Prepare a list of at least 5-7 questions for your interview. Your questions shou
ID: 408179 • Letter: P
Question
Prepare a list of at least 5-7 questions for your interview. Your questions should focus on specific processes within organizations for encouraging and implementing innovations and challenges organizations face in when trying to innovate.
After you complete the interview, write a 1,000-word reflection on what you learned in the interview and how your understanding of the importance of effective innovation architecture has developed or changed. Address the following in your response:
What are the most valuable things you learned about effective innovation architecture?
Identify some of the significant challenges you believe you might face when it comes to suggesting and seeing innovations through in the organizations in which you are or may be involved?
How might you apply what you learned in your interview and about innovation architecture in general to help foster a culture of innovation within your own organization?
Cite two additional reputable secondary sources on innovation architecture or on creating a culture of innovation in your reflection.
Provide an interview summary at the end of your reflection that includes the following information:
The name of the person you interviewed and number of years he/she has been a manager.
The name of the company at which he/she is currently employed.
How long the person has been a manager at the current company.
Date of the interview and whether it took place in person or via phone.
Contact information for the person you interviewed.
The list of your interview questions.
Explanation / Answer
Innovation Architecture
<Your Name>
<Your class>
Innovation is much more than just design thinking workshops. In fact, innovation is a challenging undertaking. For the success of an organization it requires repeatable and rigorous system of innovation. Creativity and ideas are essential ingredients of innovation. The seeds of innovation are provided by individuals, but innovation is a team effort that turns ideas into reality and delivers tangible outcomes. (Elliott, 2014)
Companies today face a harsh ultimatum: Innovate or die. Senior executives repeatedly tell to their employees that failing to innovate would create a critical risk to their enterprise’s growth, even its survival. Organizations rate themselves lowest on one aspect of innovation i.e. the ability to implement a “system of innovation” – a defined, consistent and effective innovation process. (France, Mott, & Wagner, 2014)
Innovation involves the introduction of something new, particularly something radically different. The something new could be products and services, product/service delivery, business designs, business processes, or new ways of managing.
Business Innovation can be differentiated from other types of initiative such as efficiency, continuous improvement, transformation, optimization etc. by its purpose. The purpose of business innovation is to create new future value for the organization. Innovation is strongly connected to strategy since the focus of strategy is to consider the constantly changing context and envision the future to define the best competitive position to achieve future goals.
The greatest challenge faced in building innovation architecture is that leaders are not able to create a climate for innovation in an organization. The employees are not recognized and rewarded for the innovative work they carry out. The organizations should look after the employees as they play an important role in bringing out innovation.
Innovation in an organization is everyone’s responsibility, but employees can’t innovate unless their leaders empower them to do so in an environment that values and rewards their contributions. The leaders should create a climate that helps the employees to innovate and even they are allocated accountability for a particular idea. Company can create a center of innovation expertise in corporate headquarters or diversifies ownership of innovation across business units depending on company’s market focus and on its organizational structure.
For bringing out innovation the employees must be involved, motivated and engaged with the leaders. If they do the same things each day, they’re not going to get inspired by new things. To get more than ideas for continuous improvement, people’s minds should be flooded with a lot of new information – and this is where Design Thinking can play a great role.
Building innovation architecture:
Successful innovators in an organization share traits in three critical areas:
Leadership: Creating a climate for innovation
Leadership competencies for creating a climate for innovation focus more on how to instill values than on traditional management skills. Successful innovators have leaders who establish a climate for innovation. They create a compelling vision for their people, challenge the status quo, explore unconventional ways of solving big problems and become champions for innovation.
Values and culture: Instilling the right principles
Changes to the corporate culture are necessary to improve a company’s innovation capacity. A culture that encourages innovation includes challenging the status quo, freedom of expression and values of risk taking. Successful innovators believe innovation is a business priority, and employees are expected to develop new ideas or create new ways of doing things. The employees are recognized and rewarded for innovation.
Organizational structures and processes: Aligning crucial systems
Successful innovators report that their organizational structures facilitate cross-functional or cross-business collaboration, that they include diverse networks of external organizations that share ideas, and that their companies are skilled in collaborating and managing external partnerships.
The leaders should also keep the aspect of innovation into consideration at time of hiring the employees. The ability of employees to innovate should be checked during interview.
Transparency along the pipeline is essential for Innovative companies, because seeing the process work is a big part of what motivates people to think creatively – whether or not their ideas are implemented. Organizations that implement innovation architecture should develop a system that assesses leaders not only according to what was accomplished, but also by how it was accomplished. The Performance-management systems provide essential crosswalks between values, behaviors, and performance. The Performance-management system should be updated when a company elevates innovation to a top priority; for instance, short-term business results may suffer, and a certain amount of failure is guaranteed. This means that performance-management systems must assess whether business challenges are being addressed in line with the company’s values, regardless of the short-term outcome. The innovation must be integrated into performance management. In performance assessment system leaders should challenge the process about innovation.
Failing to innovate can put global organizations at risk and diminish their ability to sustain or gain a competitive advantage. Ability of companies to innovate is inextricably linked to leaders, culture, and organizational design.
Some challenges can be managed largely by building leadership bench strength, but sustained innovation depends on developing whole leaders who can create the right climate. Inculcating certain values – such as risk taking, challenging the status quo, and freedom of expression – into the corporate culture is key to innovation. Leaders must also take responsibility for designing and building the right organizational structure and processes to support the development and implementation of ideas that create value – the essence of effective innovation.
The conditions that promote innovation must be supported by leaders across the company and the innovation process must start at the highest levels. The leaders must think about the three key drivers – leadership, culture, and organizational structure and processes for effective innovation architecture. Only then can senior leadership build an adaptive and sustainable organization that is truly an innovation engine.
Interview Summary
Name of the person interviewed: Mr. Todd Goodwin
Number of years he has been a manager: 5 years
Name of the company at which he is currently employed: American Express
How long the person has been employed at the current company: 8 years
Date of the interview: 2nd July’2014
Mode of interview: Telephonic Interview
Contact information for the person:
4315 South 2700 West
Salt Lake City, Utah 84184
Interview Questionnaire
Invitation for an interview
Date: 30th June ’2014
Dear Todd,
This letter is an invitation to consider participating in a study I am conducting to create “innovation architecture” to support a culture of innovation within organizations. I would like to provide you with more information about this project and what your involvement would entail if you decide to take part.
This study will focus on innovation in organizations whose ongoing purpose is to learn more about the techniques organizations utilize or fail to utilize to encourage and support the implementation of innovations.
Participation in this study is voluntary. It will involve a telephonic interview of approximately 10minutes in length. You may decline to answer any of the interview questions if you so wish. Further, you may decide to withdraw from this study at any time without any negative consequences. With your permission, the interview will be tape-recorded to facilitate collection of information, and later transcribed for analysis. All information you provide is considered completely confidential. Your name will not appear in any thesis or report resulting from this study, however, with your permission anonymous quotations may be used.
I very much look forward to speaking with you and thank you in advance for your assistance in this project.
Sincerely,
<Your Name>
<Date>
Consent Form
I have read the information presented in the information letter about a study being conducted for “innovation architecture” in an organization. I have had the opportunity to ask any questions related to this study, to receive satisfactory answers to my questions, and any additional details I wanted.
I am aware that I have the option of allowing my interview to be tape recorded to ensure an accurate recording of my responses.
I am also aware that excerpts from the interview may be included in the dissertation and/or publications to come from this research, with the understanding that the quotations will be anonymous.
I was informed that I may withdraw my consent at any time without penalty by advising the researcher.
With full knowledge of all foregoing, I agree, of my own free will, to participate in this study.
X
YES NO
I agree to have my interview tape recorded.
X
____
YES NO
I agree to the use of anonymous quotations in any thesis or publication that comes of this research.
X
____
YES NO
Participant’s Name: Mr. Todd Goodwin
Date: 1st July’2014
REFERENCES
1. Elliott, T., Interview: What’s Required For Real Business Innovation? , (Feb, 2014) retrieved from http://timoelliott.com/blog/2014/02/interview-whats-required-for-real-business-innovation.html
2. France, C., Mott, C., & Wagner, D., How Leaders Can Build an Innovation Engine, (2014) retrieved from http://www.mmc.com/knowledgecenter/viewpoint/The_Innovation_Imperative.php