1. SEARCH
LOGIN
RELATED ARTICLES
Q&A: How to start
education, training
initiatives on
innovation? »
Q&A: Structuring an
innovation group for
the “Internet of
Things” »
Q&A: Expanding
crowdsourcing without
getting overwhelmed
»
DON'T MISS
Save the date! Join us June 15-16 in
New York City, as we return to the
Big Apple for a Field Study. This two-
day event will feature access to
some of the most interesting and
forward-thinking corporate
innovation labs and programs,
including MasterCard, IBM, Dow
Jones, Thomson Reuters, and more.
Get details, register »
Q&A: Employee engagement issues
We’re introducing a new Q&A feature as a way to let members ask questions
anonymously and get useful answers from other members. If you’ve got a
question, just drop us an e-mail, and let us know if you’d like an answer from
a company of a particular size or industry (or even from a specific person or
company.) The question below was answered by Anne Marie Dumais, the
former SVP New Product Introductions at The Nielsen Company who is now
at Brightidea. We thank our longstanding partner and supporter Brightidea
for their assistance, and we invite your comments at the bottom…
Question:
Though we’re a $10+ billion company, I wouldn’t say that innovation is in
our bloodstream. We’ve been working to instill a culture of risk-taking and
innovation, and are butting up against employee engagement issues. Do
you have any recommendations on program structure, team structure,
and employee education? Any general principles you can share on “what
works?” Thanks.
Answer:
This is a great question. The perfect recipe for enabling enterprise innovation
is highly dependent on the organization’s structure, culture and operating
mechanisms. As a first step, we suggest taking this short Innovation Strength
Assessment. This survey will help you identify existing
strengths and opportunities for improvement, while
recognizing all prior efforts and building your innovation on
a solid foundation.
To Frame Your Thinking
Every company has business functions, like an HR or IT
department that are shared across the organization – so why not
innovation? These ‘shared services’ centralize resources so businesses
can function more efficiently. Developing an innovation program in a similar fashion, as a shared service allows
companies to extract measurable value from ideas at scale. In fact, outperforming organizations are
79 percent more likely to establish a dedicated innovation team.
Program Structure: Grounds Innovation
A strong foundation starts with setting up a
centralized, shared service for the innovation
program – we call it Innovation as a Shared Service
(ISS). ISS is a structured methodology for deploying
a collaborative innovation process, governance and
tools within an organization.
HOME TOPICS REPORTS EVENTS RESOURCES FIELD ST

2. The ISS methodology and tools provide discipline
and organization around an ascribed set of roles,
activities, and processes that maximize innovation
success and help the enterprise sustain and adapt
innovation efforts to the future needs of the
organization, supporting growth and producing
meaningful results.
Here are a few of the major tenets that create a
solid foundation for any innovation program:
C-Suite Presence
Having the c-level executive team provide frequent
and visible support of the innovation program is key.
Making the innovation program part of the company’s culture requires executives messaging frequently about
innovation. Their messages should:
Be clear on what the company defines as innovation
Embrace and celebrate “wins” and recognize the value in learning from “dead-ends”
Believe and convey the fact that ALL employees add value to the innovation process
Highlight areas of strength, and opportunities, via innovation metrics
Active Sponsorship
Every innovation challenge should and must have a
sponsor. The sponsor is the person who ultimately
is accountable for the purpose, rationale and final
actions taken as it relates to the “challenge” (see
definition below). However, having the sponsor’s
name is not enough. They must actively engage in
the actual creation of the challenge to ensure the
outcomes are something they can ultimately
implement. Being clear and specific as to the role
and responsibilities of the challenge sponsor is very
important to the ultimate success of the challenge.
Program Charter
Your innovation charter must be simple, clear and,
most importantly, endorsed by key stakeholders. This may seem like a simple task, but getting both clarity and
buy-in simultaneously on a discrete set of innovation goals is no easy task, particularly in large organizations.
However, this charter drives the speed at which the innovation goals and scale are achieved, so it’s extremely
important.
Team Structure: Facilitates Innovation
Regardless of your organization’s level of innovation maturity, having an innovation team in place to manage
the process is key. The structure of that team can vary:
Organizations leveraging the ISS model should centralize efforts under a single Innovation Program
Manager (IPM). The IPM’s role is not to own all of the organization’s innovation, but rather to be the
company’s facilitator and guardian of innovation.
In more advanced organizations, we recommend and teach how to set up a distributed IPM model
whereby functions and geographies are enabled with multiple IPMs.
The core innovation staff should:

3. Be Staffed with HiPo’s
The persons who actually make up this team should
be very familiar with many (if not all) parts and
functions of the organization and regarded as high-
potential employees (HiPo’s). They should have a
contagious passion for innovation and a high
degree of corporate stewardship – putting the
overall organization’s needs first. Although many
skills will be required, one of the most important is
experience in dealing effectively with change
management. Depending on the organization,
sometimes a corporate maverick-type will be
needed to get the job done, or in other
organizations a socializer. Either way, this position
should be well regarded and career advancing.
Empowered to Govern
Putting names and faces on an org chart is not enough. The C-level executives and sponsors must empower
the innovation team. Upon successful charter completion, clear roles and responsibilities for the team must
be documented and communicated across the company. Part of this team’s responsibility is to oversee and
continually optimize the innovation process, so the team must be empowered to govern. Governing the
process ensures global ownership, compliance and holistic portfolio measurement of a company’s innovation.
Have Budget Dollars
For organizations just starting out it’s important this team have the budget available to invest in necessary
innovation management tools (like Brightidea), including:
Accessible Resources to outsource and/or hire additional staff to handle increased demand
Marketing Materials such as posters, collateral, videos
API Integrations across various tools such as Brightidea, SharePoint, Jive
Site Design/Seamless UX between workplace tools
Training for employees, sponsors and the innovation team itself
Rewards/recognitions for participants
Employee Engagement: Empowers Innovation
Ultimately all innovation is built on people. So THE most important ingredient to success is your employee
base, and the way you nurture this valuable ingredient will make or break the innovation program.
Here are just a couple examples of how we share and teach IPM’s to engage and educate employees:
One-Stop-Shop: Tell (and tell again) where’s the one place employees should always go to innovate –
don’t make it hard!
Stir the Pot: Include dashboards that show the top contributors by name for the past week or best
performing region or group – this peaks everyone’s attention.
Make it fun: Include fun challenges too – it doesn’t have to be all business.
Cheer On: Everyone IS an innovator – really! We have fun innovation style quizzes employees can take to
learn more about their approach to innovation.
No Seams: Ensure the user experience is seamless in every way between the innovation management
platform and all other workplace tools.
Keep the Lights On: Finally, and most importantly, make sure you don’t keep employees in the dark
about their idea submissions. Communicate regularly and often around the status of their idea
submissions and as well final outcomes that everyone can celebrate.

4. Get a subscription
Full access to all resources:
Articles, research, special reports,
case studies, live calls, events, and
more. Group rates available.
Subscribe here »
Get our email updates
Free updates on our new articles
and case studies, research,
resources, tools, guidance,
upcoming live events, and more.
Share This Article
Creating a successful innovation program takes very specific planning – as does executing it and keeping it
running. The reward for this effort grows exponentially as your innovation team and enterprise adapt and develop
more and more winning ideas, and create a culture of innovation focused on continuous improvement.
Published on April 21, 2015 in these categories: Employee Engagement
Your Reaction
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Two ways to become a part of Innovation Leader:
I N N O V A T I O N L E A D E R S U P P O R T E R S
See exclusive subscriber benefits from our supporters
About Contact Help Privacy Terms Advertise Subscribe
© 2016 Innovation Leader LLC. All Rights Reserved.