Today, we're going to look at how innovation can be framed as a process. And a process is a very interesting lens for understanding how an innovation works. And so, the way in which we're going to look at innovation is to try and look at it through a process lens. And so, a process, you can start by thinking of a process is a series of steps. Is very structural and people play roles in each of those steps of the process. And we know that processes can be systematically modeled and we know that a process produces results and effects. There's an input and there's an output. And so, because innovation is been studied by many disciplines. And viewed in many different ways of seeing a process. We're going to try and standardize a way in which we can look at innovation as a process. So we're going to start by looking at four different ways that innovation actually happen, four different innovation processes. And so, we're going to look at Innovation as New Product Development. Innovation is New Technology. Innovation as a Management Improvement. And Innovation as a Service Improvement. And we believe that by looking at these four different ways that innovation happens as a process we can put together a template or a set of common steps that you can use as a lens to understand how innovation works as a process. So let's start by looking at a new product development path. There's a whole series of steps here from strategic planning to allocation of resources to generating a product concept. All these things are in a standard sequence for a new product development path. You test the feasibility, you refine the product, you get it ready for manufacture, you manufacture it and get it out into the marketplace. And then, you position it for sale to your customers. And then, finally, the last step in the process is really the support, the product because it often it has problems and your problem solving and your improving it. And so, there's always that service aspect of it. So consider examples of some new product. A consumer product that you might be familiar with. It has come into the market place in the last year. And then, imagine the path that those products took to get into the market place. Ask yourself how might something like materials or manufacture affect that innovation process. And all of the different steps, things like materials or manufacturing steps might have made a difference in that process. Another way to look at innovation process is through a new technology path. It triggers and starts with the recognition of a breakthrough technology of some sort or sometimes a recognized user need that brings about a breakthrough in technology. And so, once that happens, you formulate an application idea, you resolve any technology problems with that application, you translate the idea into some kind of a solution, you develop and refine the solution, and you see that adopted in the marketplace by users. And so, when you think about new technology and process, consider examples of new technologies that have recently come into the marketplace, things like nanotechnology, even maybe something that has been around for a while, flash technology, and hard drives. All these things have come into the marketplace through technology breakthroughs. And so, ask yourself, how do these technology breakthroughs serve to enable those new innovations? And where did the technology originate? Did it originate in a lab? Was it in somebody's garage? And how have these breakthroughs actually shaped the innovation process as a series of steps? So another innovation that we're going to look at for process is a management path. In the management practice improvements, people recognize opportunities within the organization for improving a management process. They generate an idea or they address a need, and they test the idea for feasibility inside the organisation, and they refine it for acceptability by the people who are responsible for carrying it out, and then they convince employees as users. In this case, management practice innovation typically are carried out inside of organizations to make something work better and to make the organization run smoother. And so, you have to convince employees to accept it. And so, ultimately by getting employee acceptance and backing, you get the innovation adopted. So thinking about that, consider examples of some management practice innovations you might have experienced as an employee, or a manager, or even as an observer of organizations you do business with or you are a customer for. And ask yourself, what internal forces triggered the need to make that management improvement? What was it that was going on? What problem surfaced? That that organization decided to carry off a management innovation. And then, ask yourself, how did employees influence the firm' intention to make that management innovation? Or was it customers who influenced that? Another innovation path is the service innovation. And here, there is a discovery of some operational problem or inefficiency that reaches the marketplace and has an effect on customers. And so, often, there is some way to explore what the nature of the problem is, generate some alternative solutions, and test for customer acceptance because this, in the case of service, you're servicing customers. And so, you're outside of your organization, you're in the marketplace, and so by testing for customer acceptance you seek a buy in from, not only your customers, but the employees who have to deliver that service and finally you implement the service innovation. And so, some questions to think about here, consider examples of service innovations you have experienced as a customer, from the customer perspective. So you would have experienced service innovation in the banking industry and the airline industry, all kinds of different industries where you are receiving a service. And so, ask yourself, what force triggered the need to make that service improvement? How would users or customers have influenced the firm's innovation process? So some take aways here about innovation process, and framing innovation, Is that the most important processes that there are out there we can frame as a pattern of steps. Now, we're going to be talking about those in some detail, but by analyzing the sequence and pattern of known innovations, you can begin to construct a process template for managing a new innovation.
