Innovation and Creativity in your Organization
Many organizations or production companies want to be innovative and their R&D to be more productive. There is also an irony that some R&D are created for Tax saving purpose. If the latter is the case, there is noway the innovation will flow in.
If the boss wants his team to be innovative, he or she should be innovative in the first place. There is a need to be up to date on the business around the globe and not just in their local area. Globalization is the order of the day.
The boss could identify an Innovation Leader to lead their R&D team.
Usually the Research ideas are great to start with in any companies but when it comes to the development, it is sluggish.
If you do not know which type of vessel you are making, there is noway your clay is going to take some good shape. Probably name your child before it is born, that is the essence of innovation.
What are the things carried out by other R&D units of the competitors or what possibly they might be doing right now needs to be imagined if not spied into by the company first. Maybe your competing work might fail in most possibility unless you have a business edge or money and Research team power. Otherwise, the game is to think of something which others won't even be trying.
Include in your team not just some subject experts but experts from other fields which you may not think as appropriate. If pharmaceutical product is what you require, organic chemists, chemical engineers or biologists and biotechnologists could be the obvious choices but can you include some of your marketing staff into the brainstorm or even your family members! None ask a patient what they want but if you do, you might strike something new.
Please see to that there is "Brainstorming Sessions" with the help of experienced Facilitators, periodic technology up gradation workshops, idea marathons, best ideas award for the R&D staff, training in Innovation methodologies such as TRIZ,teoriya resheniya izobretatelskikh zadach in Russian or "the theory of inventive problem solving" a Russian Methodology developed by Genrich Altshuller (1926-1998).
Though the author worked in leading R&D institutions, there was never a program to address the innovation need or Innovation Training. Even at the University Research the teachers tend to say "Think out of the box", while not even explaining what the box is.
The box remains as a mysterious black box for the students. Sitting in your cabin, a box, you cannot discover the world. Mind boggling environment needs to be created in your company. Think of some "Innovation Chamber", but not to become a box again.
A refreshing tours and picnics could motivate your research staff.
The author is available for Innovation Training for the R&D staff and could be contacted at enquiries@indiainnovation.in.