Designing a Composable Innovation Framework
During May and June 2023, I worked through and concluded my thinking on why we needed to change our Innovation approach. A radical change from far to often a linear one, into a new, more up-to-date, and dynamic solution for managing innovation.
This solution recognises that innovation discovery all the way through to implementation is now so often non-linear and that is causing plenty of problems connecting all the understandings fully up in one manageable place
I have called this the Composable Innovation Framework– here is why and what went into this proposal that I feel should be adopted for managing innovation in the future.
As the investigation, validation, and viewpoints were built up over numerous posts I am summarising the series here
We need to shift our innovative thinking from static to dynamic.
These are the critical reasons we need a radical change in our innovation approaches
- We have been in very static, traditional approaches to innovation, very segmented and often insular. As so often happens in innovation, it has complexities that seemingly grow and require multiple changes. There are far more rapid changes in the business landscape and our current innovation process often breaks down as it struggles to adjust and adapt to new data, validation and thinking. The ability to regain control across the whole development to delivery lifecycle is time consuming and resource intensive, mistakes happen, updates are missed or misunderstood and the end result is less that optimum.
- We need systems and processes that are flexible, adaptable, and can enable continuous improvements but are fully connected, transparent, and integrated across the entire business. We need to approach innovation differently through connected agility, have speed and automation more central, and provide roles for a great diverse set of participants.
- We need a system that encourages forming strategic alliances, partnerships, and knowledge sharing to drive innovation and create shared value in open, thoughtful, and collaborative ways. This is where technology enables these connections and triggers different thinking in the quest for moving toward more extraordinary valuable solutions—the “connected” value of behaviours thinking ecosystems and operating on collaborative platforms.
- We need to encourage highly collaborative environments and organisations can consistently leverage the collective intelligence of many, find and draw in a variety and diverse set of resources, both inside and outside the organisation, and access different expertise all working within the same ecosystem and platform configuration.
This comes through the power of innovation ecosystem thinking
The principles of this Composable Innovation Framework are the recognition and value of having a building block and innovation stack design.
These blocks and stacks that house the fundamental thinking through elements and capabilities required and enable the interconnected layers of process, technologies, and resources to leverage and support the innovation efforts from concept to commercialisation and beyond on sustainable approaches.
The shift to platform thinking gives the potential for scalable and flexible foundations for collaboration, integration, and value creation. The platform enables organisations to connect different stakeholders, leverage external resources and facilitate the exchange of ideas and solutions.
We need a radically different comprehensive innovation system solution.
Innovation design does need a comprehensive solution to address the complexities of modern innovation. You gain the ability to integrate the principles of dynamic thinking, ecosystem collaboration, building block, and innovation stack thinking in their approaches where technology plays an essential role, and the foundations of a platform design to enable organisations and the individuals involved to navigate challenges and seize the opportunities in a more robust and vigorous innovation management approach.
The Composable Innovation Enterprise framework aims to overcome the limitations of current traditional approaches to innovation (software) design. It focuses on collaboration, interconnectedness, and shared value creation within an innovation ecosystem.
This encourages a significant shift in mindset, culture, and potential within software solutions. It allows organisations to dynamically assemble (and reassemble) and reconfigure their innovation processes and resources constantly to adapt to the knowledge and discovery of innovation as it reveals itself in new insights and potential.
The beauty is that it is designed on a platform that scales, allows scope and flexibility, collaboration and diversity of thought, and encourages speed in knowledge exchanges and activities from its technology design.
The build-up and validation in the Composable Innovation Enterprise Framework.
In my series of posts, I went through the approach and built up in this order towards the conclusion of recommending a Composable Innovation Enterprise Framework so it can be understood in the detailed exploration of this design:
This complete approach and thinking is found in this comprehensive summary post
The final perspective proposes the Composable Innovation Framework as a comprehensive approach to address the complexities of innovation management, and then I went into a new post-launch series.
Visualising Composable Innovation: The final post I wrote visually represents the Composable Innovation Enterprise Framework. This visual aid helps stakeholders grasp the overall structure, flow, and interconnectivity of the innovation building blocks, enabling them to explore potential combinations effectively.
Conclusions and Recommendations to You
The emphasis is its ability to revolutionise traditional innovation practices by providing a dynamic, scalable, and agile approach. Using modular components allows organisations to experiment, learn from failures, and optimise their innovation efforts continuously.
Advocating a radical shift in our designing the way we manage Innovation
Composable Innovation advocates for a radical yet practical change in innovation management. Organisations can unlock their true innovation potential by adopting a Composable Innovation Enterprise Framework.
This approach enables adaptability, scalability, and continuous learning, propelling businesses to stay ahead in today’s fast-paced and ever-changing market landscape. Embracing Composable Innovation is the key to future-proofing innovation efforts and driving sustainable growth in the digital age.
Amended from an earlier post at the end of the series summarized with links above