Andrew Prior

Innotiimi in a nutshell• Consulting and training company: specializes in

– releasing and focusing tied-up energy in organizations

– Innovation related consulting to help organizations feel and perform better

– participative meeting methods – get the silent ideas out

– program for assessing Innovativeness

• What’s in the name?

– INNOTIIMI = Inno Inno (Innovation, Enthusiasm, Inspiration) + TiimiTiimi (Team or Group)

• Established 1984 in Finland

• Ownership & Finance

– privately owned by the consultants

– no debt, healthy financial position

• Offices

– HQ in Finland (near Helsinki),

– subsidiaries in Sweden and France

• Managing Director

– Dr Adriaan Bekman (Dutch), International Senior Consultant

• Personnel 50+

– appr. 40 consultants in Finland,

– others in Sweden, Norway and France

• Key clients

– large companies and organizations in different fields

Andrew Prior

Innovativeness and creativity

• Innovativeness belongs mainly to the organisations. It is connected to the way how organisation works

– Innovativeness is ability of organisation to produce new solutions, which have financial importance

• Creativity belongs to the individuals. It is connected to the way, how people think and work. And You can learn it.

• Creativity is starting point to the innovativeness

Andrew Prior

What is innovativeness? How can we measure it?

Innovativeness

Channels- innovation group

- IT systemsClimateAtmosphere- leadership

- work methods

Steering- vision / strategy

- developmentprojects

Innovativeness is built from three parts:

- Steering (direction, focus)- Channels (collecting, selecting and developing ideas)- Atmosphere (motivation and courage)

Innovativeness is an abilityof the organization, not the individuals.

The biggest weakness found in the 2004 survey is the lack of functioning channels (resources and systems) to enable and remove bottlenecks for

innovation

There are big differences in the enablers and bottlenecksof Innovation between organizations.

The systematic development of Innovation should normally start with • clarifying the situation (survey)• building the Innovation process (channels)

Andrew Prior

The Process for Creating an Innovative Product & Technology Strategy

1. Direction =Focus/challenges

Vision /strategy

6. Decision about

development

5. Developing ideas

4. Selecting ideas

Development projects

Innovation

Group

2. Generating ideas

3. Collecting ideas

Weak signals, new business concepts

Andrew Prior

Systematic Innovation / Idea Refining Process

1. Steering: Focus & challenges: where are new ideas needed, are they derived from vision and strategy?

2. Generating ideas: using methods and tools to help individuals and teams to produce new ideas

3. Collecting ideas : collecting and storing ideas in the idea bank

4. Selecting ideas: choosing potential ideas to be developed further

5. Developing ideas: developing chosen ideas further.

6. Decision on Development: Product & technology strategy is agreed. Making “GO / NO GO” decisions based on developed ideas

7. Development of Projects: Implementation and/or Product Development Projects using gating processes

Andrew Prior

ImplementingEvaluationIdeas? !

Agreeing onaction

Problem, Goal, Challenge

Using Participative Creative Problem Solving Methodologies

Andrew Prior

Quantity is wanted

• Normally old ideas first come to mind from the memory or ideas from situations which are similar. After that maybe you get ideas by logical thinking. And after that is possible to reach the subconscious and get new ideas by associations.

• It is worth to trying to get more ideas although it seems that there are only a few new ideas

• You can use idea stimulus (SCAMPER)

• There is a certain relationship with diamond ideas and basic ideas. Our own experience is

– You need ten basic ideas for one good idea

– You need ten good idea for one diamond idea

– You need a hundred basic ideas for one diamond idea

– 100 normal ideas > 10 good ideas > 1 diamond idea

• prohibition of criticism is important so that idea chains can arise

Andrew Prior

SCAMPER

Substitute

Combine

Adapt

Magnify, modify, minify, maxify

Put in other use

Erase

Rearrange, Reverse

Andrew Prior

Free-wheeling is welcomed

• Try to vary the thinking of participants

• Many times you can see in the group how new ideas arise from the idea that somebody said before

• Very often the best ideas arise from a misunderstanding or hearing in a wrong way what somebody has said

• Idea stimulus can help you to reach new idea chains

Andrew Prior

Innotiimi can help with

• Organising the Innovation Survey and Analysis of Results with Management

• Development of innovative organizations– Innovativeness as a company value and developing the innovativeness of the organization by means of

below described methods

• Development of the innovativeness of the personnel– Leading innovative people, understanding and utilising the diversity of people in development projects,

beliefs and attitudes to support innovativeness, development of the innovative skills of the individuals and use of innovative working methods.

• Training in innovative working methods– Managing various working methods based on the creative problem solving at individual or group level:

OPERA, GroupExpo, Wish, Idea walks, introverted brainstorming, brainstorming, divergence and convergence etc. The most suitable working methods for the customer will be chosen from a large number of different tools.

• Consulting in innovative systems– Development of the product development processes, channels and systems for the innovation

management

• Facilitation of innovative development sessions / development programs– An experienced facilitator helps a team or a working unit to produce better results (for instance

development seminars, innovative steering group meetings, idea generation for the product development, development of new processes or working practises)

• Steering and coaching in the implementation of the differentiation strategy– Steering the definition process for the differentiation strategy and converting differentiation factors into

development projects Contact: Andrew Prior tel: +33 6 21015896

email: andrew.prior@innotiimi.com