As an innovation manager the world is your oyster because you can be deployed in any sector, in any company and in any field! However, to be successful in the world of innovation you do need to have certain distinctive characteristics and skills. But why exactly?
Interdisciplinary knowledge: As an innovation manager, you must be equipped with both business and technical know-how since you will be working together with colleagues from many different areas of the company and will also need to be familiar with their tasks.
Method and process know-how: You must master operational processes and methods and know when and how to implement them correctly. Only then will you be able to successfully shape the future of a company.
Management skills: As an innovation manager, you will be expected to lead interdepartmental, cross-hierarchical and crosscompany projects and teams and to display leadership qualities.
Finely-tuned social skills: You will work with a wide range of people, which is why it is important for you to hone and constantly improve your soft skills.
Moreover, as an innovation manager it is also important that you are able to be extremely enthusiastic about new ideas. You will need to be inquisitive, flexible, motivated and committed, because as they say, “no pain, no gain”! You must be charming enough to market your thoughts and ideas. You need time because you will be very much in demand and will work a lot! And one characteristic is key: courage! Because if you are courageous enough to think outside the box, to overcome obstacles and to tread new paths, you will make a successful innovation manager. Haven’t you ever heard that before? Innovation is still a fledgling management discipline – which is precisely the reason why only very few firms have a person or department with innovation management as their job description. That does not mean, however, that companies are dispensing with innovation managers, rather that the title itself is simply still somewhat alien. In every company you will find employees who are involved in innovation – even if only subconsciously. After all, who isn’t trying to make money from new and improved ideas? Market feedback and our own experience over recent years have shown that innovation is already happening, but still in a very (how should we put it?) clumsy, random way depending on the individuals involved. That means that there is a great deal to be done in this area. Companies must learn to appreciate that innovation management is no random discovery of innovations, but that future success can be planned for in a targeted, conscious and systematic way. Innovation management as a subject area is being taken seriously and valued as a topic for the future. People who have acquired this broad and generalist training will be welcome in any sector and in a variety of function areas, including:
Innovation management
Product management
Research & development
Technical sales
Production management
Process development
Product development
Business developement
etc.
The success stories of our students just go to show that the Degree Programme in Innovation Management is a degree programme with a strong future bearing great potential for personal success! After all, it is true that the early bird catches the worm...
I just got headhunted for a role as an Innovation Manager at a large multinational --- it got me thinking: what are the core skills to manage innovation in a large team? I thought I'd put together a job description. Responsibilities:
The position is built around a team of unconventional people who find and fund exciting concepts through an early-stage development process Need to navigate through a land for which there is not yet a map (requires curiosity to pursue the interesting without getting distracted by the unimportant) Must establish productive plans for novel ideas --- need to be comfortable with ambiguity and thrive on change Must create new technology opportunities, new directions for the enterprise, and positive futures for people all around us
Key Accountabilities:
Recognise and stimulate unusual ideas with high potential impact Use personal networks to link ideas and people that might not otherwise interact Apply unique skills and interests to develop new opportunity domains Ask tough and insightful questions Provide constructive coaching and advice to projects Drive projects through to completion
Requirements:
Proven experience in the ability to understand wide-ranging, out-of-theordinary, technical and business proposals in depth Experience in organising and facilitating brainstorming workshops to bring new ideas to fruition Experience in working on novel projects and proven ability to bring ideas from conception to completion Experience in showing commercial sense, contract structuring and negotiation, and business strategy development
Proven experience in helping other people turn their ideas into reality; work with multiple fluid team structures which requires trust and integrity
What
do
you
think?
Would
you
qualify?
What could you do to build you skills to be able to apply for a job like this is in 10 years?
Gestores de la innovación
Para tratar de dilucidar cuáles son las competencias que requiere y la misión del gestor de la innovación, n disciplina de la innovación".
La tarea básica del gestor de la innovación es facilitar las relaciones entre agentes, organizativa y personalme para que las cosas sucedan. La gestión de la innovación no busca la innovación, sino que hacer que las org
El objetivo es conseguir llegar a ese estado evolutivo organizacional en el que es toda la organización innovación y participación de todos los miembros de la organización, destinando a la innovación recompensas
Este es el estado ideal, dentro de una escala de evolución organizativa en el que el nivel inicial es de la im ésta depende de individuos muy concretos).
El gestor de la innovación tendrá que diagnosticar el estadio evolutivo en que se encuentra la organización. A partir de ahí, tendrá que gestionar y monitorizar la organización, el contexto, el espacio y el tiempo para que ésta innove. ¿Cómo introducir la innovación en una sistema? Por medio de las rutinas. El comportamiento de una organización se expresa en sus rutinas (la parte observable en el comportamiento de una organización). Contar con rutinas creativas es fundamental para poder hablar de innovación. Las principales tipos de rutinas de una organización innovadora son:
Estas rutinas están muy relacionadas con las capacidades con las que ha de contar una organización innovadora y que analizamos en el apartado anterior. La organización conseguirá adquirir y desarrollar las mismas estableciendo estas rutinas en su funcionamiento: - Rutinas para captar señales (observar): seleccionar las señales que nos interesan, sin acumular información por el mero hecho de hacerlo (vigilancia estratégica). - Rutinas para dar significado a las señales (crear): analizar cómo podemos beneficiarnos de la situación que hemos detectado por medio de la observación. - Rutinas para generar respuestas (construir): hacer que emerja la nueva realidad que hemos decidido crear. Conceptualización, desarrollo y conexión con el cliente de nuestro proyecto. - Rutinas para actuar (repetir): Llevar a cabo el proyecto. Ejecutar. - Rutinas para evaluar (exteriorizar): Analizar el impacto logrado y estudiar cómo puede mejorarse el mismo. El gestor de la innovación deberá guiar la organización hacia la innovación con ayuda de este mapa de los dominios de la innovación:
Si nos basamos en las métricas de este modelo, el trabajo del gestor de la innovación podrá ser juzgado estudiando la mejora que ha logrado en la relación input-output en cuatro ejes: - proyectos. - aprendizaje. - cartera. - organización.
Working as Business Innovation Manager CHANGE IS THE NORM NOWADAYS, BUT PUSHING RATHER THAN FOLLOWING NEW EVENTS IS A CHALLENGE EVERY COMPANY FACES. SO THIS JOB POSITION IS MEANT TO DEAL WITH THE ISSUES OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT: STIMULATING NEW IDEAS, INTERPRETING MARKET TRENDS, NEGOTIATING PATH-BREAKING DEALS by Silvia Translated
Zamboni,
Production by
and
Technology Unit, Alex
SDA
Bocconi Foti
In a business environment ever more complex and competitive, it can be a significant challenge for organizations to give rapid answers to market changes. This involves issues like establishing a web of relations that exceeds the boundaries of the firm, and creating, organizing and managing the virtual links between the firm, its employees,
external
collaborators,
suppliers,
and
customers.
Innovation is not only about developing a new product or service: innovation embraces all business processes. It can be about either process or organizational innovation, in order to foster business growth by entering new markets and/or expanding existing ones, by introducing new and better products and services and implementing new ways of working. Thus in large companies the need has emerged to have a specific role devoted to the promotion and management of innovation, by creating the ad hoc position of Chief Innovation Officer (CIO), in Italy better labeled as Business Innovation Manager (BIM). That of the manager of innovation is an established company position in Anglo-Saxon countries which is currently emerging also in the Italian and European context. It originates from the evolution of other functional or process-related corporate functions, depending on the driving factor of innovation within the firm. According to this perspective, the BIM pushes business innovation through good strategic thinking and a related ability for economic and financial planning. This job profile calls for good organizational capabilities, in order to manage change and negotiate the projects and processes of innovation in a structured and continuous way, by favoring the emergence of a creative and forthcoming company environment. He/she must also possess high level marketing skills, in order to locate gaps in the existing supply range, stimulate the generation of new ideas and the market transfer of technological innovations, so that they can generate value for the customer and the firm. As corollary, a solid knowledge of ICT and its potential to establish internal and external collaborations complete the challenging profile of a desirable BIM. Over the last year, a research study conducted by SDA Bocconi School of Management, in collaboration with Progetti Manageriali (a service company owned by Federmanager), has looked into the skills required to fill this new job profile and considered whether existing managerial profiles managing innovation processes possess them. The study highlighted certain areas of comparative weakness with respect to the management of teams and external relations, in the dynamic management of core competence and competitive intelligence, and in the organization of the innovation process in a multi-project environment. The question of whichone will tend to be the career path for this new job position remains open, especially in Italy where managerial careers tend to be strictly vertical and specialized.
Desarrollan un mejor entendimiento del comportamiento y potencial humano. Incrementan su valor, su confianza y auto-estima. Se convierten en comunicadores más efectivos. Logran inspirar a otros y obtener lo mejor de cada uno. Aprenden a establecer metas significativas y a desarrollar planes para alcanzarlas. Establecen un ambiente para tomar mejores decisiones. Implementan procesos para administrar su tiempo y otros recursos de forma efectiva. Logran alcanzar metas cada vez más difíciles en menos tiempo.
