Organisational Context

Business Design only works as an innovation methodology if you create the right organisational context for it. This part gets neglected all the time. Companies rush into pilot projects, chase early wins and try to spark enthusiasm for innovation work from the bottom up. Nothing wrong with that – as long as the organisational conditions get improved in parallel. Otherwise you end up in a classic chicken-and-egg problem: how are pilot projects supposed to succeed if the organisational framework works against them? Unfortunately, building an innovation-friendly organisation is no easy task. Why? Because it touches transparency, behaviour change, decision-making control and – ultimately – power within the company. And those topics are never easy to discuss, which should come as no surprise.

What are the aspects that decide whether Business Design succeeds?

1. Measurement of Success & Progress: Every employee and every manager needs a clear, shared understanding of what short-term progress and long-term success actually mean. Only then can you set the right priorities, pick the right ideas and turn them into successful innovations. And “successful” is, as always, relative.

2. Leadership: In practice, there are countless leadership styles. Business Design, though, is built on one specific style – closest to what's known as visionary leadership. We think and work from a shared Picture of the Future, and we turn it into reality step by step through a series of activities. That takes a particular way of working with people – one you need to develop deliberately.

3. Work Culture: Business Design's Guiding Principles point to the kind of work culture it needs to deliver results. Living up to these principles again takes role models and strong leadership. Everything is connected.

4. Organisational Structure: Business Design needs clarity about which actors play which role in orchestrating innovation activities. The key question is how independently innovation and growth work need to operate in order to navigate the ambiguity between the two worlds of exploitation and exploration.

5. Governance: Growth & innovation management needs rules too – rules for how you work and how decisions get made along an End-to-End Innovation Process. Business Design is a field-tested compromise between freedom and clear direction.

6. Financing and Budgets: Where the money for innovation work comes from decides who sets the agenda. Business Design finances ideas like an investor – in instalments, gate by gate, instead of once on the strength of a business case.

7. System Playbook: The entire operating model for innovation work should be described in a playbook. Every employee can access this playbook, managers and colleagues experience and train with it, and it is, naturally, continuously refined.

8. Roadmap for Implementation: And of course, you need a roadmap for how Business Design gets introduced into an organisation step by step. Implementing isolated phases isn't enough – in the end you need the full innovation process: all the roles, tools and methods, to succeed as an innovative company. But the rollout should happen gradually, so you don't overwhelm the organisation.