Unit 2 Discussion: Leadership and Sources of Innovation

Student Resource

Chapter 6: Sources of innovation

Chapter 6: Sources of innovation

• In the following PowerPoint slides you will find the key headings from CHAPTER 6 together with the main illustrations, tables, etc.

• There are also slides summarizing the key messages in bullet-point fashion, and a wide range of activities which you can use to help students explore around these themes.

• Finally there are some reflection questions which can be used as the basis for discussion or assignments.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter you will develop an understanding of:

where innovations come from – the wide range of different sources which offer opportunities to entrepreneurs

the idea of ‘push’ and ‘pull’ forces and their interaction

Innovation as a pattern of occasional breakthrough and long periods of incremental improvement

the importance of different sources over time

where and when you could search for opportunities to innovate.

Sources of innovation

Knowledge push

Accidents

Design-driven and experience innovation

Benchmarking / learning from others

Need pull

Process improvement

Crisis driven and extreme contexts

Frugal innovation

Mass customisation

User –led innovation

Recombinant innovation

Regulation

Prototyping and experiment

Futures and forecasting

Core themes and material

from the book

Where do innovations come from?

Figure 6.1 of the book indicates the wide range of stimuli which can begin the innovation journey

Sources of innovation

• Knowledge push

• Need pull

• Product innovation

• Process improvement

• Crisis-driven

• Frugal innovation

• Mass customization

• User-led innovation

• Prototyping

• Benchmarking

• Recombinant innovation

• Design-driven innovation

• Regulation

• Futures and forecasting

• Accidents

Knowledge push innovation

Types of product innovation

Figure 6.2 of the book indicates a typical breakdown, and we could construct a similar picture for process innovation

New to the world products

New product lines

Line extensions

Repositionings

Cost reductions

Incremental product improvements

Disruptive innovation

Mass customization

Table 6.1 of the book summarises options in customization (after Mintzberg and Lampel)

Mass customization (continued)

Mass customization (continued)

Mass customization (continued)

Design driven innovation

Source: Based on R. Verganti (2009) Design-Driven Innovation. Harvard Business School Press

Meaning

Technology

Incremental change

Radical change

Radical change

Incremental change

Market pull (user centred)

Technology push

Design-driven

Summary

Innovations come from many different sources

Innovations don’t just appear perfectly formed – and the process is not simply a spark of imagination giving rise to changing the world. Instead innovations come from a number of sources and these interact over time.

Sources of innovation can be resolved into two broad classes – knowledge push and need pull – although they almost always act in tandem. Innovation arises from the interplay between them.

Summary

There are many variations on this theme – for example, ‘need pull’ can include social needs, market needs, latent needs (squeaking wheels), crisis needs, etc.

Whilst the basic forces pushing and pulling have been a feature of the innovation landscape for a long time, it involves a moving frontier in which new sources of push and pull come into play.

Examples include the emerging demand pull from the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ and the opportunities opened up by an acceleration in knowledge production in R&D systems around the world.

Summary

Users are a rich source of innovation ideas and can help accelerate diffusion

Regulation is an important element in shaping and directing innovative activity – by restricting what can and can’t be done for legal reasons, new trajectories for change are established which entrepreneurs can take advantage of

Accidents, crises and extreme conditions can provide unexpected triggers for novel directions

Videos

• There are several videos which can help explore and present the key themes of the chapter:

• knowledge push and need pull as sources of innovation

• examples of knowledge push innovation

• different kinds of need pull innovation:

• Incremental improvement • Radical innovation • Disruptive innovation

Videos

Other films which explore in more detail:

• User-led innovation (part 1) • User led innovation part 2 • Interview with Pedro Oliveira talking about

the Patient Innovation platform, a way of mobilizing user innovators in the healthcare space

• Mandy Haberman talking about user innovation

• Interview with Helle-Vibeke Carstensen talking about innovation search in the public sector

• Continuous improvement at Veeder Root • Finding innovation opportunities in

healthcare settings • Emma Taylor and employee innovation • The birth of bike • The birth of mp3 • Sweeping the floor with innovation

Videos

• Interview with Michael Bartl of Hyve, talking about the use of ‘netnography’ in the search for new innovation opportunities

• Interview with Tim Craft (audio and video) talking about his experience as a user- innovator

• Interview with Catharina van Delden and her company Innosabi which mobilizes external communities as a source of innovation for businesses

• Interview (audio) with Helen King of the Irish Food Board talking about their use of futures methods to search for innovation opportunities

• Interview with Lynne Maher, UK National Health Service talking about user experience as a source of innovation

Disruptive innovation

• Follow the link below to watch a video briefly explaining Clay Christensen’s theory of Disruptive Innovation

• https://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=mbPiAzzGap0

• Follow the link below to watch Ted Graham’s TED Talk, ‘Three things I learned about disruptive innovation as an UberX driver’

• https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4L30uIkMeMM

Human- centred design

• Follow the link below to watch David Kelley’s TED Talk ‘Human-centred Design’

• https://www.ted.com/talks/ david_kelley_on_human_ce ntered_design

Blogs and podcasts

• There are several podcasts and blogs picking up key themes around managing innovation as a process and some of the key variables:

• Birth of the bike

• An innovation birthday party

• Flirting with ideas

• Frugal innovation

• Recombinant innovation