Assigment session 4:
Briefly discuss one approach to designing an innovation process. You can present one, comment on the strengths and weaknesses or suggest modifications.
Listen/Watch:
Creating a sense of urgency
http://video.hbsp.com/?plid=307107&showID=918695
Learning as a precondition for innovation:
http://video.hbsp.com/?plid=307107&showID=731171
Reading for the guest lecture of John Shibley
Shibley, John (2008): Lessons from the field: Reflections from the front lines of innovatin in the arts, EMcArts Inc.
Recommended reading: Knowledge Management
Alavi, M, and DE Leidner. 2005. “Review: Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Systems: Conceptual Foundations and Research Issues.” Knowledge Management.
McLure Wasko, M, and S Faraj. 2000. ““It is what one does”: why people participate and help others in electronic communities of practice.” Journal of Strategic Information Systems 9: 155-173.
Assigment session 3:
I know you are busy, so we will discuss the case study for the upcoming sesssion (IDEO) only in class and you can choose whether to read or listen to the second part of the readings. Still, there is some work to do:
Read:
- Anthony, S. D., M. W. Johnson, et al. (2008). “Institutionalizing Innovation.” MIT Sloan Management Review 49(2): 45-53.
- Anthony, S.D, Johnson, M.W.; Sinfield, J.V.; Altman, E.J. Mastering Emergent Strategies: Taking Uncertain Ideas Forward; in Innovator’s Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work
Listen/reading:
- Bob Sutton: Podcast of Weird Ideas Talk or read the HBR article with the title: The weird rules of creativity (There is also a book with the same title if you find time)
- Innovation Through Design Thinking or read the HBR article with the title: Design thinking (we will discuss the case of IDEO and listening saves you reading the case)
- Managing through a crisis (for the sake of up-to-dateness)
Creative task:
Describe a creative initiative that helps to achieve the goals set by the “Creativity and Innovation – European Year 2009” or the “1st European SME Week – Small business, big ideas“.
Additional info for the upcoming presentations:
Presentation dates:
- Change in the way people work together, Flow and creativity (17.01)
- Leadership and organisational culture: impact on creativity and innovation level in the org., Innovation in the service industry (21.01.)
Due date first draft: 13.01.
Due date final paper (for all): 21.01.
I would like to share the presentation sytle of Garr Reynolds with you.
Also you can check my delicious page for some presentation links.
Since collaboration will be a topic on Saturday you need to see Howard Rheingold:
And another great presentation by Larry Lessig on how creativity is being strangled by the law:
Assigment for Prof. Matzler’s part:
- Don’t forget to read Cooper – Stage gate. I have heard that it is not in our library, so I suggest someone gets a master copy from our secretariat and shares it (Monday afternoon).
- Reflect on your experiences at IBM and draw upon the literature to discuss what the information we received means for innovation management (app. 2-3 pages)
- Let us know which evening(s) in the last week of January is not working for you (due to course collisions).
Group work:
Start thinking about the group work project. See http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc64c8wk_7ch5txsj6 for a description.
Here is the required reading for the IBM field trip:
- Hemp, P. (2006), “Avatar-based marketing,” Harvard Business Review, 84 (6), 48-57.
Either:
- Füller J. et al. “Avatar-Based Innovation: How Avatars Experience Co-Creation Projects in Second Life”, MIS Quarterly (submitted)
- Matzler, K. et al. ” Avatar-Based Innovation: Using Virtual Worlds for Real World Innovation.” Technovation(forthcoming).
Assigment for Session 2:
What can you do to be more creative?
Select one creativity technique and describe how and why this helps individuals/groups/organizations to be more creative. A good starting point could be mycoted. Everyone should select one different topic and I suggest to do first come, first serve.
The business of innovation:
Watch one of the five movies (or listen to the podcasts) on the main page and briefly outline your key lessons learned. Please comment below each one.
Group work project (Short Paper and Presentation – until 9.1./17.01): Start thinking about a topic related to Creativity, Innovation and Change. You can get together in groups (3-5) and come up with a topic that fits your focus (e.g. marketing innovation, service innovation etc.). We will discuss the topics on Saturday.
Bonus: Blog your group’s ideas on the Barrila Nr.5 challenge.
Reading: (pdf on e-campus)
Szulanski, G. and K. Amin (2001). “Learning to Make Strategy: Balancing Discipline and Imagination.” Long Range Planning 34(5): 537-556.
Assigment for Session 1:
a) Reading (Documents on the e-campus):
Amabile, T.M. (1998), “How to kill creativity,” Harvard business review, 76 (5), 76-87.
Amabile, T.M. and Khaire, M. (2008), “Creativity and the role of the leader,” Harvard business review, 86 (10), 100-109.
Coyne, K.P., Clifford, P.G., and Dye, R. (2007), “Breakthrough thinking from inside the box,” Harvard business review, 85 (12), 70-78. (see also podcast)
b) Watch these clips and be ready to discuss in class:
c) Listen to podcasts and briefly comment on one below in the comment section:
Thinking inside the box (see article above)
d) Be prepared to discuss the case that will be posted on the e-campus Since almost all contributed to the blog substantially, we will do that in class!
e) Scan the web or other resources to show fellow students something creative (a picture, short movie, text …anything). Post it on this wordpress page (see assigment f). Briefly comment what creativity means to you and why the issue that you found is creative.
f) – Create an avatar for Second Life at www.secondlife.com (Bring your laptops to class on thursday – if possible)
- Create a wordpress account at http://wordpress.com/ (I have sent you an invite to your student address, for problems either email me or see the FAQ section)
g) (Bonus)Blog about our field trip to munich – get’s you bonus points.
If there are any questions comment, or email!
A brief comment on “Thinking inside the box”:
I really like the kind of rebellious and catchy title, reducing the so intensively advocated and sometimes a bit obsessive everyone-has-to-think-out-of-the-box mentality to absurdity on a very plain level.
Although brainstorming is a renown tool for stimulating creativity, and indeed can lead to good ideas in ideal environments, it is exactly these circumstances mentioned in the interview and article (capability to deal with totally unstructured, abstract situations; lack of direction setting and boundaries; social norms), that tend to make brainstorming sessions in real world situations ineffective, wasting capacity and lacking of usable ideas.
I think that the introduced method is able to overcome quite some downsides of traditional brainstorming sessions, making it more effective, also in terms of meaningful output, and therefore has plenty potential to become prominent in professional working environments.
on “Creativity for CEOs”:
Its very interesting to see people with a technical background having more problems with creative thinking, as stated in the podcast. In fact, I think this can be explained by how the brain is built up. Linear thinking, the one needed in software development, is associated with the left half of the brain whereas creative thinking is associated with the right part of the brain.
As it is rather hard to combine both aspects (logical and creative thinking), most start-ups consist of at least two people. Apple for instance was founded by Steve Wozniak (left brained) and Steve Jobs (right brained). Maybe just as every organization needs operational excellence AND strategic management (challenge current assumptions), every innovations also needs both parts, a novel insight and a profound business-logic…
All this will add up to some interesting developments in the business world. As all the white-collar jobs have been outsourced to India and China, what is left? It is believed that right-brained people will rule the world of tomorrow, just as left-brained people did in the past. What matters in the future is not logical thinking (although still needed) but moreover the ability to put things together in new ways, to come up with novel insights and combine oppositional perspectives. This might be our competitive advantage over China
Two great books dealing with this topic are “The Opposable Mind” (look above) and “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel Pink
- roland
Comment on the podcast with Roger L. Martin concerning his book “The Opposable Mind”:
Giving you a brief summary, Martin shares how successful leaders win through integrative thinking. Integrative Thinking is the ability to constructively face the tension of opposing models and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generating a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new model. This means that Integrative Thinkers are model creators not model takers.
I think it’s a common problem that decision makers tend to look at the options which are at hand and then try to choose the best option. Thus, the approach discussed by Martin seems to be a useful tool to overcome this barrier by additionally using “design thinking” in order to create NEW options. Furthermore, he describes a frequent scenario happening between departments within an organization, where conflicting models exist. Martin explains that usually the clash of models between departments is seen as a big problem and might cause a fight. But instead, the people within the company should be saying, ”oh this is terrific, they are seeing something I don’t see. If we can understand eachother’s viewpoints, there might be a better answer.” Well, here is where my criticism comes into play, because I believe that it is rather difficult to make everyone in the departments think that way and be open to other ideas. What do you think?
Anyway, I found the subject matter of great interest and I would like to end with a good advice from Martin: “Keep testing your own thinking by doing something that you don’t really understand and you don’t really know how it is going to turn out and this keeps nurturing a spark of originality”.
- Clara
Here is the post by t1mt4yl0r:
So what Martin is proposing here is, that most of us look at problems as an axiomatic thing. To solve these problems we pick one of the known options, even if we are not satisfied with the outcome.
His approach is to see a problem as an opportunity and don’t accept the already given option with their flaws. So look at the problematic situation in different ways instead and exchange your view with others. So in the end, everyone has the same extended and multifaceted view in place of the old narrow one. But here is catch, and I agree with Clara, that making your people in the company stop catfighting and trying to come up with shared ideas and solutions is nearly inmpossible in huge companies or even in small ones. Like Martin said, if you see the problem and accept that there is one, you are getting defensive in the same time, as you want to defend your solution (the so called contended model defense). To take this thinking out of people’s heads may take a while…
But as we all know about this issue now, we should give it a try. And maybe we can change the people’s mind in our environment and spread it all over Innsbruck – Austria – the World !!!
I’ll do so for sure.
Brief comment on: Creativity of CEO
Listening to this podcast illustrates three interesting topics related to creativity for me: diversity, bringing in beginner’s mind and creativity & constraints.
Concerning to creativity often diversity is mentioned and I think it can be very valuable in coming up with new ideas. Especially for group projects I think it is effective not only having so called left- or right-brained people (according to Roland) but rather mixed teams.
I liked the two examples of comments which were given. The idea of bringing in new people to the usual innovation process might lead to new and creative thoughts. Sometimes people/teams get kind of routine-blinded and with bringing in beginner’s mind, as it is mentioned in the first comment, the whole process can get refreshed. Progression will follow – for me this in some way also describes innovation: keep moving on! Another thing is that I also think it is really important to accept that failures occur and see them as chance to progress.
Regarding to creativity & constraints, I liked the thought of balancing the constraints (yin yang principle). A total lack of constraints may not always lead to creative ideas; we just have to think of this wise saying: “necessity is the mother of invention”. But on the other side, too many constraints may kill creativity. Thinking of the expression of “work-life-balance”, which seems to be very popular and an often used term in management literature, we could say that this balance is also an important requirement to think and act in a creative way.
Pears and lemons
great insights, indeed inspiring and intriguing.
the first input compels one to consider brainstorming as an idea generation tool, however (and as we all know), it would need to be married to a systematic decision making process that filters ideas, if a company is to excel. so, as stated in input 2 on linear & creative thinking, a team would need those folks who can dream and others who can scrutinize ideas methodically.
going a step further, i suppose the notion on diversity in input 5 is vital: “Especially for group projects I think it is effective not only having so called left- or right-brained people…but rather mixed teams.” I guess every team should have both ‘lemons and pears’, for it to move forward in a rewarding manner. a good example to illustrate this would be Real Madrid. remember how they still failed to win a single title after putting together the Galaticos zidane, ronaldo, beckham, figo and owen. paralysis/failure seemed to be a result of tension over who should hold the candle if they are all equally good or bad.
about changing people’s mind….(well, try changing mine -:). sure, it’s difficult, but i think some common ground can still be found. and compromises can be facilitated by balancing team members.
“I will listen to you especially when we disagree” B.O.
From the three podcasts, I have to say that the first one, “Creativity for CEO’s”, caught my attention the most. I would like to highlight the importance of having events for CEO’s as the one mentioned in the podcast with six workshops and more than 700 participants.
One of the topics discussed at the workshops fits perfectly to the relevance of this type of events for managers. I am referring to the so called “Beginner’s Mind” concept. It addresses the importance of having an open mind about the subject (in this case about management), looking at new problems, bringing new people and keeping refreshing it.
In the everyday life, managers might tend to develop obstacles for the creative process by following paradigms and linear thinking (also commented by Roland). Sessions about innovation besides their daily business activities, where you have to team up with other people and come up with new ideas might be crucial tasks that allow maintaining a “Beginner’s Mind”.
On the other hand, I would like to underline the difficulties that tech-oriented people have to be creative and innovative in contrast to regular managers. I think in part it is up to the type of people, but I also believe that it is a key factor that creativity and innovation as subjects are being each time more treated at business schools. However, it is evident that such topics have had less emphasis in technical studies. Thus it can be clearly understood the importance of looking at creativity as a multi-disciplinary subject that should be considered not only by managers but by the rest of the fields of study.
The most interesting information out of the creativity of CEO for me was that the indians can throw big partys and can be considered as party champions.
.
i think i definitely have to go to india
now seriously, it was interesting as roland stated before, that the tech guys weren’t really able to come up with new ideas and refused all the help from innovation “consultants” like for example mercer. they were just not listening. to me it sounded a little bit like kid behavior. they though they know how to be creative, but in reality they think in a really bounded box (connection to the last podcast).
thinking with a beginner’s mind in order to be creative and that most of the people need some constraints to get the most output is interesting. but you really have to balance and manage these constraints in order to not obviate some ideas which might be interesting as well and open up their mind.
when you look at the political situation in china it is not surprising that everything is government oriented and that the creative guys always refer to the government if something is possible and allowed or not.
in contrary the indians are kind of very chaotic with everybody is talking and interrupting others. thats the indian way of life and that is how they learned to behave from childhood on, the same way as chinese people do it in their way.
it wouldn’t surprise me when india will be more innovative in the future than the chinese because their whole mentality is more predestinated for creativity than the strict constraints in every aspect of chinese live.
The obvious advantage of design thinking over analytical or linear thinking is that it doesn’t confine itself to something we already know. The beauty of this approach is that there are no quick judgments, no rights or wrongs leaving room for fresh, daring ideas. I do think it’s vital for managers (in all fields) to take part in such creativity and innovation workshops because besides their day-to-day operational supervision and decision-making, it is also their job to retain a wider perspective in order to lead the company into the future.
As for the stubbornness of technical managers, one reason to this trait might be that they develop programms which non-Tech people do not easily understand. So they are conditioned to push their way, as they say in German, to ‘force people to their happiness’ until the full benefits are appreciated. If they didn’t try hard enough, we might still not have any computers (!), as back in the early launch days, hardly anybody wanted or could imagine needing one. General managers, on the other hand, are involved with wider scope of tasks, interact more with people and simply need to listen better.
The Opposable Mind gives great insights too. It’s interesting to see that there are certain commonalities across leadership types. In fact, I’ve discovered I might belong to them too! Since I always seek ways to get around choosing only one option, because surely you CAN have the best of both worlds!
Another brief comment from my side on thinking inside the box. I also think that this method can be really valuable in finding new opportunities/ideas for new products. As Kevin Coyne mentioned with brainstorming it is hard to focus on the right ideas but with this new method participants in a work shop can focus on the right questions and let their ideas “fly”. But it is important that participants are well prepared for the work shop and have the needed knowledge to come with the right suggestions.
I also liked his idea of bringing the gasoline station to the car and not the other way around. I would love to have such an opportunity but it would be hard to settle up such a service.
Comment on the podcast: the opposable mind
I think the item about the opposable mind had some very interesting points. The way of approaching a conflicting situation by trying to find a way to combine two opposing models or ways of doing things sounds rather logical when you get it explained that way. The thing is, I think, that in general it is much more difficult for people to think that way, as also mentioned in the interview, people tent to see the problems instead of searching for the solution in a situation. But if you actively approach a situation with an opposable mind the result might be really worth it.
What I actually found more interesting was the mentioning of business people’s tendency to think in terms of options already at hand, or using models already available to them – and then choose the best or least worst solution to the situation (I’d rather like to call it this, than referring to it as a problem, cause when you start calling something a problem the chance that it transforms into a barrier is more likely – and the solution might therefore be even further away or more difficult to find. The word problem sets some kind of block in the head of many people). The general way of thinking in terms of already existing options among business people, makes me thinking about what Sir Ken Robinson approaches in his presentation or comic speech – where he very sophisticatedly get around some very important and interesting topics, e.g. the educational system, the creativity of children, and how we educate people out of being creative. Maybe the educational system should put themselves and their methods more in question and allow students to question the models and ways that are taught at university – in stead of, as too often is the case, just having 200 students in a lecture listening to the “wisdom of the professor”.
A third thing which I find important to comment is the “Prove it!” terminology that is pointed out. This is definitely a creativity killer – if you tell someone to create something new or be creative, but they have to be sure, be able to prove that it will work – you will never get people to really try out something new or make them take risks, which is required for being creative. Creativity does not spring from to strict regulation or boundaries – it might be that the creativity process has to be managed and encouraged, but not tightly regulated and controlled.
A comment on “Thinking inside the box”:
My first impression was: ok, just another management tool… But, after thinking about the concept I really like this approach of idea creation. The basis of the general creative process can be seen as the new combination of existing ideas. But what if Manager always stress to think outside the box? Being a bit provocative, this might implicate that employees should forget about everything they have learned and expierienced. That would be the way how “nothing” is created within a company (inside the box). And if there is nothing inside the box, nothing can come out of it.
What I just want to state is that everybody can be creative to a certain extend. Because of that, very much creative potential exists in a company. Although, it is very important to observe and analyse your environment, managers should be aware of the great innovative opportunities that can be exploited, namely inside the box.
-Christian
About Thinking Inside the box:
Fisrt of all, I think that a permanent feedback and a deep look on what made us (the company, the SBU, the team) efficient is a good way of doing business.
Especially, I find interesting the questions about the customers, its way of consumption (link with the Lead Users of von Hippel).
However, I have some critiques to make:
1° this kind of way of thinking inside the box does not seem to be very new for me. I read the article twice to be sure, and I do not really see the big difference with some processes that are proposed by some creativity firms.
For instance, I remember a seminar directed by a firm called Yellow Ideas (http://www.yellowideas.com/ ), in which most of the 21 questions were discussed within the members. YI was only providing tools.
2° within a company people are sometimes too close to their issues to really see what can be obvious. I think that an external point of view is necessary (new employees, consultants, non-executives).
It could be nice to say that they just need time to think about this or that but top managers have most of the time other things to do. That is the reason why consulting firms are existing. And they can provide an external point of view.
About consulting firms I remember well a sentence from an consultant. He said to us that companies (=their customers), are always looking for consultants who have a deep knowledge of the firm, its environment and its markets. He said to us:”If they are looking for such people, the best people for it are people who are already working for them; and it will be cheaper. They should ask for mixed teams: experienced people and an external point of view that may be naive, but also refreshing and decisive”.
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