[ad_1]
The drive to innovate is strong across the Australian business landscape, but many are unsure about their first steps. This is according to a new analysis by ThinkPlace.
The strategic design consultancy surveyed more than 100 executives in the Australian public and private sectors, including CEOs and other senior executives. The goal of the report was to identify the state of innovation across the country—especially efforts toward social improvement—at a time when it may be more important than ever.
“Innovation is important because people’s lives and their quality matter. While there may be a temptation to stop our innovation efforts in this time of global crisis, it is imperative that we actually do the opposite,” explained Nina Terrey – Global Partner at ThinkPlace and a member of the recently revamped executive team.
It is a promising sign that most organizations are now considering social issues such as healthcare, aged care, circular economy and sustainability as top priorities – ones that pose direct challenges to business and society. Almost 80% agree that these problems are more complex than ever before, while many more believe that solving these problems will require a different approach than what has been tried before – an innovative approach.
Less than 90% of people were prompted to take action to start innovating and building solutions. At the same time, businesses seem grounded in reality and aware of their limitations. When dealing with problems that affect the entire society—in some cases the entire world—it is hardly possible for a single organization, no matter how large or versatile, to find the solution.
The age of collaboration
Collaboration across businesses, sectors, authorities and the entire ecosystem of stakeholders is key. The importance of collaboration is noted by 85% of businesses, while more than 90% of public sector leaders emphasized that they cannot solve their organization’s problems alone.
So the desire for innovation is in place and so is the thinking. The problem is that organizations lack the confidence or certainty of how to proceed. “There’s a clear hunger for collaborative innovation, but leaders aren’t sure which voices to convene to approve and create change around the challenges that matter. Even if leaders could gather the right voices to support innovation, they would not be sure they have the skills, tools and knowledge to succeed,” explained Danny de Schutter, Chief Innovation Officer at ThinkPlace.
This uncertainty is visible in all respects. Almost half of all organizations don’t know the people or groups they need to work with to solve problems – either for their business or for society as a whole. Less than half are willing or confident to take the place of driver of innovation in their specific sector. Even fewer said they would know what to do if they found themselves working with colleagues, competitors, and stakeholders.
ThinkPlace is a consultancy that helps bridge this gap between intention and innovation. Through a series of innovative projects, the company has demonstrated its ability to systematically transform vision into reality. Using its experience, the company sets out the steps for this process in its report.
Interestingly, collaboration is nowhere near the beginning of this process. In fact, the first steps are to develop a vision of the future and identify a specific challenge that must be overcome in order for that future to prevail. The next is to learn all about this challenge, including the patterns that go into its existence.
Only then should organizations create partnerships based on this comprehensive understanding of the problem and its alignment with future goals. The problem still remains what to do once the partnership is established. The ThinkPlace report introduces the concept of “innovation frameworks” here.
“Breaking down the overall challenge using innovation frameworks allows us to break down the problem into manageable components, define success criteria and create agile teams, take actions on specific problems, report and measure progress,” the researchers explained.
“These frameworks will work in parallel, but with structured opportunities for cross-pollination, demonstration of progress, and continuous iteration and iteration based on feedback and testing. In this way, we confidently move from challenge to idea to prototype and then to successful, scalable innovation,” they added.
[ad_2]