Ultimately, an organization’s leaders are responsible for ensuring that innovation activity delivers value. This requires great agility, persistence, and the capacity to respond to many people’s needs at once. To achieve scalability and sustainability in any important [innovative] processes companies regularly establish management systems, says Moisés Noreña.
“Sometimes [management systems] can be cold and detached … and, often, debilitating to creativity,” says Noreña. “But if we’re smart, innovation leaders can also use these management systems to embed and preserve processes that allow for the inspiration, collaboration, and acceleration required by innovation. If we want innovation that drives creativity and continuous improvement to become a regular business process, we must treat it as such and establish mechanisms that ensure its operation.”
Moisés’ eighth commandment stresses the importance of management systems that are both operational and organizational. He dives into examples of four categories to consider—metrics, stage-gate process, communication strategy, and competency models— and makes several suggestions on how to successfully implement management systems.
“Remember that management systems will vary depending on the strategic goals and the needs of the business, so be prepared to adjust them as the level of maturity of your organization grows,” says Noreña. “The best way to do this will be to ensure your management system initiatives are fully aligned to the strategic plans.”
Next up: Commandment #9, or you can watch this video in Spanish.
