ESF project 4895: Meer werk maken van innovatie voor werkgelegenheid en arbeidsmarkt

ANALYSIS FICHE OF LITERATURE

TITLE OF LITERATURE: Building an innovation factory

AUTHOR : A. Hargadon et al

TYPE OF AUTHOR (academic, consultants, practitioners, other): academic

COMMISSIONER OF LITERATURE (IF APPROPRIATE): Harvard Business Review, May-June 2000

ORIENTATION OF LITERATURE (check with X):

  • innovation in general: X
  • innovation by / within the public sector:
  • innovation oriented towards citizens:
  • innovation oriented towards social and employment issues typically dealt with by ESF:

LESSONS LEARNT REGARDING:

  1. How to define innovation e.g. in types
  1. How to formulate an innovation strategy (in terms of scope, types of innovation, requirements)
  1. How to organize innovation as a process in different stages?
  1. How to define outputs of innovation e.g. in terms of idea, concept, prototype…?
  1. How to make decisions regarding progress of an innovation?
  1. What roles exist for different actors in the innovation process?What competences are required for these roles?

Knowledge brokers:

1)Capture good ideas: as they span multiple locations, sectors, disciplines, they find “old“, existing ideas in operation elsewhere and play with it in their minds (how and why it works there, what is good and bad, how it could be used in a different context). They may also do more focused work on specific issues (collecting research, doing some research of their own, eg observation studies of users).

2)Keeping ideas alive: rather than filing ppts and docs in online systems, it is more important to have good “yellow pages” , listing who knows what on what. A rapid response team can link anyone with useful knowledge to anyone with a problem within 24 hours. Those willing to share knowledge should be recognized for their efforts.

3)Imagining new uses for old ideas: organize meetings, brainstorms, informal conversations where people share problems AND solutions.

4)Putting promising concepts to the test: early enough, drop it when evidence is against it. Keep the lessons for use later on (learning why an idea failed is key knowledge when looking for solutions in the future.

They are relentlessly curious, don’t care where ideas come from as long as they work –they reach out for help and ideas often-, they are not arrogant but humble while still confident.

  1. How to organize interaction with external stakeholders (open innovation)?
  1. Specific tools that are explained (list briefly for each tool in what stage, by which role, why, how it is to be used).

a)Tool 1: