economy

Welcome to the “good enough” economy, where the likelihood that a technological innovation will be taken up depends on how well it answers six critical questions.

  1. How much better is this technology in terms of cost, functionality, “image” and other factors?*
  2. How compatible is the innovation with existing skills, values and work practices?
  3. How hard is your innovation to understand and use?
  4. Can you easily and affordably try out the innovation, or must you commit to a major investment?
  5. Can your innovation’s benefits be easily observed and communicated?
  6. Does the incumbent technology exhibit network effects, and does it have a large and mature installed base?

Source:
Innovation and the Economics of Good Enough
by Glover T. Ferguson
Outlook Journal, January 2003

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Jun 24th 2007 Innovative Technology Questions

  • Does the technology offer significant new ways of doing business?
  • Does the technology build on existing infrastructure to capture substantial new value?
  • Does the technology create a new technology platform that enables future applications?
  • Is the technology within reach for the company–stretching the organization’s capabilities but not forcing it outside of its envelope of possibility?
  • Can the company develop and implement the technology alone, or will it need partners?
  • How fast will the opportunity develop?
  • Are there ways to open the door to acceptance, such as through try-before-you-commit programs or other incentives?

Source:
Innovation: Bold New World
by Glover T. Ferguson
Outlook Journal, Special Edition, May 2004

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Jun 23rd 2007 Innovation Barometer Questions

One barometer for how innovative is your organization can be determined by answering the following questions with a yes or no.

  1. Has one person been chartered with the overall responsibility to manage the corporate-wide innovation process?
  2. Are there performance measures – both tangible and intangible – to assess the quality of your innovation practices?
  3. Do your training/educational programs have provisions to incubate and spin-out new products and businesses?
  4. Does your local, regional or international presence operate as a distributed network of expertise which learns from as well as distributes to customers?
  5. Is there a formal intelligence gathering strategy to monitor the positioning of both current and potential competitors?
  6. Does the rate of production of new products and service exceed the norms of your industry and create new markets in which you can excel?
  7. Has a strategic alliance manager been designated to create and manage the network of partnerships and joint ventures to leverage your firm?
  8. Does your marketing image portray an organization with the capacity to create and move ideas into the marketplace to make your customers successful?
  9. Have resources been allocated to articulate a compelling vision internally and share company expertise externally through publications and participation in major forums?
  10. Is your computer/communications capability treated as a learning tool for internal conferencing and external business leverage on the World Wide Web?

Your Innovation Score
If you answered 7 out of the 10 questions in the affirmative, the chances are that you have a good handle on the innovation process of your enterprise and know how to enable an environment for the optimal flow of ideas contributing to the vitality of the company. However, if you found yourself responding negatively to these basic innovation questions, you might want to take a look at your own processes for taking ideas to market and leveraging your intellectual capability into the future. Even if you scored high, the questions can frame an innovation dialogue.

Source:
Gauging the Organization
ENTOVATION® International

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Jun 22nd 2007 Arthur D. Little Innovation Metrics Framework Questions

Metrics can be designed to measure performance in each of the model’s four interdependent elements:

  • Stakeholder Strategies. How well are we achieving the strategies designed to address the needs of each group of stakeholders? Are we doing the right things?
  • Process. How good are our critical innovation processes? Are we doing things right?
  • Resources. How appropriate are our internal resources and how effectively have we tapped external resources? Do we have access to the right resources?
  • Organization and Culture. Do we have the appropriate organizational structures, culture, and reward systems to drive innovation? Are we getting the best from our resources?

Answering these four questions at any given moment will provide a comprehensive snapshot of innovation, but it won’t provide any early warning of emerging problems within the innovation system. To get a complete picture, you need to understand the innovation trajectory, or rate, by adding a time dimension within a continuum represented by four phases:

  • Lagging indicators provide information on past performance, answering the question, “HOW well did we do yesterday”
  • Real-time indicators provide information on current performance, answering the question, “How well are we doing today?”
  • Leading indicators provide information on likely future performance, answering the question, “How well are we likely to do tomorrow?”
  • Learning indicators provide information on the rate at which the organization is improving its performance, answering the question, “How well will we do in the longer term?”

Source:
Innovation Metrics: A Framework to Accelerate Growth
by John Collins
Prism, 2/1999

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Jun 21st 2007 Developing creativity in the workplace

  • Who is responsible for systematically collecting information on the external business environment?
  • How is it then distributed to those managers who can use it effectively in their work (and modify their current assumptions)?
  • How many departments besides R&D are judged on their ability to introduce innovations in their policies and procedures?
  • Does the organization provide training programs in both organizational leadership and creativity?

Source:
Innovation in all things! Developing creativity in the workplace
by Dave Sharman
ManagementFirst.com

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Feb 8th 2007 Selling Your Innovative Idea

Decision-makers will inevitably see your idea from their own perspective. In other words, your idea must be expressed in terms that address the practical business concerns of the potential buyer. Below are hot button questions for C-level execs

  • Chief Executive Officer: Will it increase the value of the firm?
  • Chief Financial Officer: Where’s the return on investment?
  • Chief Operations Officer: Can we execute on this plan?
  • Chief Information Officer: Will it run on our systems?
  • Chief Marketing Officer: Can the world understand it?
  • Chief Sales Officer: Will our customers buy it?

Source: How to Sell an Idea / Geoffrey James / BNET

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Mar 8th 2006 Innovation Barometer

One barometer for how innovative is your organization can be determined by answering the following questions with a yes or no.

  1. Has one person been chartered with the overall responsibility to manage the corporate-wide innovation process?
  2. Are there performance measures – both tangible and intangible – to assess the quality of your innovation practices?
  3. Do your training/educational programs have provisions to incubate and spin-out new products and businesses?
  4. Does your local, regional or international presence operate as a distributed network of expertise which learns from as well as distributes to customers?
  5. Is there a formal intelligence gathering strategy to monitor the positioning of both current and potential competitors?
  6. Does the rate of production of new products and service exceed the norms of your industry and create new markets in which you can excel?
  7. Has a strategic alliance manager been designated to create and manage the network of partnerships and joint ventures to leverage your firm?
  8. Does your marketing image portray an organization with the capacity to create and move ideas into the marketplace to make your customers successful?
  9. Have resources been allocated to articulate a compelling vision internally and share company expertise externally through publications and participation in major forums?
  10. Is your computer/communications capability treated as a learning tool for internal conferencing and external business leverage on the World Wide Web?

Your Innovation Score
If you answered 7 out of the 10 questions in the affirmative, the chances are that you have a good handle on the innovation process of your enterprise and know how to enable an environment for the optimal flow of ideas contributing to the vitality of the company. However, if you found yourself responding negatively to these basic innovation questions, you might want to take a look at your own processes for taking ideas to market and leveraging your intellectual capability into the future. Even if you scored high, the questions can frame an innovation dialogue.

Source: Gauging the Organization / ENTOVATION® International

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