I was contracted for 2 years to support innovation at a major utility.  On arriving it became apparent there was a lot to do as the organisation had limited understanding of innovation and was focussed on adoption of pre market technologies under the banner (supporting invention), with little implementation or return.

The task defined was to support development of innovation strategy, systems, and results by a major utility.

Working with a small team of 4 recruited from my network, I coordinated development of an innovation audit (we have now systemised this – see me for more on ‘Innovation Baseline’.  We reviewed capability, capacity and innovation performance in line with ISO56000.  The next step involved a range of insight and mini group interviews followed by innovation strategy workshops to create a strategic framework, priorities, resource allocations and metrics.

We implemented a review and selection of cloud based innovation governance systems – selecting based on the context of the business.  We went on to implement a series of innovation challenges based on corporate priorities.

I wrote a programme call ‘Innovation Champions’ – now available online (see here for more details), which enables teams outside of the core innovation team to get involved in innovation and broaden innovation capacity in the business.  The 8 week programme includes innovation gamification and a project.  The qualification is certified and quality assured by City and Guilds and the ILM (Institute of Leadership and Management.  The programme covered innovation roles and self discovery, design thinking, open innovation practice, building business cases, raising external funding and internal sponsorship and innovation project management.

Replace this leading sentence with an intro into the things you did, if relevant including re-written versions of the bulleted lines below:

• What did you do to help… Improve access to skills, capabilities and expert availability
• What did you do to help… Improve clarity of responsibilities and capabilities to deliver against them
• What did you do to help… Identify, agree and prioritise new ideas and opportunities to generate business value
• What did you do to help… Ability to demonstrate, socialise and communicate concepts, outcomes and business cases
• What did you do to help… Validation and endorsement of decisions and approach
• What did you do to help… Enhanced cross-business collaboration, communication and buy in
• What did you do to help… Agree and define actions and a feasible roadmap

• What did you do to help… Reduce time in delivering change from skills gaps or capacity issues
• What did you do to help… Reduce ambiguity around vision, goals, strategy and roadmaps
• What did you do to help… Reduce blockers to progress due to personal and structural agendas
• What did you do to help… Reduce or remove resistance to change & innovation
• What did you do to help… Reduce ambiguity around ownership and responsibilities
• What did you do to help… Reduce inconsistencies in approach, communications and associated reputational damage

We implemented 7 challenges of which 4 created implementated results (from technical issues such as new leak detection to pipeline surge mitigation, to new service processes in customer brand engagement and insight).

We trained 40 staff to accreditation and won runner up in the WIA consultancy of the year awards and were a finalists in the UK Festival of Learning.

I left the client with a clear innovation agenda, leadership and governance infreastructure, performance metrics, challenge management system and a far broader community of action (qualified in innovation practice).

Gains provided included:

• Enabling positive behavioural change
• More satisfied and engaged employees with increased retention and productivity
• Improved business agility and ability to rapidly respond to change and opportunity
• Successful, timely delivery of evidence based transformative change
• Fostering a human centric, transparent, trustworthy and agile culture
• Increased credibility, confidence and influence across the business
• More consistent and sustainable profitability and business growth
• Gain access to additional budget through success
• Viable, scalable and actionable roadmap to deliver innovation and change

Pains relieved included:

• Inefficient or misaligned operating model and lack of business agility
• Lack of exec sponsorship and track record
• Lack of appropriate capabilities, skills, tools and methods
•  Unclear business strategy and requirements
• Unclear or inefficient internal communications
• Disconnect between culture and future vision
• Misaligned goals across business and silos
• Lack of clarity around the internal business ecosystem
• Poor data strategy resulting in siloed, incomplete and poor quality data

• innovation
• Innovation Funding
• innovation management
• Innovation Strategy
• training
• Business Strategy
• Business transformation
• Design Thinking

• Organisational Agility & Effectiveness

• Capital Projects and Infrastructure