Mobilizing Innovation Change
McKinsey recently posted an interesting article that lays out a formula to spur innovation in an organization. The article examines the 100,000 lives campaign that encouraged hospitals to become innovative in attacking preventable error deaths. I encourage you have a look at the article (free if you register on McKinsey's site), but it demonstrates that a implementation of a successful innovation strategy can follow this roadmap:
- Name the Problem - Grab peoples attention by giving the problem a simple to remember name. The 100,000 lives campaign used "Needless Deaths". That grabs your attention.
- Define a Clear Goal - The goal should embrace all aspects of SMART. A clearly defined goal helps focus an organization.
- Break Out the Hard Count - Take that goal and break it down in the individual actions and/or resources that you will need to achieve the goal. The actions/resources makes it easy to understand what needs to be done.
- Use Affordances - Give people concrete, easy to understand tools to attack the problem. Ease of use allows them to quickly use it and enhance it with their own innovations.
- Share - Share the victories and defeats with all participants. Diffusion of knowledge will accelerate achievement of the goal.
