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True innovation isn’t always revolutionary — it’s about achieving goals more effectively.
Innovation usually manifests itself in better, more effective realisation of set objectives, in a way that allows to achieve competitive advantage on the market. True innovation isn’t always revolutionary — it’s about achieving goals more effectively.
Why is it important to constantly search for innovation and make the effort to implement these solutions within a company? The environment of an organisation evolves continuously in the context of changing economic, technological, social and legal conditions. In order to maintain a leading position on the market it is necessary to adapt to changes in both micro and macro environments. Bartosz Balewski, with whom I had the pleasure to discuss this topic, sheds new light on how to implement innovation in enterprises. Bartosz is an expert of user experience design and a proponent of the Human Centered Design approach. According to him, the most common mistake in thinking about innovation is the assumption that it is always based on new, revolutionary idea. Innovation usually manifests itself in better, more effective realisation of set objectives, in a way that allows to achieve competitive advantage on the market.
There are several types of innovation, nevertheless I will present four most popular of them – totally new product or value proposition (breakthrough), use of new technology in order to improve company’s products (sustaining), opening up for new markets and finally uncommon way of providing value to the market (disruptive). There is never one best solution for a given problem. The most appropriate ones are always a result of teamwork of all parties involved.
Innovation design process always takes place within an organizational space, where different groups of stakeholders play significant roles. All of them have their own objectives and expectations, which usually are separable. In order to efficiently design and implement an innovation that will cover the entire company, it is crucial to engage in this process not only representatives of the board of directors but also members of particular company divisions and customers. It is important to remember, that innovation design process is not a relay in which particular departments deliver intermediate solutions designed according to its own principles.
So how to build an innovation based on Human Centered Design model? A recipe for it is an integration of knowledge and experience of experts from different fields. Due to this, it is possible to build a solution, which will address needs of organisation as an entire organism. Destroying organisational “silos” is not a newfangled term aiming to emphasise vangarde approach to changes within an organisation. It is an assumption, without which innovation design process will not bring the expected result. The silos symbolise particular departments in an organisation, which often don’t communicate with each other, but realise their own objectives. The very first step is always to select a project team (special task force), which will accumulate key competencies necessary to create a complex solution, taking into account needs of customers.

Wiktor Madejczyk
Chief Delivery Officer