Innovation Leadership Training
Day Four
Evaluation Roles
February 20, 2009
All materials © NetCentrics 2008 unless otherwise noted
Welcome
• In this section of the innovation process
training we’ll examine the roles and teams
necessary to ensure a complete evaluation
and selection
What We Want to Accomplish
Goals for this section
• Our goal this section
– Examine the roles and responsibilities within the
evaluation process
– Understand the insights and skills necessary
– Understand the commitment required to
complete each activity
Key Points
• While a process is important, people define
the process and do the real work
– There are a number of roles that are necessary
and a range of perspectives and knowledge
required
• These individuals need to understand their
roles and the work they will be called on to do
– The roles must be defined and people recruited
and trained to accomplish these tasks
Roles
• As pre-work for the class today we
recommended a white paper on Innovation
roles and also Tom Kelly’s book on innovation
roles
• Any thoughts or comments coming out of the
reading?
Teams and Roles
• There are at least six significant categories of
teams or roles in most successful innovation
programs
– Central innovation team – responsible for organization and
coordination
– Trend spotters
– Idea generator or submitter – responsible for entering the
idea
– Evaluator (usually as part of a team)
– Selection team / Steering
– Sponsor / Adopter
Corporate Assistance
the provost
Central Team
• The central innovation team exists to sponsor
innovation and encourage a common
approach
– They address training and cultural issues related
to innovation
– They provide a common innovation process and
framework
Central Team
• This team has several other responsibilities:
– Generate and cultivate disruptive ideas
– Act as a coach or facilitator to innovation in the
departments
– Provide visibility to innovation throughout the
University of the Pacific
– Assist in the capture and synthesis of trends and
customer insights
Innovation Locations
White Space
CEO
CIT
VP
VP
Mkt
VP
Finance
Product
Group
R&D
Business
Partner
You
Product
Group
Product
Group
Central Team
• Generally, the central team is a small, full time
team responsible for creating a consistent
innovation capability
• The team may consist of 3 to 5 full time
individuals and leverage a broad portfolio of
virtual team members or subject matter
experts
Trend Spotters / Scouts
• Who is responsible for keeping a close eye on
the environmental and demographic trends
and competitive movements?
• More importantly, who translates that data
into useable information?
Idea Submitters
• This role can be filled by virtually anyone in
the company as part of a brainstorm or a
campaign
• The role is an exceptionally ad-hoc role, since
anyone can be involved and ideation does not
belong to one group or individual
Idea Evaluators
• Most idea evaluators will remain in their regular jobs
but will be called on to help evaluate or create
business plans for selected ideas
• They will need basic training in the innovation
program and must provide a considerable amount of
time investigating and evaluating ideas
• There may be a consistent set of evaluators and a
floating set of subject matter experts
“Brain Troopers”
Selection / Steering
• A steering team or selection team is necessary
to identify the best ideas and assign those
ideas to departments and provide additional
funding as necessary
• These individuals will represent the major
departments
• They will review business cases for new ideas
and help determine which ideas move forward
Sponsor / Adopter
• An idea can be “sponsored” by a department.
In this regard the originating team requests
additional review and evaluation, but the idea
is “owned” by the sponsoring team
• An idea can be “adopted” by a department.
An idea may have been generated but is not
necessarily sponsored or owned by a
department.
What is required for these roles
• We should consider how the people who fill
these roles are:
– Evaluated and compensated
– Trained to be effective
– Assigned to their roles
– Provided the processes and information systems
necessary to succeed
Evaluation / Compensation
• Since the individuals who fill these roles are
asked to contribute significant time to the
innovation process, we must consider their
compensation and how they are evaluated
• If the evaluation criteria is not changed, then
the individuals will revert to their regular jobs
and can’t/won’t participate
Training
• For many of these roles, especially evaluators,
it is important to provide training so there is a
consistent application of the evaluation
criteria and people understand what is
expected of them within the process
Advocates
• There is one other role that we believe is
exceptionally important
• We call the role an innovation advocate
• This is a person who can contribute in many
different ways to an innovation program and is
viewed as a leader in his/her department
• The advocate helps and encourages others in
his/her team to innovate
Advocate
• Your team is a great example of what we think
of when we deploy an advocate program
– You are all recognized leaders
– You will have a basic understanding of the entirety
of the innovation program
– You may be called on to participate in any of the
roles we’ve discussed
• We hope you’ll advocate innovation and act as
a facilitator for your team or department
Recapping
• Throughout today we’ve reviewed the
innovation process, phases and roles
• Our goal is to introduce you to the entire
process, not make you an expert in the
process
• We also want you to understand the value and
importance of the central team, as well as the
key role of part time participants such as idea
submitters, evaluators and steering team
members
Questions?
More Reading
• Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley
• Innovation Roles white paper from OVO
Homework
• For our last class, please review:
– The Future of Management by Gary Hamel
– Think Better by Tim Hurson
– Project Red Stripe by Andrew Carey