If your organization is like most, there is significant emphasis on implementing innovation across the enterprise. Developing market-leading products, business process improvements, new patient care models, ground-breaking strategies, new markets --- all offer substantial potential for increasing market share, efficiency, and competitive advantage. And let’s face it… competitive advantage is what everyone is seeking.
But, innovation in and of itself can be complex. It usually involves large-scale and highly complex organizational change, with multiple inter-dependencies. The challenge of actually implementing innovation is arguably just as difficult as the process of creating the innovation itself! {Tweet This}
Innovation Without Implementation Leads Nowhere
We all know a culture of innovation can make a company wildly successful. But the challenge innovative organizations face is to ensure enough attention is being paid to how to actually implement all the fabulous ideas they come up with! As we discuss in our change management training programs, “This is a game of implementation. Only 15% of the job is figuring out what to do. Making it happen-that is where the action is.” (F. Warren McFarlan)
Organizations that are looking to survive and even thrive with an innovative culture need be “change-adept”. This means they will:
This is why leaders of innovation have to have a laser-focus on the ability of the organization to implement. In fact, “Implementation” must become a core capability because without it, the innovative ideas may be there, but there will be no change!
How to Get From a Great Idea…To Implementation Success
So, what does it take to build implementation capability into your organization? First it takes leaders who recognize that having a good idea or strategy is only a small part of their accountability. They must be accountable for implementation as well. In fact, the actions of your Sponsors are the single most important factor in getting changes implemented—much more important than the project team or local “Change Agents.”
Organizations must also adopt a structured implementation process that can be married with other critical business protocols, such as project management, Agile or Lean Six Sigma.
Absent a common framework for managing the human and cultural elements of strategic initiatives, organizations are far more likely to take too long, spend too much, and increase the likelihood that desired changes are not sustained over time. In other words, without a structured process for implementation, the best idea is likely to fall flat or stall out.
The Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM), our proprietary change management methodology, offers a robust set of tools and measurement diagnostics, along with a structured framework for managing the human elements of any change project from business process improvement to Transformational Change. How does our change management methodology help to ensure you achieve the desired business outcomes?
7 Ways the AIM Structured Process Drives Innovation
Compared to the cost of the innovation itself, the investment in a business-disciplined and structured framework for managing the human side of the implementation is small, but the return is great. The application of a structured change management process such as AIM dramatically improves the likelihood of success. What an innovative idea!