EVERYDAY INNOVATION : A Practical Guide to Establishing and Operating an Innovation Management System in Your Business

Innovation is the harnessing of ideas for the commercial benefit of a business, to drive future growth and profitability. A formal innovation management system brings a discipline to the process of creating ideas, picking the best of these and proceeding to develop the chosen ideas into marketable products or services.

EVERYDAY INNOVATION is a no-nonsense book that sets out 10 easy steps to establishing and operating an innovation management system in your business, with a comprehensive, but easy to follow, description of each step. Real-life comments show how companies close to home approach innovation. A Glossary explains all the buzzwords and terms used in innovation management, while the final chapter presents useful contacts to help you get started.

It is essentially an innovation management DIY toolkit!

Contents

Figures

Tables

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword / Sir Richard Needham

1: Introducing Innovation Management

Some initial thoughts

Innovation defined – what it is, and what it is NOT!

Why innovation is important in any business

Comment: The importance of innovation in our business / Evelyn O’Toole, CEO, Complete Laboratory Solutions

2: Setting Up an Innovation Management System in Your Business – Quickly

The key principles of an innovation management system

10 steps to establish an innovation management system

Comment: Generating and maintaining an innovation management culture in a large established company / John McSweeney, Director of Innovation, ESB Group

3: What to Focus Your Efforts On

Selecting an appropriate innovation framework and matrix

Establish what you want out of the process

Decide how much to spend on the process

Design a system to suit your business

The triple bottom line concept

Comment: What should we focus on and why / Rebekah Lyons, CEO, Portobello Institute

4: Who Should Innovate?

The innovation groups in your ‘ecosystem’

Innovation structures

Choosing the appropriate structure for your business

Setting goals, objectives and a dynamic mission for your team

Building an innovation culture

Comment: What structure did we use? / Ciaran Herr, Purchasing director, Horseware

5: Where and When To Innovate

Portfolio management

Comment: Getting the balance right / Catherine Wheelan, HR manager, FBD Insurance

6: Ideas Management

Sourcing ideas

What information do you provide to employees and other stakeholders on the process?

How are ideas prioritised?

Comment: Which areas did we prioritise and why? / John McConnell, Director of Innovation & Quality, An Post

How ideas are turned into projects

Innovation attrition rate in the review gates

Protecting your ideas

Project tracking

Project management

7: Measuring Performance

Measuring performance through tracking Key Performance Indicators

Valuing your innovation pipeline

Comment: Valuing the innovation pipeline / Mark Bowkett, Managing director, TellLab

8: The Role of Standards

National standards

European standards

International standards

Comment: Standards in IMS / Maurice Buckley, CEO, NSAI

10: External Funding Support

General sources of direct grant funding: Republic of Ireland

General sources of direct grant funding: Northern Ireland

General sources of direct grant funding: Europe

Comment: Funding and support for your IMS / Denis Hayes, CEO, IRDG

Tax credits for your innovation spend: Republic of Ireland

Tax credits for your innovation spend: Northern Ireland

Comment: How we maintain records in order to obtain funding and claim tax relief for our R&D activities / Anthony Owens, CEO, Arran Chemicals

10: Risk Management

Key risks – and how to manage them

A formal innovation risk management process

Comment: Risk management in an IMS / Noel Crawford, Manager, Innovation Centre, IBM Technology Campus

11: Review

Comment: Reviewing our IMS / Seamus Connolly, CEO, Fastank Engineering

12: Innovation in Practice

Innovation closer to home

International best practice

Comment: Innovating in a large multinational organisation / Mark Coyne, Innovation director, Dalkia/Veolia

14: Your Next Steps

Where to Get Help

Comment: Innovating in an SME / Gary Carroll, CEO, EpiSensor

Finally

Glossary of Terms

Comment: Getting to grips with the jargon / John McCurdy, Business Innovation Director, Richard Keenan and Co

Epilogue / Gabriel D’Arcy

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

EVERYDAY INNOVATION is a ‘must read’ for all those who wish to embed a culture of innovation in their businesses.

Prof. Brian MacCraith, President, DCU

Hugh is passionate about innovation and its role in delivering growth. In his book, he cuts to the core in explaining what involved in driving innovation and defining the simple practical steps you need to undertake as a business manager / owner. This book differentiates itself in that it creates an easy-to-understand guide and framework on how to effectively implement innovation in your business.

Sean McNulty, CEO, Dolmen / Chairman, IMSC

Hugh captures the simplicity of the innovation management process yet succinctly details its importance in business today. A great read.

Donal Tierney, CEO, Bimeda / chairman, IRDG

At last, a book on innovation management that SMEs can refer to in order to put a structure on creativity so as to get repeatable success throughout their business.

Mark Fielding, CEO, ISME

EVERYDAY INNOVATION is a comprehensive yet easy-to-read book on setting up and operating an IMS in your business, irrespective of your size or sector. I particularly like the ‘jargon buster’ section, which helps to take the mystery out of innovation and explains the terms we have all heard (but were afraid to ask what they meant) in simple English!

Bernie McGahon, InterTradeIreland

… the book comes alive with practical tips gleaned from Hugh’s own experience of leading innovation in a reluctant but co-operative organisation. Practical guides to such subjects as incentives, grants and tax reliefs, as well as pointers to recognised centres of best practice, make this a valuable companion for any business leader.

Gabriel D’Arcy, CEO, Town of Monaghan Co-Op

EVERYDAY INNOVATION by Hugh Henry provides a clear and informative how-to guide for establishing and managing an innovation management system within the context of an established business. Dr. Henry is uniquely qualified to write on this subject, having served since 2008 as Director of Innovation and R&D at Bord na Mona plc, where his efforts are helping transition this large, long-established Irish enterprise from its traditional businesses, heavily dependent on peat and fossil fuels, to new more sustainable energy and ecotourism related initiatives. His experience developing a highly effective innovation management system at Bord na Mona provides the foundation for this timely book.

This book will be extremely valuable to all senior business leaders, as well as managers and directors of innovation, new product development and R&D within established firms. While the book is particularly relevant to business leaders in Ireland, given the regionally-specific guidance on topics such as tax schemes and the local nature of the company-specific examples provided such as FBD Insurance, An Post and Arran Chemicals, its accessible style provides insight and practical guidance generally applicable to business leaders globally. While the book is positioned in a crowded space - a book search on Amazon.com for “innovation management” returned 36,734 results - the book’s specific how-to focus, Irish and European-centric context, and, as the title suggests, guidance on “everyday innovation” efforts all broaden and target its appeal to readers. This book belongs on the shelf with Clay Christensen’s The Innovator’s Solution, providing practical and executable advice on how to create disruptions (as well as more modest innovations) and thus reduce the possibilities of being destroyed by such change.

While outlining 10 steps to establishing an innovation management system (IMS), the book acknowledges that: “There is no magic formula to follow. However … an IMS is about collecting ideas, prioritizing them and then setting up a review gate, project tracking and project management system.” The need for the market exploitation of the resulting outputs is emphasized and a call for pragmatic consideration in this area is made.

Incremental innovation is encouraged as part of a portfolio approach to the innovation process - as the book states: “The game-changing discovery may indeed happen but it is through the piece-by-piece or incremental innovation … that the best results will be seen.”

If a company is not able to directly exploit an innovation, licensing or other paths to market are encouraged to enable realization of economic value.

The book also tackles organization issues, emphasizing that innovation must begin at the top, noting that: “If the CEO does not protect and reward the process, it will fail.” The pros and cons of different organizational models are considered, although the need for a core team, with goals aligned to overall business objectives, to drive the process is suggested.

The book, by design, takes a process view of innovation, suggesting process is critical to building an innovation culture: “To instill a culture of innovation, you must first introduce innovation behavior – and for that, you need the correct processes in place.” Process is also identified as critical to the management of the innovation ideas funnel with five key criteria seen as important considerations to the stage gate process and “fail quickly and cheaply” objective: strategic considerations, feasibility, cost-benefit, market need and resources.

This book was written within a local, regional and international focus on innovation process standardization which receives far less focus in the U.S. As the book notes, there are national standards such as the “Guide to Good Practice in Innovation and Product Development Processes” established by the National Standards Authority of Ireland in 2009 and European Standards (CEN 16555) and International Standards (ISO 279) for Innovation Management Systems at various stages of development. The book does not position its recommendations within the context of these standards, although their reference at a minimum suggests they informed the book’s recommendations.

In closing, the book is a quick read that serves as a valuable guide to the creation and successful management of an innovation management system. As noted in the book: “Innovation is the process of converting an idea or invention into a product or service that creates value which customers require and are prepared to pay for…” suggesting this new work is, in itself, an innovation of great interest and value to its readers.

Dr. Pat McHugh, is the Director of the IE Brown Executive MBA program and lecturer in the School of Engineering at Brown University in the U.S. He has over 25 years of industry experience with technology companies, including executive roles at three venture-backed firms selling data security solutions. Earlier initiatives include building a call center automation services practice for GTE (winner of the GTE Chairman’s Leadership Award) and an online financial services offering while at IBM Credit Corp. He is the recipient of two patents in the area of call center automation and holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Materials Engineering from Columbia University, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and a Ph.D. in business from Bentley University.