Innovation Leadership TrainingDay Four

Evaluation Roles

February 20, 2009

All materials © NetCentrics 2008 unless otherwise noted

Welcome• In this section of the innovation process

training we’ll examine the roles and teams necessary to ensure a complete evaluation and selection

What We Want to Accomplish

Goals for this section

• Our goal this section– Examine the roles and responsibilities within the

evaluation process– Understand the insights and skills necessary– Understand the commitment required to

complete each activity

Key Points

• While a process is important, people define the process and do the real work– There are a number of roles that are necessary

and a range of perspectives and knowledge required

• These individuals need to understand their roles and the work they will be called on to do– The roles must be defined and people recruited

and trained to accomplish these tasks

Roles

• As pre-work for the class today we recommended a white paper on Innovation roles and also Tom Kelly’s book on innovation roles

• Any thoughts or comments coming out of the reading?

Teams and Roles

• There are at least six significant categories of teams or roles in most successful innovation programs– Central innovation team – responsible for organization and

coordination– Trend spotters– Idea generator or submitter – responsible for entering the idea– Evaluator (usually as part of a team)– Selection team / Steering– Sponsor / Adopter

Corporate Assistance

the provost

Central Team

• The central innovation team exists to sponsor innovation and encourage a common approach– They address training and cultural issues related to

innovation– They provide a common innovation process and

framework

Central Team

• This team has several other responsibilities:– Generate and cultivate disruptive ideas– Act as a coach or facilitator to innovation in the

departments– Provide visibility to innovation throughout the

University of the Pacific– Assist in the capture and synthesis of trends and

customer insights

Innovation Locations

CEO

VP VPMkt

R&D ProductGroup

You

VPFinance

ProductGroup

ProductGroup

BusinessPartner

CIT

White Space

Central Team

• Generally, the central team is a small, full time team responsible for creating a consistent innovation capability

• The team may consist of 3 to 5 full time individuals and leverage a broad portfolio of virtual team members or subject matter experts

Trend Spotters / Scouts

• Who is responsible for keeping a close eye on the environmental and demographic trends and competitive movements?

• More importantly, who translates that data into useable information?

Idea Submitters

• This role can be filled by virtually anyone in the company as part of a brainstorm or a campaign

• The role is an exceptionally ad-hoc role, since anyone can be involved and ideation does not belong to one group or individual

Idea Evaluators

• Most idea evaluators will remain in their regular jobs but will be called on to help evaluate or create business plans for selected ideas

• They will need basic training in the innovation program and must provide a considerable amount of time investigating and evaluating ideas

• There may be a consistent set of evaluators and a floating set of subject matter experts

“Brain Troopers”

Selection / Steering

• A steering team or selection team is necessary to identify the best ideas and assign those ideas to departments and provide additional funding as necessary

• These individuals will represent the major departments

• They will review business cases for new ideas and help determine which ideas move forward

Sponsor / Adopter

• An idea can be “sponsored” by a department. In this regard the originating team requests additional review and evaluation, but the idea is “owned” by the sponsoring team

• An idea can be “adopted” by a department. An idea may have been generated but is not necessarily sponsored or owned by a department.

What is required for these roles

• We should consider how the people who fill these roles are:– Evaluated and compensated– Trained to be effective– Assigned to their roles– Provided the processes and information systems

necessary to succeed

Evaluation / Compensation

• Since the individuals who fill these roles are asked to contribute significant time to the innovation process, we must consider their compensation and how they are evaluated

• If the evaluation criteria is not changed, then the individuals will revert to their regular jobs and can’t/won’t participate

Training

• For many of these roles, especially evaluators, it is important to provide training so there is a consistent application of the evaluation criteria and people understand what is expected of them within the process

Advocates

• There is one other role that we believe is exceptionally important

• We call the role an innovation advocate• This is a person who can contribute in many

different ways to an innovation program and is viewed as a leader in his/her department

• The advocate helps and encourages others in his/her team to innovate

Advocate

• Your team is a great example of what we think of when we deploy an advocate program– You are all recognized leaders– You will have a basic understanding of the entirety

of the innovation program– You may be called on to participate in any of the

roles we’ve discussed

• We hope you’ll advocate innovation and act as a facilitator for your team or department

Recapping

• Throughout today we’ve reviewed the innovation process, phases and roles

• Our goal is to introduce you to the entire process, not make you an expert in the process

• We also want you to understand the value and importance of the central team, as well as the key role of part time participants such as idea submitters, evaluators and steering teammembers

Questions?

More Reading

• Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley• Innovation Roles white paper from OVO

Homework

• For our last class, please review:– The Future of Management by Gary Hamel– Think Better by Tim Hurson– Project Red Stripe by Andrew Carey