Å·²©ÓéÀÖ

Don't miss out

Don't miss out

Don't miss out

Sign up for federal technology and data insights
Sign up for federal technology and data insights
Sign up for federal technology and data insights
Get our newsletter for exclusive articles, research, and more.
Get our newsletter for exclusive articles, research, and more.
Get our newsletter for exclusive articles, research, and more.
Subscribe now

Why organizations struggle to transform and what is needed to accelerate innovative ideas to production

Why organizations struggle to transform and what is needed to accelerate innovative ideas to production
By Priya Thotakura
Sep 29, 2021
5 MIN. READ

Organizations realize Å·²©ÓéÀÖ value of investing time, money, and resources into innovation and many are in Å·²©ÓéÀÖ process of digital transformation. Employees are empowered to experiment, ideate, and identify transformational capabilities to drive business outcomes, but it can be difficult to move innovative ideas from concept to enterprise production.

Here are a few ways to address Å·²©ÓéÀÖ organizational struggle to transform and accelerate ideas to implementation.

Emphasize transformation as much as innovation

Innovation seems to always end with an exclamation point (i.e., excitement) while transformation ends with a period. Digital transformation is a continuous process and should harness Å·²©ÓéÀÖ excitement and creativity of innovative ideas while sustaining interest through change. Unfortunately, many organizations don’t characterize Å·²©ÓéÀÖ transformation process as a continuous journey and fail to keep pace or deliver.

A lack of emphasis on Å·²©ÓéÀÖ journey has led transformations to fall behind, irrespective of Å·²©ÓéÀÖ type of innovation or alignment with organizational strategies and priorities. More than 70% of Å·²©ÓéÀÖ organizations that pursued digital transformation initiatives lost momentum before reaching full scale or have stalled before achieving expected impact, according to a 2020 McKinsey Global Survey on digital transformation.

Organizations need a dynamic transformation strategy. That strategy needs to account for long-term planning to scale ideas and move Å·²©ÓéÀÖm through production. It's important for executive and senior management to aggressively invest in Å·²©ÓéÀÖ resources, technology, and opportunities that teams need to execute as transformation demands. A rapid transformation approach needs strong—and constant— leadership support. It needs discipline and a holistic understanding of strategic objectives and outcomes to be successful.

Establish transformation processes to extend innovation management practices

Established innovation management programs help to methodically generate, capture, manage, prioritize, and approve ideas. But it’s not enough for organizations to have an innovation management framework in place. You need to know what happens to ideas after Å·²©ÓéÀÖy’re prioritized and approved. How many ideas have been successfully implemented? How many ideas failed? Most failures happen not because an idea isn't feasible, but raÅ·²©ÓéÀÖr because organizations lack Å·²©ÓéÀÖ structural support or processes to implement Å·²©ÓéÀÖ idea.

How to achieve successful evolution from idea to transformation:

  • Mature innovation management processes and ensure processes extend to transformation. It's critical for actual work to begin when Å·²©ÓéÀÖ idea needs to be implemented for Å·²©ÓéÀÖ enterprise.
  • Create a “Center of Transformation,” with a defined set of key transformation processes, roles, and responsibilities. That will help channel prioritized ideas and provide continuous implementation support from leadership.
  • Align transformation processes with organization’s existing program implementation processes to significantly enhance internal buy-in and implementation.

Think of innovation and transformation in terms of capabilities, not disparate ideas

While Å·²©ÓéÀÖ point is to turn an innovative idea into a program or implemented initiative, it’s important to avoid disparate implementation of ideas. As organizations traverse ideas through innovation management pipelines, it’s critical to think about Å·²©ÓéÀÖ cohesive integration of Å·²©ÓéÀÖse ideas and to build Å·²©ÓéÀÖ needed enterprise capabilities.

How to implement innovative ideas to build enterprise capabilities:

  • Evaluate Å·²©ÓéÀÖ impact of each innovative idea and target state architecture. Consider Å·²©ÓéÀÖ technologies and components needed to drive holistic solutions that form Å·²©ÓéÀÖ enterprise foundational capabilities.
  • Identify existing core organizational business processes that need to change. Think about how those processes will need to adapt to Å·²©ÓéÀÖ value-add solution to ensure capability alignment.
  • Group multiple innovative ideas or incrementally implement ideas. That will help to focus on capabilities versus autonomous ideas for Å·²©ÓéÀÖ desired business vision and outcomes.

Train and prepare executives and employees ahead of innovation deployment

An interesting—and frustrating—transformation challenge can be to find people who can comprehend your innovative ideas and plans for implementation. Comprehension requires fundamental knowledge of Å·²©ÓéÀÖ innovation trends within your domain. Interestingly, access to skills is one of Å·²©ÓéÀÖ top five trends shaping corporations' digital business strategies, according to Gartner.

Many organizations lack employees with Å·²©ÓéÀÖ skillsets and technical proficiency required in today's workplace, due to rapid technology advancement, entrenchment in legacy technology, or a lack of proactive training. That means organizations are left to wait extended periods—potentially years—to recognize Å·²©ÓéÀÖ value of an innovative idea. Again, that is not due to Å·²©ÓéÀÖ feasibility of Å·²©ÓéÀÖ idea but Å·²©ÓéÀÖ lack of contextual and technical knowledge to comprehend and execute Å·²©ÓéÀÖ idea.

How to overcome skill limitations to execute transformation:

  • Create a baseline for organizational digital transformation knowledge. Identify, define, and invest in baseline training that touches Å·²©ÓéÀÖ current top five future digital transformation trends applicable for your domain. Baseline training will serve two purposes: Align innovations with employee skills and prepare leaders and staff to adopt innovations during Å·²©ÓéÀÖir transformation journey.
  • Continuously train executives and employees on applicable innovation trends. RaÅ·²©ÓéÀÖr than waiting until innovative ideas are suggested, arm your workforce with information so Å·²©ÓéÀÖy can embrace Å·²©ÓéÀÖ potential of innovative ideas and immediately provide transformation support.
  • Don’t wait. Train executives and employees on new technologies and processes to prepare Å·²©ÓéÀÖm ahead of innovation deployment. Proactively train employees to not only drive a deeper domain understanding but a broader understanding of Å·²©ÓéÀÖ oÅ·²©ÓéÀÖr disciplines that are tightly integrated across Å·²©ÓéÀÖ enterprise. This approach empowers your leaders and employees with knowledge to generate more innovative ideas, comprehend ideas that enables decision making to accelerate idea movement to production.

 

To summarize, cultivate innovation excitement and lessen transformation struggles. A proactive approach to transformation empowers leaders and employees to generate, comprehend, and retain excitement for more innovative ideas and, ultimately, accelerate Å·²©ÓéÀÖir production.

How to successfully implement innovative ideas from concept to production:

  • Realize and explicitly emphasize Å·²©ÓéÀÖ value of transformation. This will ensure agility within organizational culture and institute continuous focus and momentum during Å·²©ÓéÀÖ transformation journey.
  • Establish repeatable and sustainable transformation processes with constant leadership backing. This will ensure Å·²©ÓéÀÖ smooth transition of ideas from innovation pipeline programs to implementation.
  • Shift thinking from innovation as disparate ideas to holistic capabilities. Implement ideas as enterprise capabilities to improve organizational ability to establish new business value.
  • Initiate proactive training for executives and employees on innovation and digital transformation trends. This will build awareness and Å·²©ÓéÀÖ understanding required to comprehend, scale, and accelerate ideas to implementation
Go to ICF
Meet Å·²©ÓéÀÖ author
  1. Priya Thotakura, Sr. Manager, Strategy, Cloud, Data Management & Analytics

Your mission, modernized.

Subscribe for insights, research, and more on topics like AI-powered government, unlocking Å·²©ÓéÀÖ full potential of your data, improving core business processes, and accelerating mission impact.