Assignment 8 – Your Innovation Barriers

TASK
For the six organizational challenges, analyze which poses a barrier to innovation within your own
business. Answer three questions for each of the challenges:
 Is it a barrier for you?
 Why do you think it is a barrier?
 How could you improve it?

I work for a media company with 108 years on the market, with an innovation
laboratory that creates editorial products, we based our method on design think. And
we apply the following lifecycle.

1. Leadership
Analyze: How do you learn to lead without deciding and let go of the HiPPO rule, where
the highest paid person’s opinion determines things?

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 Question Your Response
Is this a barrier for your
business or company? I work at https://www.elcolombiano.com/ a 108 years media company
with multiple publications and it mostly depends on the sale of Advertising,
if there is a very big ego in my organization and this makes the leaders with
the highest positions make the decisions. It is common to shut up new
ideas, or challenges to the status quo.

If yes, why do you think

it is a barrier? It is unfortunate because it cuts the creativity and the ability to build from
the trenches, many of the great ideas are born in the field, and if we do not
lead in all areas because we will lose the opportunity to evolve.

What do you think you

could do to improve it? Spaces should be created to coo-create and make decisions collaboratively,
What steps might you secure meetings should be fostered to propose multiple points of view.
take to try and solve Secure meetings consist of being able to talk, propose, and participate
that barrier or lessen it without barriers or hierarchy, It would also implement ways to qualify and
within your own choose ideas for multi-vote, thus forming a meritocracy and eliminating
organization? the ego-system.

2. Situating Innovation
Analyze: Whether to insulate an innovation team or try to involve the whole organization,
and how to manage that choice? Is that a challenge for your business?

Question Your Response

Is this a barrier for your
business or company? I see it as a barrier to having an isolated innovation unit, in our company
this unit is called Ecolab and has become a closed circle that does not allow
for open innovation, participation is limited so the scope and impact is
limited. Although this unit of innovation is internationally recognized, it has
failed to infect the entire organization in what it can do and achieve.

If yes, why do you think

it is a barrier? I think innovation needs to be open to the whole company and may be
extended to other companies in the ecosystem, great products and
developments have been achieving by co-creation and having the
opportunity to onboard more point of views, isolated and elitist innovation
can be counter-effective.

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 Question Your Response
What do you think you
could do to improve it? I would open the innovation method to the whole company, I believe
What steps might you innovation can thrive from the doorman to the CEO, when the creation of
take to try and solve new ideas and products are opened to the company the mindset and
that barrier or lessen it cultural change can move forward every cell of the company and
within your own participate in the innovation dynamics motivate every single member of an
organization? organization.

3. Test and Learn Culture

Analyze: Is your business empowering everyone in the organization to be curious, act on
that curiosity, and to seek out answers like Greg Linden did at Amazon?

Question Your Response

Is this a barrier for your
business or company? If it is a great barrier, mistakes are punished, so the fear of experimenting
exists.

If yes, why do you think

it is a barrier? It is a barrier that slows the organization into being curious in looking for
different options to solve problems if fear takes the culture to propose
new answers.
What do you think you
could do to improve it? To improve this situation I would allow starting small experiments that
What steps might you demonstrate to the company the value generation, if we achieve small
take to try and solve victories we can show that it is worth experimenting, making mistakes,
that barrier or lessen it learning, and growing we can generate many new ideas and achieve
within your own different results.
organization?

4. Risk Aversion
Analyze: Does your business or company only test ideas that you are certain will succeed?
Is it a challenge or a problem that you have too low a risk tolerance within your firm for
the kind of innovation you are trying to achieve?

Question Your Response

Is this a barrier for your When there is aversion to experimentation it is common for it to be
business or company? aversion to taking risks, if you fear failing because you will be reprimanded
or will judge you why your proposals are not fruitful, you will avoid
contributing again, no one wants to be questioned.

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 Question Your Response
If yes, why do you think
it is a barrier? Innovative companies need to experiment and fail, it is necessary to take
risks, know that we will have to fail to learn, that to understand success
and get us to bear fruit it is necessary before identifying the points of
failure before continuing, it is important to make a quick mistake and move
forward. If you don't take risks, it's hard to learn so finding the simplest
answer is taken as the safest way.

What do you think you

could do to improve it?
What steps might you It would perform many experimentation pilots to show that we can get it
take to try and solve wrong quickly, show that building an MVP is the easiest way to test the
that barrier or lessen it hypothesis, and apply agile methodologies like SCRUM or Kanban.
within your own
organization?

5. Un-killable Innovation Projects

Analyze: When an innovation initiative is not working out, do you have a process for
ending that initiative?

Question Your Response

Is this a barrier for your
business or company? This is not a barrier, as in my company we learned to unplug the project
when it is not working, every project is evaluated based on predefined
success criteria it can be money, revenue, impact, number of clients,
readers, etc and if the criteria are not meet in the certain timeframe the
project is pulled and we move forward to the next project.

If yes, why do you think

it is a barrier? Companies have to learn to fail and pulling the plug is necessary to release
resources and focused on the next big thing.

What do you think you In some cases we have to learn to prioritize and unplug the idea from the
could do to improve it? early start, we learned to abandon things that are not working but is
What steps might you difficult to accept the failure and understand that learning is to start a big
take to try and solve win if we capitalize it.
that barrier or lessen it
within your own
organization?

6. Celebrating Failure

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 Analyze: Do you find that no one in your company wants to be associated with efforts that
don’t succeed? Is this because there is no reward for being the person who takes on risk
for the benefit of the overall firm?

Question Your Response

Is this a
barrier for For us accepting something fails and learning from the mistakes is not common, as I
your stated we have an innovation lifecycle and the project needs to move forward and
business or scale or aborted when it fails, but when the project fails no one wants to be in that
company? report.

If yes, why
do you think Failure needs to be accepted as a common thing, I mean if we fail and learn we are
it is a not failing at all, this makes it hard to experiment and propose new things, if we
barrier? propose sure ideas and projects we will get the same common results.

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 Question Your Response
What do you
think you
could do to I do encourage people to fail to propose a reward for lessons learned and the sharing
improve it? of them to the organization, which means if a project team correctly tracks their
What steps retrospectives and shares them with other teams some sort of rewards can be
might you obtained ie Free time, special lunches etc.
take to try
and solve I will propose the ship retrospective where the island is the goal, the sails propel us,
that barrier the wind is what motivates, the anchor is what is not working well and the iceberg is
or lessen it the risk and problems we have to cross. In this way as teams we will understand,
within your failure, risk, anchor is something common and open to talk about,
own
organization
?

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