Innovation Values and Principles

When coaching and designing systems, values and principles are the core concepts that drive my focus, analysis and synthesis.

 A Value provides the foundation for identifying relevant Principles.

A Principle provides the context and insight for identifying or designing relevant Practices.

I’ve also noticed that some of the most impactful system levers seem to reside in the Principles underlying the system components.

So after some conversations with @ChrisSpagnuolo and @rhensley99 last week, I’ve come to think about Values, Principles and system levers for Innovation as shown below. I’m interested to hear if others have come to identical, similar, or opposite perspectives. I believe this type of model is critical for the initial design and ongoing improvement of innovation systems.

Value	Why it Matters	Example Principles	Hypothesized High Leverage Impact
Autonomy	Group can operate how they need to – shift focus from execution to learning	·      Group is not restricted to existing processes. ·      Group is not managed or evaluated using existing systems. ·      Protect the brand.	Tactical Operations
Adaptability	Group should be able to and comfortable with learning and change	·      Learn through experimentation. ·      Tolerate failure.	Learning Capability
Creativity	Create the space to cause creativity, for creativity to emerge.	·      Constrain the system	Ideation Flow
Urgency	Provide sense of urgency to learning and attaining fit.	·      Learn and adapt fast ·      Constrain the system	Learning Capability
Focus	Focus creativity, focus effort, focus funding	·      Constrain the system	Learning Capability
Accountability	Explicit accountability of results and decouple from dependencies	·      Accountable for learning	Tactical Operations
Ownership	Attracts people with entrepreneurial perspective and risk / reward profile	Provide ownership incentives.	Entire Innovation System

I purposely left off Practices as I’ve found they are not difficult to identify once the system, system components, values, and principles are well understood. So that is our current focus – understanding and hypothesizing. Next comes validation.