Boring innovation

Robert Brook (hat-tip to PubStrat) suggests that:

Innovation has become boring in a bad way. Innovation could be boring in a good way.

The premise, Robert suggests, is that management thinking has made innovation a business process that stifles creative thinking. Best not to apply any business processes, like Project Management or budgeting. He goes on to suggest that what's really needed is:

... a two pronged approach. Introduce, recognise and support innovative thinking within existing processes - and, separately, set up a sandboxed arms-length entity to take on the risk.

It seems to me what Robert is suggesting is that good innovation is all about celebrating ideas and then setting up lots of little projects to take them on and deliver stuff.

Would anyone really expect that to happen without some "management" around all those little projects?

Now, I have to admit to some prejudice here, having written two books on the subject of innovation in large organisations. My research on the subject - and my own experience - suggests that waiting for "innovative thinking" to generate anything meaningful is usually a waste of time.

Everyone thinks innovatively all the time, whether they know it or not. But when it comes down to the press of doing the day job, versus changing it to accommodate innovation, most people will just do what they have always done.

Nothing wrong with that. Not everyone can be a change agent.

The fact that not everyone can be a change agent is the reason you need boring innovation. How else do you take the ideas which remain latent in organisations and turn them into something real? Working on everyone else's ideas all day is, by definition, an entirely operational and boring process. The fun only comes when you get to work on your own stuff.

What happens when you don't have a boring, operational process you can use to start up lots of little projects in the way that Robert describes?

You are forced to rely on individual heroics. Individual heroics are all very well, but there are only very few people in organisations who are capable of them. Getting a new project started without support is very, very hard.

That's why you need an innovation unit, whether you bought it or grew it yourself. The name of the game is about starting lots of little, new projects. Without waiting for that random blue-bird superstar performer who can do it without any help at all.

So let us have more boring innovation. Boring innovation, at least, works. Presently, we're getting a 4% success rate on our idea flow at the Department. That doesn't sound like much, except our innovation unit has access to the ideas of thousands of people. Yes, maybe it is boring, and maybe the ideas themselves are boring.

But surely, getting 4% of the ideas done is better than doing none at all. Which is only slightly worse, in my view, than waiting for random chance to blow a few wins through the door.

This, lets face it, is what people who propose that "innovative thinking", or (even worse in my view) "innovation culture" are relying on.

Comments

[alex]

4% sounds a very good rate of return, and maybe compares well to other large organisations.

What examples of innovation, boring or otherwise, has the DWP produced for their job seeker client base involving the internet in the last 5 years ?

If none, is this because this is a low priority, or maybe because you have not asked the job seekers to assist ?

We job seekers are very bored as we don't have a lot to do. We could potentially be your innovators if you wished to use us.