Catalign Quarterly – June 2013

Catalign Quarterly is an attempt to put together insights relevant for fostering a culture of innovation in organizations – both for-profit and not-for-profit. Through articles and interviews we explore principles, practices and policies that help organizations become more innovative.

Theme for this quarterly is “8 steps to innovation – in action”. Since its release in March our book “8 steps to innovation: Going from jugaad to excellence” has gone places from corporates to Government departments.  I and my co-author Prof. Rishikesha Krishnan were invited by several dozen organizations to (a) spread awareness of systematic innovation (b) assess innovation maturity and (c) help in action planning for the next steps in innovation journey. We know that these are early days for “8 steps” adoption. However, following articles give a glimpse of how “8 steps” was put into action.

3 characteristics of “8 steps to innovation” framework: This article highlights the 3 characteristics of 8 steps approach – (1) simple measurement (2) culture sensitivity and (3) bias for experimentation.

Building a challenge book (step-2): An example from an IIMB session: We believe that creating a challenge book for your team / organization is an important step in your innovation journey. In this article, I analyse a challenge book created in an IIMB session from three perspectives (1) emotional appeal (2) concrete goals and (3) hooks for imagination.

Using navigation matrix in the innovation journey: “8-steps” approach provides a 3x3 matrix for action planning. One axis is “What to improve?” and the other axis is “How to sustain the change?” Depending upon what you want to improve and the nature of change, “8 steps” proposes several options. This articles presents a few scenarios and how the navigation matrix was used in creating a response.

5-level assessment framework based on 8 steps to innovation: In the past few months we got an opportunity to participate in the assessment of innovation maturity of several for-profit and Government departments. Some of these were informal or quick assessments. We believe over 70% of corporate and over 80% of Government departments in India are either at level-1 (Jugaad) or level-2 (Foundation) or somewhere in between.

Book review:

3 things I liked in Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: In this article I present the three things I liked about this book: (1) Emphasis on identifying the challenge (2) the role of Proximate objectives and (3) Treating strategy as a hypothesis. Finally, I discuss some places where it intersects with 8-steps approach.