We discussed during Innovation and Discovery some common mistakes that occur between operations and the dedicated team bringing about this change. Essentially the main takeaway of it was for companies to create an opportunity for people to think differently within the performance engine. Innovation should be a learning experience and not using the same methods.
What have been some of the hurdles you or your company has had to overcome to drive and move toward innovation and change?
From my experience, the company has always been open to the idea of innovation and discovery and for people to think differently and try to work differently. The biggest hurdle has been to put the funding toward it. I have come across great ideas that seem feasible and reasonable to move forward with but there has always been push back regarding anything money related going into it.
One of the biggest hurdles my company has overcome in order to drive more innovation was similar to the point Dr. Simon mentioned in his lecture, about how companies often try to drive their innovation projects with their current operations. We were trying to create innovative products, but we were boxed in by our procedures and often had to abandon creative and innovative solutions. To overcome this hurdle my company started a new concept development group that was responsible for coming up with innovative concepts without having the constraints of our procedures to limit their ideas.
Based out of my experience in the current company i am part of, is the funding as well just as the fellow user mentioned prior. Some companies are generally very cautious about funding new innovative projects unless there is substantial request for such a product from the general market. Indeed there are some companies that takes risks on funding new products to see how well they perform in the market. In my company, this procedure usually is dependent on what the market research and customer feedback proves to be true. In order to overcome the funding, usually it requires minor cutbacks or obtain funding from the shareholders assuming they are pleased with the general concept and convinced that this new product will make a large profit. The other hurdle that i have encountered is politics within the company, it can become difficult for R&D to see eye-to-eye on new product development with other department such as the finance side because the finance always looks for minimizing cost and focus on the current market rather than exploring others unless constant convincing is presented. (This sometimes occurs with smaller companies compared to larger companies like J&J.)
Along with the posts above, assuming there is funding available and a separate group to drive the innovation, there is always the problem the innovation being brought up in a wrong time. It could be a novel and achievable idea but maybe the market isn't just ready for it. If the idea is too early upon its time, then team can probably study trends with regards to the innovation. If there is no market available at that time then it would be better to postpone it and prioritize other project. For instance, similar situation happened with Google Glass. The innovation was remarkable but the market just wasn't ready to accept it. The production was halted and postponed till the time when people would be ready to accept such technology.
Funding problems that arises during an innovation project are one of the biggest obstacle to innovation.Financing of next innovation phases is no longer guaranteed.The objectives of technical feasibility is to confirm that product will perform and to verify that there are no production barriers.It is an excellent tool for troubleshooting and long term planning .If original ideas for an innovation proves not to be technically feasible ,we have to look for an alternative technology.
There is always a push and pull between keeping companies as is, and moving forward towards innovation. In my experience, there has always been individuals that have been in place for so long that they lack the motivation to change. They have become experts in the current standards and processes that they prefer to stay the experts rather than allow an up and coming engineer excel and make a change in the company. However, with this mindset, there is the risk of stagnation. This is common in companies that have a successful product line and a good place in the market. They fail to see they could make innovations that would place them at the top of the market yet again.
In my company this has been the case for a long time but R&D has recently hired new engineers and this will hopefully break them out of this stagnation point.
As most have mentioned like @asmibana and @sanam funding in a major role. I work at MSK in the Office of Technology Development so we constantly have new invention disclosures, but unless the PI has resources/funding available-it is hard to innovate. If an MSK employee comes up with an invention, like a surgeon, and they do not have their own research lab, its hard to move the invention forward. I actually manage an internal fund at MSK called the Technology Development Fund. This fund provides gap funding to add value to MSK inventions. The award is $500,000 over two years; $250k for year 1 and $250k for year 2. The technologies are pitched to an internal review committee comprised of MSK investigators and about half of the applications move forward to another application stage and are reviewed by higher level executives in the biotech field and they ultimately decide which technologies we should fund. This fund is incredibly helpful but I have noticed that that the market places a huge role in what gets funded. For example anything Car-T right now can get funding be licensed at pre-clinical stage, whereas devices are harder to fund. I agree as others have mentioned that it is hard to innovate in a company if the operations/SOPs remain the same and funding/resources aren't available. I'm currently working at MSK on a Medical Device Initiative to have surgeons/nurses disclose new inventions and to find sources of funding within MSK and potential for collaborations. Overall I think that open-minds to support change/new opportunities and funding are the keys to driving innovation (at least at MSK).
I agree with previous posts about funding being the key driving force to support change and innovation. I would like to add in the timing factor and market condition.
A lot of time, a deadline is a strong driving force to find the best and most effective way to execute tasks. Change/innovations can thrive in the right market condition.Innovation culture is easiest to maintain is when market conditions are too much fear or too much confidence.
But overall, the important aspects that drive innovation is the open-minded individual, good team effort and, organizational culture.
Before having an external push for innovation, a smart leader can drive the innovations in the organization by putting money aside to encourage experimentation when the market is down, and requires innovative output when things are running really well.
My company is all about funding the R&D department and pushing for innovation but while they are willing to fund the R&D department in completing their research they are not good at funding to hire more staff to help work on projects. Edwards loves setting aggressive timelines for the release date on their new projects which puts a lot of stress on the limited amount of staff. Just last week my team had all of their sr.egnineers out working clinical cases across the world because Edwards has not provided enough funding for the clinical affairs department to hire the more clinical specialist to handle the field. With the engineering staff spread so thin their focus hasn't been on innovation. I feel like companies should not only put money into the research and development of the devices but also their staff. that they always seem to spread their engineers very thin.
In my experience, the leadership and their motivation have been the biggest hurdle for the innovation and research for the company I work for. My company produces products that are widely used and very successful in their niche. This has been due to the innovation that the leadership has provided. However, they have been in that mindset and position for so long the motivation for innovations and adapting new ideas decreases drastically. The focal point is more towards efficiency in manufacturing and the active culture of research and development become vestigial. Fortunately, there have been small changes made and there are talks about hiring new engineers for the department. Hopefully, new personnel will kickstart the old active innovation culture.
I believe I can relate to this. I have noticed that engineers in a leadership role for an extended period of time within a company, can at times, get complacent with innovation and more resistant to change. And to your point, would rather focus on making current manufacturing practices more efficient. Creating efficient and streamlined processes is extremely important but the lack of leadership toward driving innovation is detrimental in the long term when competing in a competitive market. Most of these engineers in these roles look at innovation as more of a remediation for current products in the pipeline instead of bringing new products to market.
