How to build an Innovation Factory

What is innovation and how do we make innovation intrinsic to an organisation?

Recently I attended Australia's most innovative company awards. The recipients were all impressive in there own right, however I came away questioning whether people understood innovation...

Firstly,  what is innovation? Sometimes confused with invention.  Invention is a type of innovation, a new product/service,  usually the result of an idea.  Innovation at a corporate level more generally however is about improvements, not necessarily something new. As a Business Analyst I practice a systematic approach to improving the current state. We elicit the problem or need, and work with subject matter experts to improve the businesses capability. Innovation is most often the result of careful analysis and a process of 'questioning assumptions'. Think there is a false impression that all innovation is born while sipping on a cafe latte.  Sure some innovation stems from ideas,  but clearly much less predictable and repeatable.

Now that we are clearer with what innovation is,  how do we make the concept part of the business? I heard someone mention the concept of an innovation factory, which got me thinking... how do we build one? If we wanted to create continuous innovation what are the critical success factors?

Well its quite simple ...lets start with a quote

"When you say “collaboration”, the average 45 year old thinks they know what you’re talking about – teams sitting down, having a nice conversation with nice objectives and a nice attitude. That’s what collaboration means to most people. But for Google and many other companies, collaboration is a profoundly new approach to orchestrating capability in order to innovative, create goods and services, and solve complex problems" 
Don Tapscott, MacroWikinomics

A profoundly new approach to orchestrating capability in order to innovative, create goods and services, and solve complex problems...BINGO

Collaboration maturity is a series of events where we learn to connect, share, solve and then once the group has achieved these levels of collaboration maturity we are able to innovate.

So how do we improve our collaboration maturity?

1. Invest in the right technology...with a Enterprise Social Platform (ESP) at the centre
2. Embed collaboration in process...meeting management, executive engagement, project delivery methodology, etc
3. Change the organisational mindset...Trust in beta, public by default, understanding networks, responsibility to share, appreciating context (over content) 

If it was that easy everyone would be doing it...Get collaborating

The truth

"Seek the company of those who search for truth. Run from those who have found it." - Vaclav Havel @mcafee

A BAs Top Three

So what three things should we be looking for in modern Business Analyst?  


Capability, Competencies and Skills are often use these terms interchangeably. What results is a messy overlap that compares apples with oranges...it just doesn't work. So I decided to provide my top three of each. Below is how I define these characteristics:

• CAPABILITY - ability to derive relevant value. Usually a combination of skills and competencies eg effective 'Business Process Management (BPM) is valuable to an organisation. Can be assessed, but difficult to train as it is a set of complex attributes.
• SKILL - activity related components that contribute to capability. eg i'm skillful at business process modelling and contributes to my capability in BPM. In isolation provides little value. Can assess and trainable.
• COMPETENCY- intrinsic ability to execute skills and derive capability. Often related to leadership, however in Business Analysis the scope is broad. eg i am an excellent listener which helps me engage stakeholders and elicit requirements. Difficult to assess, can be improved with training and experience. Not industry specific and often stronger competencies are learnt through industry diversity.

Top three capabilities...

1. Business Process Management - capture/improve/redesign, governance, strategic alignment, culture/people implications, tools
2. Requirements Management - elicit, manage, document, tools
3. Enterprise Analysis - vision/strategy, stakeholder assessment, financial analysis, business case

Top three skills....

1. Collaboration (tools and techniques)
2. Business Process Modelling
3. Writing Business Documents (as opposed to technical documents)

Top three competencies...

1. Integrity and trust (leadership)
2. Interpersonal savvy (leadership)
3. Business trends and best practice (functional)

There is a place for email

A recent blog I responded to encouraged me to explore appropriate use of email.


Email is a channel too often used inappropriately...
It is time to discuss what it should be used for, and what it should not.


What email is for:

• Personal messages - can be a good tool for clarity in one-on-one dialogue, eg after a phone call..."I'll send you an email to confirm our discussion"
• A directive - to a group of people and don't expect a response
• Specific people - when you want to limit (not control) distribution
• Notifications - consolidates updates from various platforms (C3, Facebook, Linkedin, etc)

What email is NOT for:

• Dialogue - telephone and IM are better tools for one-on-one discussion
• Discussion  - email is a channel, not for discussion. Stop the 'reply all' emails. 
• Innovation - Controlling distribution is a significant dampener to innovation.
• Everyone - a question, comment or answer will be of greater value on a platform.

Stop inappropriate use of email!

Are BAs ready for Agile?

Over the past 12 months I've been involved in some interesting discussions about BAs and Agile. What is clear is that the capabilities needed for business analysis in Agile delivery are quite different to that required for waterfall. BAs traditionally are training to define solutions and limit change. In Agile, we are looking for BAs who resist the temptation to define the solution, and accepting of change. Waterfall is about documenting with the client in mind, whilst Agile is with the developer in mind.


With this said, it is understood that the transition from waterfall to agile is a step learning curve for all concerned. What is possibly lacking in the BA space is role models and/or managerial reinforcement. Engineers are generally taking this journey as a team, but from experience... BAs tend to have a lonelier existence. Methodology that is inherently highly structured, management that are struggling with the shift in required capabilities, and engaging with businesses that just want documented requirements.

The thing is BAs should be better suited for Agile than most. They have a set of competencies that are well suited to dealing with ambiguity. Good BAs are experts at managing expectation, and this is a important for Waterfall or Agile alike.

My personal experience is with Scrum, and good evidence for effective use of BAs. In one project we used a BA to work a sprint ahead, preparing the sprint backlog for the dev team. On another (a large Defence project), after a number of setbacks the lead BA became the scrummaster and completely turned it around. It was so effective, there was consideration for this to become a norm. On my last project (before switching companies) I was the Product Owner on a BPMS implementation where business commitment was a problem. I am obviously bias but would like to think we provided an impressively innovative solution with equally impressive speed.
I found this in the definition of a PO "product owner is in many ways an empowered business analyst" (http://goo.gl/JM8xw).

I am convinced that BAs are in the box seat to play an integral role in the Agile transformation and believe we will see benefits from a greater overlap between the communities.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

There are a few non-academic books that have helped to bring context to the technology led changes that are taking place in Business - in Economics, Marketing, Finance, Innovation, Social Networking and BIS. 

Three must reads, then a few extra.

Google Wave RIP

Wave embodied the inherent value of cloud computing.
It was a tool developed with the ambitious aim of catalysing a shift from channels to platforms.
Channels such as email are inefficient, slow and reward scarcity.
Platforms prosper in abundance and provide an environment of collaboration and productivity.

Android takes over Blackberry and Iphone

No one is arguing the success and profitability of Apple and RIM, but I can't help but feel like the android tidal-wave is starting to roll in.

Phone makers (except Apple & RIM) are investing heavily in Android as they scrabble to keep up.

Phone carriers are fed up with the their profit margins being trimmed, and are keen to see open source succeed.

Customers will see the cost of impressive smartphone functionality dropping rapidly.

With android...everybody will be a winner. This will guarantee it momentum doesn't slow.

The meaning of OPEN according to Google.

I've taken a snippet out of an official Google Blog.

Apart from providing a little insight into Google strategy, it provides perspective to long-tail economics.

"Closed systems are well-defined and profitable, but only for those who control them. Open systems are chaotic and profitable, but only for those who understand them well and move faster than everyone else.

Closed systems grow quickly while open systems evolve more slowly, so placing your bets on open requires the optimism, will, and means to think long term.

Fortunately, at Google we have all three of these."

Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President, Product Management

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/meaning-of-open.html

Personalised Advertising...Do we want it?

The recent backlash against Facebook and the controversy around the Google trucks tapping into public wi-fi highlight the extremes corporations are going to to track our behaviour.

Why? …Personalised Advertising …But does it work? and is the gain worth the ethical soul searching that is going on at these internet giants.

I for one really don’t care for personalised advertising. I can honestly say I have never engaged in any sort of transaction from a web-side advertisement. Sure when I’m on Google search I will go onto paid advertising, but I see a difference.

When I buy something it will fall into one of the following four markets:

1. What you need and you know you need – Google search
2. What you don't need, but you think you do – still Google search, probably a bit of Ebay
3. What you need, but you don't know you do – Where Facebook wants to be
4. What you don't need, and you don't want it – Where Facebook is

Google Apps vs Microsoft Office...no comparison!

I regularly see commentary on the comparison of Microsoft Office to Google Apps.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/cloudservicesexperts/
http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/google_vs_microsoft/microsofts_poaching_of_serena_from_google_apps_is_a_big_deal.html
If we cut through the rhetoric, the Microsoft cloud offerings are traditional offerings in the cloud. More importantly, they are products that are designed to integrate traditional and cloud.

Yeh, so what?
It is a product for customers who think they want cloud, but don't really know what they want. 

Really what cloud computing offers is something different...with one catch, it requires a commitment or desire to change. It is an unfamiliar environment, hosting multiple vendors and necessitating unique business processes.The upside of this shift is the promise of flexibility, scalability and most importantly innovation.

I think this is where Google Apps sits.
A half baked product, hard to control, with a vague risk profile. But for those that understand this chaos, there is a world of opportunity.

Mature Google Apps users, are running Cordys to develop workflow, Salesforce to facilitate CRM and finances, Zoho to drive database functionality, Avairy for graphic design, Youtube for employee training, Wave for BP collaboration & design...and so on.

Google Apps is a platform, no an application.

Microsoft Online is not competing in this space.
They have a controlled environment, single vendor, common recognisable process, and freature products for rich content creation (Office Suite).

I think commentators sometimes confuse Google Docs and Google Apps.
Microsoft Office Suite is a superior product to Google Docs.

Office essentially is the Microsoft offering, however Docs is only a minor part of the Google offering. Comparisons that attempt to predict a winner just doesn't add up.