« Strategy versus Execution | Main | Style - the Content of the Mark »

July 31, 2007

The DnA of Knowledgebased Producers (Pt. 1)

Pretty much everyone recognizes "R&D" -- research 'n' development -- as a discrete activity with a special place in supporting the future prospects of the business.

Even so, the explosion of literature on how hard companies find it to make profitable sense of their desire for "innovation" certainly suggests that the expected output of R 'n' D is too often either missing or mystifying.

The current official wisdom is that these companies need to step up to an innovation *process*. This is pretty difficult to argue against, since management will likely not finally be tolerant of any sustained activity that can't be designed as such. So the emphasis shifts quickly to wondering what the process should be like, especially in terms of how to link it to other "normal" incumbent management processes.

If there is a flaw in this attitude, it is a fundamental flaw. By definition, innovation must be derived from having a supportive perspective on a change to a designated status quo. But since "perspective" and "status quo" both call for awareness based on presumptive ideas (which we'll call knowledge), the problem to solve about innovation is not to generate "auto-magic" extension of *activity* called R or D. Instead, the problem is first to understand why innovation would be the true nature of any outcomes, and then to look into how to breed it or at least capture it as it occurs.

It is in that light that the framework below provides the corrective lens spotting the place where innovation would emerge on the scene. It represents an important shift away from the presumption of R 'n' D and moves instead on the basis of Design and Application, or D 'n' A.

This organizational DnA breaks out the issue with a cross reference of the two key elements of design (concept and form) versus the two key elements of application (specification and implementation).

The shorthand supported by this framework is for representing the range of circumstances that might be "innovative" in character. Typically, these circumstances will include (a) new items on old contexts, (b) old items in new contexts, or (c) new items in new contexts.

Said even more briefly, when something old or new is used in a new way, there is apparent innovation. But this situation of associating some item or function with a usage will have included interesting particulars. For example, how did the idea for the association arise? What criteria established the practical acceptance of the association? How was it recognized that a new association -- proposed or found -- was possible and/or meaningful?

What the DnA framework exposes is the way that the intersections of design and application generate innovation and position it for leverage. Here are just some of the observations that match the framework:
- Inspiration: borrowing details from an existing specification provides us with inspiration.
- Invention: reconnecting the details in a designated arrangement generates our invention.
- Innovation: even without a prior invention, the decision to implement the inspiration can drive forward progress in an explicit attitude of accommodating new methodology and goals. (e.g., inernal organization or reorganization)
- Orchestration: to actually execute the accommodation, the arranging of feasible adaptations and options generates the output that can "go to market"... Without this orchestration, there is little reason to expect that either an invention or an innovation would have a channel of delivery to appropriate recipients. (e.g., external organization or reorganization)

One test of the framework is scalability -- meaning that it works, and works the same way, regardless of whether the trip from concept to delivery is only the few microseconds needed to blurt out in a useful language a sudden original thought, or instead is the many months in a cycle of product or corporate reorientation in its industry's marketplaces. Either way, the producer's initial efforts, in DnA, may not necessarily result in innovation; but given the material effects of Design (already perhaps "keepers"), we can always try to move from the framework's left to its right in Application and reach different and/or more "marketable value". These movements, including Form (e.g. models), Specification, and Implementation are easily recognized as domains of knowledge that are typically extant in the organization regardless of how well they are currently managed. Meanwhile, a producer may move within the framework in many different actual paths; one of the most typical paths to innovation means taking a concept through invention and various orchestrations to arrive at an innovation; but this is not the only path necessary or possible.

This knowledge-based perspective in no way displaces RnD from a position of critical importance. Instead, it helps to clarify that RnD is "instrumental", yet is not the point at which target value is primarily generated. The products of RnD (engineering) are not ready to be valued; instead they need to go on through to DnA where the value gets defined through the knowledgeability of the producer.

The important pattern of progression that hosts the emergence of innovation along with other productivity will begin with a *motivation* to manipulate the status quo. Something about the way things already are leaves something to be desired -- in other words, a perceived "need"... Illustrated left to right, the full progression goes on to look like this:

[End of part one. All images copyright 2007 Archestra / Malcolm Ryder]

Posted by Malcolm Ryder at July 31, 2007 11:17 PM