FORGE – a method to identify and define the action plan to develop an enterprise

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Miika Kajanus17.5.2012

miika.kajanus@savonia.fi

Contents

• Problem• Background theories• Forge method• Examples• Lessons learnt so far

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OIS – pedagogical approach

• OIS (Open Innovation Space): Learning by innovating

• Students, teachers, working life experts, end-users and international experts working, innovating and learning together

4Working life and partners

OIS-thinkingmultidisciplinary, student orientated,

functional, proximity to working life, collective

Teaching and studying RDI-activities

Study-module

s

Practical

training

Thesis work

R&D-projects

Productized

services

Tasks and commissions, which are jointly planned, implemented and evaluated for real use as functional

ensembles!

Savonia E&I

EES IPD WPS

FACULTY OF BUSINESS, TOURISM AND CULTURE

FACULTY OF SOCIAL

SERVICES, HEALTH

CARE AND RURAL

INDUSTRIESFA

CULTY O

F

ENGINEERIN

G AND

TECHOLOGY

Organization structure

RDI organized in Competence Networks:- Energy, the

Environment and Safety (EES)

- Integrated Product Development(IPD)

- Welfare Products and Services (WPS)

- Entrepreneurship and Innovation = Savonia E&I

Problems

• How to find out what should be done in order to develop an enterprise?

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Problems

• How to integrate services provided by different service providers, like private consultants, public development organizations and financiers, universities and associations, to one solid development path?

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Background theories

• Value focused thinking by R. Keeney– “Let Your Objectives Be Your Guide!”

• Interrogative model of inquiry by J. Hintikka– “Asking questions is the best way to find new

knowledge!”

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Value focused thinking references

Smart Choices, Keeney, Hammond and Raiffa, Harvard Business School Press, 1999.

Value-Focused Thinking, Keeney, Harvard University Press, 1992.

Decisions with Multiple Objectives, Keeney, and Raiffa, Cambridge University Press, 1993 (previously with Wiley, 1976).

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Decision Making - A Fundamental Life Skill

• Making good decisions is one of the most important factors that determines how well you meet your responsibilities and achieve your personal and professional goals

• Learning how to make good decisions is therefore a fundamental life skill

• You can practice and improve this skill by learning a good decision making process (emphasizing how you decide, not what you decide)

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The Elements of “Smart Choices”

• Problem• Objectives• Alternatives• Consequences• Tradeoffs

• Uncertainty• Risk Tolerance• Linked Decisions

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Objectives

Objectives specify what you hope to achieve

Refine with a short phrase of a verb and an object

Examples:• Minimize environmental damage• Maximize profits• Save money• Make my spouse happy

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Objectives: The Basics

• Objectives play a central role in decision making (“value-focused thinking”)– If you don’t care, you don’t have a problem– If you don’t know where you’re going, you might

end up somewhere else

• Objectives guide all phases of the decision making process (including what information to seek and what other people to involve)

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Let Your Objectives Be Your Guide

• The process of thinking through and writing down your objectives goes a long way towards making a smart choice

• Objectives help you determine what information to seek

• Objectives can help you explain your choice to others

• Objectives determine a decision’s importance and, consequently, how much time and effort it deserves

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The Art of Identifying Objectives

• Step 1: Write down all the concerns you hope to address through your decision

• Step 2: Convert your concerns into succinct objectives

• Step 3: Separate ends from means to establish your fundamental objectives

• Step 4: Clarify what you mean by each objective

• Step 5: Test your objectives to see if they capture your interests

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Techniques to Identify Objectives

• Use a wish list• Think about alternatives• Imagine possible consequences• Describe problems and shortcomings• Identify goals, constraints and guidelines• Use different perspectives• Think about strategic objectives• Ask ‘why’ for each objective• Do individual thinking first

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Organize Objectives

Means Objective: an objective whose importance stems from its contributions to achieving another objective.

Fundamental Objective: objective that defines a basic reason for caring about a decision.

Example:• Means Objective - arrive home from work early• Fundamental Objective - make my spouse happy

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Example: Means-Ends Objectives Network for Internet Commerce

Product Availability

Reliable Delivery

ProductVariety

Better PurchaseChoicesImpulsive

Buying

Ease of Use ComparisonShopping Accuracy of

Transaction

Access toInformation

ProductInformation

Fraud

Misuse ofCredit Card

SystemSecurity

Misuse ofPersonal

Information

PersonalTravel Personal

Interaction

Fundamental Objectives To Maximize Customer Satisfaction

• Product Quality

• Cost

• Time to Receive Product

• Convenience

• Time Spent

• Privacy

• Shopping Enjoyment

• Safety

• Environmental Impact

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Take Charge of Your Decision Making

Who should make your decisions?

Who should choose the decision problems you face?

Decision problems are typically brought about by:• Others (competitors, bosses, family)• Circumstances (nature, accidents, markets)

Proactively create your own decision problems.• These problems are really decision opportunities.• Facing (appealing) decision opportunities may negate the need to face

(unappealing) decision problems.• Value-focused thinking helps you be systematic about creating decision

opportunities.

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Value Focused Thinking and You

• Value focused thinking can help you• Clarify your strategic objectives

– Guide your decisions– Help create decision opportunities

• Articulate fundamental objectives for specific decisions– Better understand the decision– Create fruitful alternatives

• Thinking about objectives is hard, but it gets easier– Practice makes perfect (better at least)– You learn more about yourself– You begin to see a coherent pattern

• Why bother?– To recognize and identify decision opportunities– To create better alternatives for yourself– To have an enduring set of guiding principles for your life

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The Most Important Point

The only way to exert control over your life is through your decision-making. The rest just happens to you. Be proactive, take charge of your decision-making, strive to make good decisions and to develop good decision-making habits. You’ll be rewarded with a fuller, more satisfying life.

Interrogative References• Hintikka, J. 1962. Knowledge and Belief: An Introduction to

the Logic of the Two Notions. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

• Hintikka, J. 1974. Practical and Theoretical Reason – An Ambiguous Legacy. Teoksessa Hintikka, J. Knowledge and the Known: Historical Perspectives in Epistemology. Dordrecht: Reidel.

• Hintikka, J. 2007. Socratic Epistemology. Explorations of Knowledge-Seeking by Questioning, Cambridge University Press.

• Hintikka, J. & Remes, U. 1974. The method of analysis: its geometrical origin and its general signifi cance. Dordrecht: Reidel,.

• Hintikka, J., Halonen, I. & Mutanen, A. 2002. Interrogative Logic as a General Theory of Reasoning. In Johnson, R.H & Woods, J. (ed.) Handbook of Practical Reasoning. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

Interrogative model• Questioning can be seen as a general process of

knowledge-seeking. That is, different types of knowledge-seeking processes can be analyzed as questioning processes.

• Questions can in a natural way be understood as requests for further information. That is, a questioner lacks some information, and he or she addresses the question to some source of information he or she thinks is a good source to get the information he or she needs.

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• Scientific inquiry - knowledge-seeking, argumentation, and reasoning - can be seen as a series of questions and answers.

• Scientific inquiry is a methodical search for knowledge; hence the question answer processes have to be characterized as strategic processes – goal-tracking processes.

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Interrogative model

• The interrogative model has been a general approach to reasoning in the history of philosophy and science. The most famous example is the Socratic questioning method. The very idea is that a questioning process is a strategic process leading the argument to the intended goal.

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Interrogative model

• To acquire the goal Socrates asks questions that are yes-no questions, that is, questions whose potential answers are ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

• Aristotle further developed the interrogative model. Aristotle developed a general strategy to interrogative processes (interrogation games). Moreover, he separated two classes of answers that occur in the questioning processes: answers that are necessitated by the earlier answers, and all the other answers. His study of the answers of the first class started the study of logic. However, systematically speaking, logic is not a separate field of study, but a central part of the interrogative model

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Interrogative model

Problem

Sollution

Deduction Knowledge source

Assistant questions

Questoning strategy

Background information

The main question

Possible world

• Defined “possible world”, is assumed to be true. (Is not true at the moment, but however, can be true same day!)

• Background information is assumed to be true in the defined “possible world”

• When speaking about innovations, we are speaking about uncertain future. Defining “possible worlds” helps to make it visible.

Forge

Method for identifyinig development needs and defining

the action plan

MissionForge (workning name) is a methodology, which is used to structure the development needs into acton plan jointly with the organiszation. The method makes the needed actions concrete and prioritize them. Applying the method takes from one to two meetings taking all together two-four hours time (+ homeworks time)

A BA = present situation of an organization

x

X= actions needed to reach the objectivesB= objectives

Phases

1. Definig the main question: we are in the situation A, and we want B, what X should be done?

2. A wishlist: make a list of all possible actions (means, activities, objectives)

3. Structure a list as a means – end map4. Assess the importance of the actions5. Construct the Action Plan

Situation A

1. Being situation– What: need or idea– To whom: Enduser and idea owner, their history and

how is it going to chance– How: continuity, earning logic, business model– Who are involved: Enduser, the whole value chain

competitors, partners• What ”possible worlds” are needed in

implementation?

Objectives B

Objectives of different actors, so called value propostion• Objectives of the organization• Enduser (customer) obectives and benefits• Objectives of the value chain actors• Your own objectives

Actions X

Search and define means or actions which are needed or can be done in order to meet the objectives B in the situation A • Issues which should be taken into account: means, objectives,

alternatives, consecuenses, problems, restrictions and so on…• Different knowledge sources can be used (experts, service lists • For example: clarifying the market needs, to prove the techology,

competitor anaysis, IPR, design, team building, finance, business plan, …

Objective B

Situation A

Technology proven Market needs Business Model

RD-actions

Team buidling

Idea owner’s worksStudents works

Consultants X

MAP: means - ends

Action Plan

• Select the actions to be implemented• What are the actual autcomes of the actons?• Task deviation: who do what? • Timetables• Needed reseources

In practice

I. 1. meeting(2 h): define the main question, situation A and objectiveB, outline wishlist X

II. Homeworks (about a week): expert interviews, convert wishlist into actions, mean – end relationships, importances of the actions, outline action plan.

III. 2. meeting (2h): finalize the means – end hierarchy, estimate the importances and make a action plan

Examples

1. Small enterprise building a franchising concept

2. Small enterprise building ethical jewelry products

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Lessons learnt so far

• The demand driven activities: the innovation ideas are search together with the enterprises based on the needs and ideas of the enterprise and its clients and involving world leading experts into the process. The approach is supporting the traditional science and technology oriented policy activities.

• Business models seems to have an increasing role in commercialization and open innovation

• In Savonia’s case, the regional university liaison (or innovation coordinator = broker) has had the key role in organizing the activities.

• Savonia’s experiences indicate that there is a need and potential for the approach.

INNOVATION COORDINATOR CARACTERISTICS

• Innovation coordinator actively search for working life partners and implement customer oriented commissions by organizing students, experts and other services for the firms

• A natural concept for the facilitation of innovation capability building is to integrate it with innovation development. As its best this leads to a virtuous process in which challenging innovation goals demand a multi-faceted creation of capabilities for innovation development. In turn, improved capabilities enable adopting even more challenging development goals which stimulate a new level of capability building. This process can lead to a success spiral that accelerates capability building overlapping with innovation development – a continuous and diversified innovation flow as an outcome.

• Customers do not necessarily know what kind of services they do need• Innovation coordinator needs the capability to facilitate the discussion so that it leads

to the identification of the customer oriented development need• That necessitates good knowledge of innovation and business, good interaction

capabilities and psychological skills• Necessitates good knowledge of higher education

Benefits

• Strong theoretical background• Easy and fast to implement and understand• Brings multiple actions into same map • Combines the needs of different actoris in a

logical entity• Makes the situationality concrete• Makes the possible world visible and helps to

create new things• Makes the needs of new knowledge visible

Lessons learnt

• The meeting participants: key persons from enterprise, analysists and possible experts

• Analysists asks questions and write down the notes. With assistant questions the issues are made clear.

• Use different sources on knowledge.• FORGE not a discrete method, merely a way of

thinking