Is Innovation Audit An Oxymoron?

Marcel Planellas is Professor within the Division of Technique and Normal Administration at Esade and creator of “The Purple E-book of Innovation”

The primary few instances that efforts have been made to elucidate what the Innovation Audit is, the message was not very clearly understood. After one presentation, the query was requested: is not Innovation Audit an oxymoron? An oxymoron is a determine of speech by which two contradictory phrases are used aspect by aspect. “Contradictio in terminis”, in Latin. Some basic examples are: deafening silence, burning ice, discovered ignorance, or darkish mild. Different extra up to date examples may be: single shareholder firms, authentic copy, resounding silence, or pleasant fireplace.

The query got here from somebody who was very accustomed to the enterprise world, and so they claimed that these contradictions between audits and innovation might be noticed inside organizations. Audits are usually assimilated with the financial/monetary sphere and regarded to be a authorized obligation that firms have to satisfy; they’re perceived by many as relatively boring and never very inventive. Alternatively, actions to advertise innovation are related to invention and newness, and they’re continuously linked with the longer term. These actions are considered by the group as leisure actions and labeled by some because the theater of innovation.

Partly, the doubt raised was nicely based. The phrases audit and innovation can conflict with these perceptions that are quite common to seek out in organizations. However upon nearer remark, these perceptions are based mostly on false beliefs and myths which were perpetuated over time. They’re additionally based mostly on resistance to alter, which seems in organizations when innovation is proposed. If the issue of innovation in firms is to be addressed, a few of these prejudices must be destroyed. There’s a must let some contemporary air in, to face again and ask a couple of questions. Why cannot innovation administration be audited? It does not must be a contradiction, as if it have been an oxymoron. Quite the opposite, it will be terribly helpful to periodically verify the corporate’s degree of innovation.

This can be very essential that managers ought to ask themselves pertinent questions. Maybe within the discipline of innovation the solutions have been there, however they have been solutions to the improper questions. Managers and entrepreneurs ought to ask themselves new transformative questions which can assist them to maneuver ahead: Would not it’s a superb administration apply to periodically conduct an innovation audit of the corporate? Wouldn’t it be helpful to have a greater analysis of the corporate’s degree of innovation? Wouldn’t it be useful to pinpoint the components which have led to failures in innovation tasks? Would there be an enchancment if the operation of the corporate’s innovation system was periodically evaluated? May new future traces of innovation for the corporate be put ahead? Why can’t Innovation Audits be performed within the firm?

The reflective pondering produced by questions and the seek for solutions can drive innovation. This can be a strategic exercise that entrepreneurs and managers can not delegate. Every firm has to seek out its personal response, its path in direction of innovation. A startup, a small firm, a medium-sized firm, and a big multinational company usually are not the identical. The mission, imaginative and prescient, and values of the corporate are additionally influential components. As is the profile of its leaders and the tradition of the group, the best way by which it does issues; the sources at its disposal and whether or not it has a course of for innovating. A brand new concern emerges, a brand new query begs a solution: what instrument must be used to conduct the Innovation Audit?

In relation to innovation administration, there’s a large void within the supervisor’s toolbox. Privately, many managers acknowledge that they really feel far more snug in different practical areas of the corporate, the place they’ve better expertise and a greater diversity of administration instruments. In distinction, within the practical space of innovation there usually are not many administration instruments out there to drive innovation. Neither is there a consensus a few methodology that’s extensively accepted or acknowledged. Instruments must be designed or tailored for this new operate. When managers are confronted by innovation administration issues, they should have new administration instruments handy. New instruments that may help them of their activity of driving innovation within the firm.  

The Innovation Audit has its roots within the inventive expertise of elBulli restaurant and it’s being developed to fill this void in instruments for firms that need to innovate; for these organizations presently within the throes of battle between the existential want for innovation and dissatisfaction with the outcomes obtained. This Audit is available in response to the necessity for brand spanking new methodologies and instruments to handle innovation. Over the course of the final six years, the Innovation Audit has been examined in varied firms and organizations in numerous sectors, which has made it doable to nice tune and enhance the preliminary prototype by means of completely different variations. Its raison d’être is to assist managers to innovate. In all humility, it doesn’t aspire to be distinctive. It merely goals to turn into a brand new instrument for firms confronted by the problem of innovating and reworking their organizations.

The Innovation Audit offered in “The Purple E-book of Innovation” is an open instrument which eschews dogmatism and recipes. Every firm has to use it in line with its wants and traits. On the understanding that innovation is a course of pursued each day by the group as an entire; that it may be learnt and developed, evaluating the tasks carried out and attempting to be taught whereas doing. Deciding the place to position the main focus and the extent of innovation it’s wished to realize. Being organized so as to be inventive. Utilizing techniques that make it doable to remodel these new concepts into realities. Managing innovation within the firm appropriately. The Innovation Audit is a brand new instrument to assist firms take motion of their vital dedication to innovation and alter.