Organization-wide innovation management, a cybernetics approach

Firms are recognizing the need to distinguish between R&D and Innovation. Innovation is becoming a distinct management function in the lines of marketing, HR, etc. Businesses need to be ambidextrous in their thinking taking into account capabilities of both right (creative) and left (analytical) side of the brain as challenges faced today requires integral solutions. The need is to work in cross functional teams, develop deep understanding of customer role, collaborate and more importantly address customer needs that may even not known to them; rather than just apply branding or fancy design styling. Fundamentals to integral approach are collaboration, embracing multidimensionality, systems thinking and applying cybernetics principles. The integral approach should involve users, designers, customers and suppliers. One need to understand the user based on fieldwork study, reach insights into user role and discover unarticulated needs. We normally measure innovation in terms of its technical strength and its utility value. In many cases this may not be enough. Innovation is a renewal process in that it prepares one for the future. It involves investing in the development of competence of the people, developing capabilities in them, nurturing customer relationships, and organizing knowledge bases. The point where technical innovation gets done is at the core of all these activities. The Balanced Score Card (BSC) has aroused considerable interest in the last two decades in business performance measurement. The reason could be that the managers are finding something more than the short term revenue reports that are prevalent. In the similar way the innovation can be looked not just at the point of idea creation but should be viewed as a staged process in the organization for the innovation to see the light of the market in a concerted way. This paper explains a cybernetics approach of modeling the innovation activities along the lines of Balanced Score Card (BSC).The principles of cybernetics may considered to be useful in `how we design” innovations as much as in “what innovations we design”.