Indicators to help assess functional performance - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/indicators-to-help-assess-functional-performance/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/indicators-to-help-assess-functional-performance/

Indicators to help assess functional performance: importance of aligning resources with highest value activities.

 

Extract from strategy+business – Deniz Caglar, Namit Kapoor, and Thomas Ripsam:

Every function’s first priority should be to support the building and management of differentiating capabilities. Therefore, it is essential to define and measure explicitly just how much value each function is delivering. You can use four distinct indicators to assess this value.

1. Quantifiable impact. Measure all the function’s activities against definable business outcomes that are aligned with the company’s strategic priorities and tied to a specific time frame. A centralized consumer insights capability, for instance, might be measured by the reduction in the number of weeks required to develop new products during the next 18 months.

2. Clear drivers of value. Identify the sources of your function’s greatest contributions to the enterprise. Improved demand management might depend, for example, on having sophisticated analytical tools that can provide streamlined access to data, greater scale, and the bundling of expertise. Metrics should establish the degree to which these tools exist and are used.

3. Cost-effectiveness. Continue to track the relationship between expenses and outcomes. Your function’s contribution to the enterprise—measured through financial performance improvement in revenue or profit—must outweigh the cost of its activity.

4. Internal market validation. Seek out and incorporate feedback from your clients and constituents within the company, to drive your function’s effectiveness and efficiency wherever possible. This may include the use of charge-backs, service-level agreements, and make-versus-buy assessments (analysis of whether to build a capability in-house or outsource it).

Leading companies deploy rigorous processes and tools to ensure the alignment of ongoing and proposed functional activities and investments with the functional priorities and the operating model, and to ensure maximum value creation. Within the context of continuing pressure on support budgets, this helps functional leaders allocate their resources to the activities with the highest value.

Continues at http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00158?pg=all

Author Profiles:

Deniz Caglar is a partner with Booz & Company based in Chicago. He focuses on organizational design and cost fitness in the consumer packaged goods and retail industries.

Namit Kapoor is a partner with Booz & Company based in Chicago. He specializes in formulating shared-services strategies and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of sales and marketing functions.

Thomas Ripsam is a partner with Booz & Company based in Munich. He specializes in strategy-based improvement of top-line and bottom-line performance, with particular focus on sales, marketing, and general and administrative functions.

More ... http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00158?gko=3300c

Economy and regulations are top risks for organisations - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-risk-management-consultants/economy-and-regulations-are-top-risks-for-organisations/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-risk-management-consultants/economy-and-regulations-are-top-risks-for-organisations/

Economy and regulations are top risks for organisations: greater need for transparency into nature and magnitude

 

Extract from CFO – Caroline McDonald:

The top two risks identified by executives send the message that they are more concerned with what they don’t know, regarding economic conditions and regulations, than with what they do know, even about significant operational risks, according to an author of the study Executive Perspectives on Top Risks for 2013.

James DeLoach, a managing director at Protiviti and a risk management expert, said the study, conducted with North Carolina State University’s ERM (enterprise risk management) Initiative, suggests “the importance of policymaking and of politicians and government to create an environment that is more predictable, to take the cap off of the economy.”

While the top risks pertain to strategic and macroeconomic issues, “Five of the top-10 are operational issues, but they are in the bottom half,” he explains. “That says that directors and executives are more concerned about what they don’t know than what they do know.”

The survey asked more than 200 board members and executives across a wide variety of industries about the risks their organizations expect to face in 2013. Participants were asked to rate a list of 20 risk issues on a scale of one to 10, with one indicating “no impact” and 10 indicating “extensive impact.”

The two risks that stood out as being of highest concern were:

- Perils relating to profitability constraints because of economic conditions that could curb growth.

- Possible regulatory changes and heightened regulatory scrutiny that could curb the production and delivery of products and services.

“What that says is that most people are used to a more rapidly growing environment,” DeLoach said. “We’re growing in the U.S., but at a slower pace. People are trying to get used to that, but it’s a different game than they have been used to over the course of their careers.”

That issue, he said, “is paramount as a significant impact risk. [Company executives] are having to modify their approach to the market…given the fact that we have slower growth in the economy.”

The second, regulatory risk, was significant for most of the survey respondents, “when you think about Dodd-Frank in financial services and the Affordable Health Care Act, which affects health care providers and also their cost structure,” he says.

Citing a second example of regulatory pressures, the risk management consultant cited the restaurant and consumer products industries which face issues like those stemming from the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act anti-bribery provisions “and the unprecedented prosecutorial cooperation across borders on corruption issues.”

A third risk, he says, is related to growth opportunities and companies’ being restricted “by the uncertainties surrounding political leadership for national and international markets, particularly in developing countries with political stability issues.”

While companies understand their operational issues and are concerned, DeLoach said, “when you’re talking about the issues around regulatory risk and the growth in the economy and political issues, that creates an environment of uncertainty that makes it difficult to hire and invest.”

What this does, he said, is change the game of planning away from one-dimensional strategies. “In these rapidly changing times, if you set strategy with a single view of the future, that can be very dangerous. You have to have multiple views of the future, assess scenarios and stress test your plan,” he explains.

What’s more, one of the operational risks identified was resiliency and adaptability. “To be adaptive means you have to shift and change as markets evolve and customer preferences change,” he says.

Other survey highlights included: 

- Most respondents rated the current environment as significantly risky and said they’re likely to make changes or deploy more resources to managing their respective risk over the next year.

- Chief risk officers (CROs) and CFOs were the executives with the highest ratings in terms of their likelihood to make changes.

- The biggest outfits rated the greatest number of risks as “Significant Impact” risks, reflecting the complexities of their operations.

- Companies in the financial services, health-care and life sciences, and technology, media and communications organizations industries reported the greatest number of significant risks.

More … http://www3.cfo.com/article/2013/3/regulation_erm-international-risk-protiviti-nc-state-university-deloach-

Using extreme transparency to drive high performance teamwork - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/using-extreme-transparency-to-drive-high-performance-teamwork/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/using-extreme-transparency-to-drive-high-performance-teamwork/

Using extreme transparency to drive high performance teamwork: turning values and culture into action.

 

Extract from Fast Company – Lydia Dishman:

At Asana, the collaboration software startup from Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein, the culture is designed to be “transparent ’til it hurts.” Here’s how to replicate it for pain-free productivity.

Justin Rosenstein and Dustin Moskovitz, the founding duo of collaboration software startup Asana, officially launched in 2011 with one lofty goal: “To empower every group on earth to have clarity, accountability, and transparency in their daily work.”

So what began as rudimentary solutions to productivity problems both Moskovitz and Rosenstein faced in their previous positions (the former as cofounder and CTO of Facebook, the latter as a software engineer at Google) has turned into a tool to save teams from doing “work about work” and get down to business. Essentially, it’s a web application that facilitates project management. Any team can post a task they are working on and then keep track of who is doing what to complete it, without using email or calling status meetings.

Though it hasn’t quite helped all of mankind yet, Asana is currently used by the likes of Foursquare, Airbnb, and Uber to eliminate status reports to the dreaded weekly check-in meeting. To date the company has had “tens of thousands of teams create more than 40 million tasks using Asana.” No wonder they’ve been able to raise $38 million from Founders Fund, Benchmark Capital, Peter Thiel, and others.

What the two also managed to pull off was to embed those very same values in their company’s culture–with an emphasis on the transparency. Rather than let it be a buzzword in the vein of publicly airing a failed product launch or relegating it to the release of quarterly financial statements, Rosenstein maintains that the kind of transparency both Asana the tool and the company are trying to achieve is more subtle. It’s not about everyone knowing everyone else’s business, says Rosenstein, “It’s that everyone has the information they need to do their job effectively.” Lots of companies are so siloed that there is no context for anyone to make good decisions about their work, he says. “For us, transparency is providing as much information as [an employee] needs to act in the best interest of their team, the company, and its mission as a whole.”

They call it “transparency ’til it hurts.” Here’s how they make it pain free:

Start With Hiring
It’s one thing to strive for hiring the best and brightest. It’s quite another to hire people at ease with the notion of transparency (as opposed to the more common workplace power plays like, say, withholding information to use as leverage). Yet when Asana hires, they don’t tell candidates that they must be comfortable with the idea. Instead, when they discuss how the company operates, it becomes a selling point. “People that are attracted to [working here] already feel that way,” Moskovitz says. “They are not trying to hide,” adds Rosenstein, “They are excited to share the experience, not just get paid and go home.” The side effect that’s rippled through Asana’s 38-person ranks is that “we can all celebrate success,” says Rosenstein.

Empower Through Context
Even if you hire the best people, Rosenstein says if you tell them exactly what to do, it limits their creativity. Empowering them by offering context around what the company cares about and its goals allows staff to bring their own wisdom and experience to bear as they tackle projects.

One way Asana does this is to take exhaustive minutes of board meetings and weekly executive meetings and post them for all to read. Rosenstein contends that most companies would keep such high-level meetings under wraps or couch the information in a way that doesn’t reveal it all. “We think it’s really critical for everyone to understand to know what the high order bits are and what is top of mind for leadership,” he argues, so when a staffer is making individual decisions about parts of the product or marketing, they can position it against the company’s overall goals.

Set Areas of Responsibility
Another silo buster at Asana is the concept of areas of responsibility, or AORs. Rather than having everyone report up to the boss, AORs allow individuals to own performance metrics. With an understanding of overall strategy, they can take input from others and make decisions. No one is ever stuck making all the decisions, notes Rosenstein. The AORs change frequently depending on what is a priority any given week. “This allows for distribution of responsibility, and people can develop expertise,” he notes.

Create a Roadmap
Instead of dividing time according to fiscal quarters, Asana has “episodes,” which are roughly four-month blocks of time. Before each episode, everyone “stops doing normal work” to sit down for a week-long session to create a roadmap. Committees are formed around different agendas that are relevant for that time period and members are selected to be on them not solely based on their job description but what they can offer to achieve the goal. This allows everyone to offer input as well as to make it absolutely clear what milestones need to be hit in order to reach the goal.

At the end they pull together a document that summarizes their hits and misses. Moskovitz then puts the summary out on Google Docsto share not just with the team or investors, but the entire rest of the world. Taking a page from the playbooks of Toyota and Eric Reis, Moskovitz says they also dissect trouble spots using the “5 Whys” method to figure out how to do better in the future. They publish that analysis, too. “At some companies that can be scary, but our culture is set up so we all respect each other. It is not a blame game,” adds Rosenstein.

Recognize Accomplishments–In Your Own Way
Aside from their offline champagne celebrations for product launches and TGIF get-togethers, Asana staff developed “hearts” for the software tool which allows for colleagues to recognize each other’s achievements. Rosenstein argues that “hearting” completion of a task is less shallow or political than liking someone’s comment on Yammer. “We have the ability to celebrate accomplishments on a much more granular level.

When To Dim the Lights
There is such a thing as too much transparency, says Moskovitz. That’s why performance reviews and personal matters that come up in meetings aren’t shared with the company.

Rosenstein admits they’ve had to coach people to be more confident about receiving the flood of feedback that can come from this practice. “One of our values is balance,” he says, to maintain the flow of ideas without having someone bottleneck over a perceived slight to their work.

More … http://www.fastcompany.com/3006798/work-smart/how-extreme-transparency-can-make-your-team-its-most-productive?

Solving big challenges with breakthrough levels of innovation - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/solving-big-challenges-with-breakthrough-levels-of-innovation/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/solving-big-challenges-with-breakthrough-levels-of-innovation/

Solving big challenges with breakthrough levels of innovation: using collaboration effectively to make this happen.

 

Extract from HBR Blog Network – Paul Ellingstad and Charmian Love:

Collaboration is the new “it” trend in business strategy circles these days. Everyone is talking about it. And most people believe it’s necessary if we’re going to solve the world’s seemingly intractable problems — such as poverty, climate change, access to education and healthcare, creating renewable energy sources, and increasing global security. Technology has dramatically simplified our ability to access, analyze, and act on ever-expanding volumes of information, and to do so more effectively by connecting and collaborating.

But, does collaboration deliver on its promise? Or is it at risk of simply becoming a new form of “greenwashing” as companies talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk?

To make a collaborative effort effective, it’s important to think through what it will mean for everyone involved. That starts with mapping key parameters: Who are the players you want to work with? What does each bring to the table? Why would each player be motivated to work with the others? Figuring this out upfront is critical. The next hurdle is figuring out how people are going to work together in practice, including which tools and resources you have available to facilitate the process.

Real, genuine, messy collaboration involves reaching out to unconventional organizations that your company may never have worked with before. A rule of thumb to keep in mind: If it feels uncomfortable, overwhelming and challenging, you’re probably on the right track. If it were easy, these models of collaboration would have been done before.

These partnership strategies also require a big-picture understanding of the landscape or system you’re working within. You can identify areas to leverage by mapping out the particular challenge you want to explore, including where and how different stakeholders fit across this map. To get started on mapping complex systems, check out Marshall Clemens’ work with the Tellus Mater Foundation.

These complex partnerships also require the understanding that when working at a system level, there is often no defined end point for your activities. The further you go, the more opportunities you identify. Therefore, it’s helpful to frame the scope broadly and allow for unforeseen change and modification rather than establishing a set timeline with a strict exit/sunset clause.

We often take the enabling role of technology for granted when collaborating on complex, systems-level problem solving. Technology has improved communication flows with “anyone anywhere”; made processes exponentially more efficient; enabled resilient feedback loops; and improved our decision-making through rapid synthesis of large amounts of complex data. But technology doesn’t need to be framed as the innovative solution itself — it can also be applied to improve existing processes.

For example, in Kenya, HP has collaborated with the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the Kenyan Ministry of Public Health & Sanitation, Strathmore University, and other players to reduce the turn-around time for providing results of HIV testing in infants. The result is that health care workers in the country now have near real-time online access to other vital reporting data. Through this multilateral collaboration and the innovative use of technology, government, the private sector, NGOs, and academic players have tapped into a diverse wealth of expertise to improve processes that literally save lives.

What started in Kenya as a specific process improvement expanded to a much broader information revolution, encompassing other programs and information flows, including disease surveillance and reporting. It’s a collaboration success story that we can all learn from.

When embarking on your own partnerships, keep the following tips in mind:

Make it real. Don’t fall into the “collaboration-washing” camp by talking more than doing. Be aware that the ease of technology can sometimes mask the importance of fostering the personal relationships needed to make a solution stick. Chemistry between partners across the system is impossible to manufacture and can be the defining thread that keeps things on track.

Make it resilient. Even great partnerships don’t last forever. When architecting solutions, avoid “single points of failure”, including dependence on any single player. Design solutions to thrive regardless of whether players come and go from the collaboration.

Make it reciprocal. Partners should not be afraid of capturing business value from collaborating. Be clear around the expectations of different parties (inputs as well as results). Ror a company, this might include increased employee engagement, the development of new products or services and improved corporate reputation, among other things.

To solve the big challenges in the world today we need to aim for nothing less than breakthrough levels of innovation. An African proverb offers: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” We all have a role to play in making these breakthroughs happen.

Paul Ellingstad is the partner and program development director in HP’s Sustainability and Social Innovation group. Charmian Love is chief executive at Volans, a future focused business that works at the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainability movements.

More … http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/03/is_collaboration_the_new_green_1.html?

Successful innovation for mature organisations - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-change-management-consultants/successful-innovation-for-mature-organisations/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-change-management-consultants/successful-innovation-for-mature-organisations/

Successful innovation for mature organisations: benefits of using external motivation, strong leadership and teamwork.

 

Extract from HBR Blog Network – Brad Power:

What do you do if you’re a leader in a large, successful organization with an entrenched bureaucracy, and you see the need for innovation? Can you change the way a large organization — such as the federal government — does its work, when all the forces are arrayed for stability and conservatism?

Consider the story of the Business Transformation Agency of the Department of Defense, which was founded in 2005 under Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and “disestablished” in 2011 by Defense Secretary Gates. The Business Transformation Agency was populated by people brought in from the commercial sector. They were bold and brash and injected fresh new ideas that challenged existing policy and practice in many quarters of the Department of Defense administration (such as finance, human resources, procurement, and supply chain processes). They ran into many of the familiar challenges of making changes in the federal government: the difficulty of firing; the complexity of hiring at many levels of management; the need for contracts to be put out for competitive bidding; multiple stakeholders including civil servants, appointees, contractors, regulators; and Congress to be considered in almost all decisions. Unlike at commercial companies, there was no senior leader who could mandate changes. The Deputy Secretary of Defense that originally sponsored the agency under Rumsfeld left, and the new leader was less enthusiastic, ultimately leading to the agency’s demise. The entrenched culture of the Department of Defense defeated attempts to change it.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), however, was successful in transforming its bureaucracy. The IRS had two advantages: Congress provided a strong mandate for change (the U.S. IRS Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998); and an outstanding, senior executive from the private sector, Charles Rossotti, was appointed for a five-year term to drive the changes. Under Rossotti’s guidance, the IRS reorganized from a geographic structure to four new customer-oriented operating divisions. IT also upgraded old technology and processes, achieving significant improvements in service and compliance. For example, it implemented an Internet service that answers the question “Where’s my refund?” that has had over one billion hits and freed up 800 customer service representatives to handle more complex issues.

So, what makes the difference between success and failure? Based on long experience working with government agencies and with large organizations of all stripes, I have seen that big changes to the way work is done require:

- a team of insiders and outsiders to come up with new ideas;
- a clear external motivation to do something;
- strong leaders who believe in the ideas and push the bureaucracy to implement them consistently over a number of years.

Sometimes (but not often) bureaucracies do make incremental changes to the way they do work, but they are usually not sufficient to meet citizen-customer needs. An innovation team composed of the “best and brightest” (like the “bold and brash” Business Transformation Agency) can identify bigger changes, but those cannot be implemented inside a strong bureaucracy without a strong and clear motivation to change. Now, in a competitive free-market environment, a for-profit company can be motivated by threats to its survival, or by declining market share and profitability. The big challenge for a government agency, however, is that the motivation needs to be a congressional or administration mandate. I’d like to tell you there’s another way to motivate change in case you don’t have such a mandate, but in the extreme environment of an entrenched bureaucracy, I haven’t seen it. Thus, needed process changes within bureaucracies should always be built into such initiatives. Probably most important, though, as in the example of the IRS, a senior leader is absolutely essential to drive the change and sharpen the organization’s focus on citizen-customers — to overcome the natural tendency of bureaucracies to focus internally. And as the IRS and Department of Defense stories illustrate, the bureaucratic ship won’t turn on a dime — leaders need to sustain focus on the changes over the long term, likely for five years or more.

Leaders of big bureaucracies need to get — and keep — everyone enthused, create and communicate a future vision, assure support during the transition, insist on excellence, create demands on managers, and convince everyone of top management’s conviction and commitment to change. These leadership challenges may seem familiar, but in a bureaucracy they are, if anything, magnified. To sustain momentum in this special context, leaders may need to adopt the behaviors of a fanatic — as Winston Churchill said, “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.”

Of course, the federal government provides an extreme example of entrenched bureaucracy with an established way of doing things. But it offers lessons to any organization that is mature, successful, and set in its ways, yet recognizes the need to transform itself.

Brad Power has consulted and conducted research on business process innovation for the last 30 years. His latest research focuses on how top management creates breakthrough business models through process innovation, building on work with the Lean Enterprise Institute and Hammer and Company.

More … http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/03/innovating_around_a_bureaucrac.html

Using choices to create strategy that is fit-for-purpose and really works - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-strategy-implementation-consultants/using-choices-to-create-strategy-that-is-fit-for-purpose-and-really-works/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-strategy-implementation-consultants/using-choices-to-create-strategy-that-is-fit-for-purpose-and-really-works/

Using choices to create strategy that is fit-for-purpose and really works: two important questions to make it happen.

 

Extract from SmartBlog on Leadership – David Burkus:

For too many executives, strategy is a heavy topic. Either it requires a seemingly infinite time commitment, or it is easily mistaken for an organizational vision or (perhaps worse) a short-term operational plan.

If you’re trying to build a solid strategy, then there are a number of resources you can draw from. So many in fact, that it can get a little confusing. Do you run a SWOT analysis, draw up a Five Forces Model, or try and sail into Blue Oceans? It’s enough to confuse even the most senior leaders.

But strategy doesn’t have to be that difficult.

In their latest book, A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, and Dean Martin, dean at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto, argue that, in the end, all strategy begins with two simple questions: “Where will we play? And “How will we win?”

Where will we play?

No company can serve every customer. In the end, strategy starts with the fundamental choice of which customers to pursue. It starts by deciding which industry to be in, which market to compete in and even which position in that market to occupy. Wal-Mart might seem like a mass-market retailer, but its decided to pursue specific customer segments and doesn’t mind alienating others who aren’t looking for “everyday low prices.”

Too often, we embark on a strategic plan assuming that the industry we’re in is the one we have to build a strategy for. But you always have a choice of where to play. If the market you’re in now doesn’t serve you, don’t be afraid to pivot and pursue a new market or customer segment.

How will we win?

Depending on which field you’ve chosen, you will have to decide how you will win in that field. Mimicking the product offerings or marketing plans of established players on that field is a sure-fire road to failure. Instead, decide how to craft a specific and differentiated plan to pursue customers through activities different from your competitors’.

Zappos doesn’t offer the lowest price on shoes, but it doesn’t have to. Instead, it chose to win by offering outstanding customer service. Trying to be the low-cost leader and also offer the best customer service experience will likely result in a second-place finish (or lower) in both categories. You can choose how you want to win, but you can’t choose a plan that others already dominate in.

You can use these two choices in different ways. If you’re creating a strategy, start with these two questions and align objectives and activities to the answers you’ve come up with. If you’re evaluating existing strategy, then compare that plan with how clearly it provides answers to these questions. If you know how to ask and answer these two questions properly, then you can cut through the confusion and craft a strategy that really works.

David Burkus is assistant professor of management at Oral Roberts University and editor of LDRLB, an online resource that offers insights from research on leadership, innovation, and strategy.

More … http://smartblogs.com/leadership/2013/03/05/2-questions-to-guide-your-strategy/

Innovating innovation challenge winning entries - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/innovating-innovation-challenge-winning-entries/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/innovating-innovation-challenge-winning-entries/

Innovating innovation challenge winning entries; some of the world’s most daring and comprehensive approaches. 

 

Extract from HBR Blog Network – Polly LaBarre (Management Innovation eXchange):

Most companies put innovation at the top of their agendas. But how many devote the energy and resources it takes to build innovation into the values, processes, and practices that rule everyday activity and behavior? Not many, as we argued when we launched the Innovating Innovation Challenge in October.

That disconnect isn’t due to lack of human ingenuity or resources; it’s actually the result of organizational DNA. Productivity, predictability, and alignment are embedded in the marrow of our management systems. Experimentation, risk-taking, and variety are the enemy of the efficiency machine that is the modern corporation. Of course, it’s variety and the daring to be different that produces game-changing innovation.

So how do we make every management process a catalyst, rather than a wet blanket, for innovation? And, importantly, how do we make innovation a true core competence? While we didn’t expect to find many organizations that had woven innovation into every element of their management model, we did hope to discover individuals and teams making real progress on important pieces of the puzzle.

After a few months, 140 superb contributions, and 24 finalists, we’ve zeroed in on a set of winning entries that represent some of the world’s most daring and comprehensive approaches to making innovation an everyday, everywhere capability.

Today, we’re delighted to announce the 10 winners of the Innovating Innovation Challenge, the first leg of this year’s HBR/McKinsey M-Prize for Management Innovation.

In alphabetical order:

Managing for 21st Century Crime Prevention in Memphis
by Toney Armstrong, Memphis Police Department

An inspiring story of transformation from a traditional bureaucracy to a vibrant innovation culture in which the insights and observations of every individual from edge to edge not only matter, but produce immediate impact and make the organization continuously smarter.

Democratizing Entrepreneurship: Village Capital’s Peer Selection Model
by Ross Baird, Village Capital

An exciting and powerful model for cultivating, evaluating, funding, and growing new ideas — and a detailed recipe for unleashing the power of peer review in any organization.

Case Coelce — Inspiring Innovation for Traditional Work Environments
by Luiz De Gonzaga Coelho Junior, co-authored by Odailton Arruda, Coelce

An honest and human account (dead ends and all) of developing a continuous innovation capability in an electricity distributor in the poorest region in Brazil.

Fail Forward
by Ashley Good, Engineers Without Borders Canada

The “Failure Report” is a refreshing and bold practice that takes the tired mantra of “embracing failure” and turns it into a way of life for an organization — and a provocative invitation to all of its partners.

Sustainability as Innovation Strategy: How Sustainability and Innovation Drive Each Other and Company Competitiveness at Danone
by Monica Kruglianskas, Danone, co-authored by Marc Vilanova, ESADE Business School

This story unpacks Danone’s singular approach to embedding sustainability in its innovation agenda and innovation in its approach to sustainability. A case study in how to bring values to life, unleash the spirit of experimentation, and scale new ideas and practices.

Democratize Innovation — For Sustained Innovation Culture
by Lalgudi Ramanathan Natarajan, Titan Industries

A multiplex approach to layering in innovation capabilities from the shop floor up in India’s largest jewelry and watch retailer. The Titan story is a down-to-earth account of true social innovation — both in terms of the process and the result.

Whirlpool’s Innovation Journey: An On-Going Quest for a Rock-Solid and Inescapable Innovation Capability
by Moises Norena, Whirlpool, co-authored by JD Rapp

The state of the art when it comes to developing innovation as a core competence. Whirlpool changed its organizational DNA to embrace innovation at the deepest level and unpacks the journey in generous detail here.

Unleashing Inclusive Innovation at Cisco
by Kate O’Keeffe, co-authored by John Marsland, Carlos Pignataro and Lisa Voss, Cisco

A thorough and instructive account of working every lever and animating an entire organization — from the bottom up and the top down — to embrace innovation.

Project Bushfire — Focusing the Might of an Entire Organization on the Consumer & Customer
by Stephen Remedios, The Stephen Remedios Company, co-authored by Aswath Venkataraman, Sandeep Ramesh, Shruti Kashyap and Shashwat Sharma, Hindustan Unilever

A compelling, homegrown practice for jolting a vast organization into tight communion with the marketplace — and a recipe for seeing around corners, energizing every last person in the company, and closing the gaps between “sense” and “respond.”

Is Managed Innovation an Oxymoron?
by Kumar Sachidanandam, Cognizant

A comprehensive and illuminating story of how one organization tackled the über challenge of building innovation into its management model — with powerful insights on wrestling with the right big questions.

Congratulations to all of the winners and the organizations behind them! We’ll be unpacking many of these stories and others from the Innovating Innovation Challenge here in the weeks to come. In the meantime, stay tuned for the launch of the second leg of the HBR/McKinsey M-Prize here in early March.

More … http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/02/whos_the_best_at_innovating_in.html?