Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program

Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program

Transform your business by adopting the culture and practices that drive innovation.

Analyst Perspective

Innovation is not about ideas, it's about people.

Many organizations stumble when implementing innovation programs. Innovation is challenging to get right, and even more challenging to sustain over the long term.

One of the common stumbling blocks we see comes from organizations focusing more on the ideas and the process than on the culture and the people needed to make innovation a way of life. However, the most successful innovators are the ones which have adopted a culture of innovation and reinforce innovative behaviors across their organization. Organizational cultures which promote growth mindset, trust, collaboration, learning, and a willingness to fail are much more likely to produce successful innovators.

This research is not just about culture, but culture is the starting point for innovation. My hope is that organizations will go beyond the processes and methodologies laid out here and use this research to dramatically improve their organization's performance.

Kim Osborne Rodriguez
Research Director, CIO Advisory
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

As a leader in your organization, you need to:

• Understand your organization's innovation goals.
• Create an innovation program or structure.
• Develop a culture of innovation across your team or organization.
• Demonstrate an ability to innovate and grow the business.

Common Obstacles

In the past, you might have experienced one or more of the following:

• Innovation initiatives lose momentum.
• Cynicism and distrust hamper innovation.
• Innovation efforts are unfocused or don't provide the anticipated value.
• Bureaucracy has created a bottleneck that stifles innovation.

Info-Tech's Approach

This blueprint will help you:

• Understand the different types of innovation.
• Develop a clear vision, scope, and focus.
• Create organizational culture and behaviors aligned with your innovation ambitions.
• Adopt an operational model and methodologies best suited for your culture, goals, and budget.
• Successfully run a pilot program.

Info-Tech Insight

There is no single right way to approach innovation. Begin with an understanding of your innovation ambitions, your existing culture, and the resources available to you, then adopt the innovation operating model that is best suited to your situation.

Note: This research is written for the individual who is leading the development of the innovation. This role is referred to as the Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) throughout this research but could be the CIO, CTO, IT director, or another business leader.

Why is innovation so challenging?

Most organizations want to be innovative, but very few succeed.

• Bureaucracy slows innovation: Innovation requires speed – it is important to fail fast and early so you can iterate to improve the final solution. Small, agile organizations like startups tend to be more risk tolerant and can move more quickly to iterate on new ideas compared to larger organizations.
• Change is uncomfortable: Most people are profoundly uncomfortable with failure, risk, and unknowns – three critical components of innovation. Humans are wired to think efficiently rather than innovatively, which leads to confirmation bias and lack of ingenuity.
• You will likely fail: Innovation initiatives rarely succeed on the first try – Harvard Business Review estimates between 70% and 90% of innovation efforts fail. Organizations which are more tolerant of failure tend to be significantly more innovative than those which are not (Review of Financial Studies, 2014).

Based on a survey of global innovation trends and practices:

The biggest obstacles to innovation are cultural

The biggest obstacles to innovation in large companies

Based on a survey of 270 business leaders.
Source: Harvard Business Review, 2018

The most common challenges business leaders experience relate to people and culture. Success is based on people, not ideas.

Politics, turf wars, and a lack of alignment: territorial departments, competition for resources, and unclear roles are holding back the innovation efforts of 55% of respondents.

FIX IT
Senior leadership needs to be clear on the innovation goals and how business units are expected to contribute to them.

Cultural issues: many large companies have a culture that rewards operational excellence and disincentivizes risk. A history of failed innovation attempts may result in significant resistance to new change efforts.

FIX IT
Cultural change takes time. Ensure you are rewarding collaboration and risk-taking, and hire people with fresh new perspectives.

Inability to act on signals crucial to the future of the business: only 18% of respondents indicated their organization was unaware of disruptions, but 42% said they struggled with acting on leading indicators of change.

FIX IT
Build the ability to quickly run pilots or partner with startups and incubators to test out new ideas without lengthy review and approval processes.
Source: Harvard Business Review, 2018

Build Your Enterprise Innovation Program

Define your purpose, assess your culture, and build a practice that delivers true innovation.

1 Source: Boston Consulting Group, 2021
2 Source: Boston Consulting Group, 2019
3 Source: Harvard Business Review, 2018

Use this research to outperform your peers

A seven-year review showed that the most innovative companies outperformed the market by upwards of 30%.

Innovators are defined as companies that were listed on Fast Company World's 50 Most Innovative Companies for 2+ years.

Innovation is critical to business success.

A 25-year study by Business Development Canada and Statistics Canada showed that innovation was more important to business success than management, human resources, marketing, or finance.

Executive brief case study

INDUSTRY: Healthcare
SOURCE: Interview

Culture is critical

This Info-Tech member is a nonprofit, community-based mental health organization located in the US. It serves about 25,000 patients per year in community, school, and clinic settings.

This organization takes its innovation culture very seriously and has developed methodologies to assess individual and team innovation readiness as well as innovation types, which it uses to determine everyone's role in the innovation process. These assessments look at knowledge of and trust in the organization, its innovation profile, and its openness to change. Innovation enthusiasts are involved early in the process when it's important to dream big, while more pragmatic perspectives are incorporated later to improve the final solution.

Results

The organization has developed many innovative approaches to delivering healthcare. Notably, they have reimagined patient scheduling and reduced wait times to the extent that some patients can be seen the same day. They are also working to improve access to mental health care despite a shortage of professionals.

Developing an Innovative Culture

• Innovation Readiness Assessment
• Coaching Specific to Innovation Profile
• Innovation Enthusiasts Involved Early
• Innovation Pragmatists Involved Later
• High Success Rate of Innovation

Define innovation roles and responsibilities

Info-Tech's methodology for building your enterprise innovation program

Innovation program taxonomy

This research uses the following common terms:

Innovation Operating Model
The operating model describes how the innovation program delivers value to the organization, including how the program is structured, the steps from idea generation to enterprise launch, and the methodologies used.
Examples: Innovation Hub, Grassroots Innovation.

Innovation Methodology
Methodologies describe the ways the operating model is carried out, and the approaches used in the innovation practice.
Examples: Design Thinking, Weighted Criteria Scoring

Chief Innovation Officer
This research is written for the person or team leading the innovation program – this might be a CINO, CIO, or other leader in the organization.

Innovation Team
The innovation team may vary depending on the operating model, but generally consists of the individuals involved in facilitating innovation across the organization. This may be, but does not have to be, a dedicated innovation department.

Innovation Program
The program for generating ideas, running pilot projects, and building a business case to implement across the enterprise.

Pilot Project
A way of testing and validating a specific concept in the real world through a minimum viable product or small-scale implementation. The pilot projects are part of the overall pilot program.

Insight summary

Innovation is about people, not ideas or processes
Innovation does not require a formal process, a dedicated innovation team, or a large budget; the most important success factor for innovation is culture. Companies that facilitate innovative behaviors like growth mindset, collaboration, and the ability to take smart risk are most likely to see the benefits of innovation.

Very few are doing innovation well
Only 30% of companies consider themselves innovative, and there's a good reason: innovation involves unknowns, risk, and failure – three situations that people and organizations typically do their best to avoid. Counter this by removing the barriers to innovation.

Culture is the greatest barrier to innovation
In a survey of 270 business leaders, the top three most common obstacles were politics, turf wars, and alignment; culture issues; and inability to act on signals crucial to the business (Harvard Business Review, 2018). If you don't have a supportive culture, your ability to innovate will be significantly reduced.

Innovation is a means to an end
It is not the end itself. Don't get caught up in innovation for the sake of innovation – make sure you are getting the benefits from your investments. Measurable success factors are critical for maintaining the long-term success of your innovation engine.

Tackle wicked problems
Innovative approaches are better at solving complex problems than traditional practices. Organizations that prioritize innovation during a crisis tend to outperform their peers by over 30% and improve their market position (McKinsey, 2020).

Innovate or die
Innovation is critical to business growth. A 25-year study showed that innovation was more important to business success than management, human resources, marketing, or finance (Statistics Canada, 2006).

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

Sample Job Descriptions and Organization Charts

Determine the skills, knowledge, and structure you need to make innovation happen.

Ideation Session Template

Facilitate an ideation session with your staff to identify areas for innovation.

Initiative Prioritization Workbook

Evaluate ideas to identify those which are most likely to provide value.

Key deliverable:

Enterprise Innovation Program Summary

Communicate how you plan to innovate with a report summarizing the outputs from this research.

Measure the value of this research

US businesses spend over half a trillion dollars on innovation annually. What are they getting for it?

• The top innovators(1) typically spend 5-15% of their budgets on innovation (including R&D).
• This research helps organizations develop a successful innovation program, which delivers value to the organization in the form of new products, services, and methods.
• Leverage this research to:
  • Get your innovation program off the ground quickly.
  • Increase internal knowledge and expertise.
  • Generate buy-in and excitement about innovation.
  • Develop the skills and capabilities you need to drive innovation over the long term.
  • Validate your innovation concept.
  • Streamline and integrate innovation across the organization.

(1) based on BCG's 50 Most Innovative Companies 2022

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

Guided Implementation

“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

Workshop

“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

Consulting

“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided implementation

What does a typical guided implementation (GI) on this topic look like?

A GI is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of three to six months.

Workshop overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Phase 1: Define Your Purpose

Develop a better understanding of the drivers for innovation and what success looks like.

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Understand your innovation mandate, including its drivers, scope, and focus.
• Define what innovation means to your organization.
• Develop an innovation vision and guiding principles.
• Articulate the value proposition and proposed metrics for evaluating program success.

This phase involves the following participants:

• CINO
• Business executives

Case study

INDUSTRY: Transportation
SOURCE: Interview

ArcBest
ArcBest is a multibillion-dollar shipping and logistics company which leverages innovative technologies to provide reliable and integrated services to its customers.

An Innovative Culture Starts at the Top
ArcBest's innovative culture has buy-in and support from the highest level of the company. Michael Newcity, ArcBest's CEO, is dedicated to finding better ways of serving their customers and supports innovation across the company by dedicating funding and resources toward piloting and scaling new initiatives.
Having a clear purpose and mandate for innovation at all levels of the organization has resulted in extensive grassroots innovation and the development of a formalized innovation program.

Results
ArcBest has a legacy of innovation, going back to its early days when it developed a business intelligence solution before anything else existed on the market. It continues to innovate today and is now partnering with start-ups to further expand its innovation capabilities.

"We don't micromanage or process-manage incremental innovation. We hire really smart people who are inspired to create new things and we let them run – let them create – and we celebrate it.
Our dedication to innovation comes from the top – I am both the President and the Chief Innovation Officer, and innovation is one of my top priorities."

Michael Newcity
President and Chief Innovation Officer ArcBest

1.1 Understand your innovation mandate

Before you can act, you need to understand the following:

• Where is the drive for innovation coming from?
  The source of your mandate dictates the scope of your innovation practice – in general, innovating outside the scope of your mandate (i.e. trying to innovate on products when you don't have buy-in from the product team) will not be successful.
• What is meant by "innovation"?
  There are many different definitions for innovation. Before pursuing innovation at your organization, you need to understand how it is defined. Use the definition in this section as a starting point, and craft your own definition of innovation.
• What kind of innovation are you targeting?
  Innovation can be internal or external, emergent or deliberate, and incremental or radically transformative. Understanding what kind of innovation you want is the starting point for your innovation practice.

The source of your mandate dictates the scope of your influence

You can only influence what you can control.

Unless your mandate comes from the CEO or Board of Directors, driving enterprise-wide innovation is very difficult. If you do not have buy-in from senior business leaders, use lighthouse projects and a smaller innovation practice to prove the value of innovation before taking on enterprise innovation.

In order to execute on a mandate to build innovation, you don't just need buy-in. You need support in the form of resources and funding, as well as strong leadership who can influence culture and the authority to change policies and practices that inhibit innovation.

For more resources on building relationships in your organization, refer to Info-Tech's Become a Transformational CIO blueprint.

What is "innovation"?

Innovation is often easier to recognize than define.

Align on a useful definition of innovation for your organization before you embark on a journey of becoming more innovative.

Innovation is the practice of developing new methods, products or services which provide value to an organization.

Practice
This does not have to be a formal process – innovation is a means to an end, not the end itself.

New
What does "new" mean to you?

• New application of an existing method
• Developing a completely original product
• Adopting a service from another industry

Value
What does value mean to you? Look to your business strategy to understand what goals the organization is trying to achieve, then determine how "value" will be measured.

Info-Tech Insight

Some innovations are incremental, while some are radically transformative. Decide what kind of innovation you want to cultivate before developing your strategy.

We can categorize innovation in three ways

Evaluate your goals with respect to innovation: focus, strategy, and potential to transform.

Focus: Where will you innovate?

Strategy: To what extent will you guide innovation efforts?

Potential: How radical will your innovations be?

What are your ambitions?

1. Develop a better understanding of what type of innovation you are trying to achieve by plotting out your goals on the categories on the left.
2. All categories are independent of one another, so your goals may fall anywhere on the scales for each category.
3. Understanding your innovation ambitions helps establish the operating model best suited for your innovation practice.
4. In general, innovation which is more external, deliberate, and radical tends to be more centralized.

Activity 1.1 Understand your innovation mandate

1 hour

1. Schedule a 30-minute discussion with the person (i.e. CEO) or group (i.e. Board of Directors) ultimately requesting the shift toward innovation. If there is no external party, then conduct this assessment yourself.
2. Facilitate a discussion that addresses the following questions:

• What is meant by "innovation"?
• What are they hoping to achieve through innovation?
• What is the innovation scope? Are any areas off-limits (i.e. org structure, new products, certain markets)?
• What is the budget (i.e. people, money) they are willing to commit to innovation?
• What type of innovation are they pursuing?

3. Record this information and complete the "Our Purpose" section of the Innovation Program Template.

Download the Innovation Program Template.

Input

• Knowledge of the key decision maker/sponsor for innovation

Output

• Understanding of the mandate for innovation, including definition, value, scope, budget, and type of innovation

Materials

• Innovation Program Template

Participants

• CINO
• CEO, CTO, or Board of Directors (whoever is requesting/sponsoring the pursuit of innovation)

1.2 Define your innovation ambitions

Articulate your future state through a vision and guiding principles.

• Vision and purpose make up the foundation on which all other design aspects will be based. These aspects should not be taken lightly, but rather they should be the force that aligns everyone to work toward a common outcome. It is incumbent on leaders to make them part of the DNA of the organization – to drive organization, structure, culture, and talent strategy.
• Your vision statement is a future-focused statement that summarizes what you hope to achieve. It should be inspirational, ambitious, and concise.
• Your guiding principles outline the guardrails for your innovation practice. What will your focus be? How will you approach innovation? What is off-limits?
• Define the scope and focus for your innovation efforts. This includes what you can innovate on and what is off limits.

Your vision statement is your North Star

Articulate an ambitious, inspirational, and concise vision statement for your innovation efforts.

A strong vision statement:

• Is future-focused and outlines what you want to become and what you want to achieve.
• Provides focus and direction.
• Is ambitious, focused, and concise.
• Answers: What problems are we solving? Who and what are we changing?

Examples:

• "We create radical new technologies to solve some of the world's hardest problems." – Google X, the Moonshot Factory
• "To be the most innovative enterprise in the world." – 3M
• "To use our imagination to bring happiness to millions of people." – Disney

"Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion." – Jack Welch, Former Chairman and CEO of GE

Your guiding principles are the guardrails for creativity

Strong guiding principles give your team the freedom and direction to innovate.

Strong guiding principles:

• Focus on the approach, i.e. how things are done, as opposed to what needs to be done.
• Are specific to the organization.
• Inform and direct decision making with actionable statements. Avoid truisms, general statements, and observations.
• Are long-lasting and based on values, not solutions.
• Are succinct and easily digestible.
• Can be measured and verified.
• Answers: How do we approach innovation? What are our core values

Craft your guiding principles using these examples

Encourage experimentation and risk-taking
Innovation often requires trying new things, even if they might fail. We encourage experimentation and learn from failure, so that new ideas can be tested and refined.

Foster collaboration and cross-functional teams
Innovation often comes from the intersection of different perspectives and skill sets.

Customer-centric
Focus on creating value for the end user. This means understanding their needs and pain points, and using that knowledge to develop new methods, products, or services.

Embrace diversity and inclusivity
Innovation comes from a variety of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. We actively seek out and encourage diversity and inclusivity among our team members.

Foster a culture of learning and continuous improvement
Innovation requires continuous learning, development, and growth. We facilitate a culture that encourages learning and development, and that seeks feedback and uses it to improve.

Flexible and adaptable
We adapt to changes in the market, customer needs, and new technologies, so that it can continue to innovate and create value over time.

Data-driven
We use performance metrics and data to guide our innovation efforts.

Transparency
We are open and transparent in our processes and let the business needs guide our innovation efforts. We do not lead innovation, we facilitate it.

Activity 1.2 Craft your vision statement and guiding principles

1-2 hours

1. Gather your innovation team and key program sponsors. Review the guidelines for creating vision statements and guiding principles, as well as your mandate and focus for innovation.
2. As a group, discuss what you hope to achieve through your innovation efforts.
3. Separately, have each person write down their ideas for a vision statement. Bring the group back together and share ideas. Group the concepts together and construct a single statement which outlines your aspirational vision.
4. As a group, review the example guiding principles.
5. Separately, have each person write down three to five guiding principles. Bring the group back together and share ideas. Group similar concepts together and consolidate duplicate ideas. From this list, construct six to eight guiding principles.
6. Document your vision and guiding principles in the appropriate sections of the Innovation Program Template.

Input

• Understanding of your innovation mandate
• Business vision, mission, and values
• Sample vision statements and guiding principles

Output

• Vision statement
• Guiding principles

Materials

• In person: Whiteboard/flip charts, sticky notes, pens, and notepads
• Virtual: Consider using a shared document, virtual whiteboard, or online facilitation tool like MURAL
• Innovation Program Template

Participants

• CINO
• Innovation sponsors
• Business leaders
• Innovation team

1.3 Determine your value proposition and metrics

Justify the existence of the innovation program with a strong value proposition.

• The value proposition for developing an innovation program will be different for each organization, depending on what the organization hopes to achieve. Consider your mandate for innovation as well as the type of innovation you are pursuing when crafting the value proposition.
• Some of the reasons organizations may pursue innovation:
  • Business growth: Respond to market disruption; create new customers; take advantage of opportunities.
  • Branding: Create market differentiation; increase customer satisfaction and retention; adapt to customer needs.
  • Profitability: Improve products, services, or operations to increase competitiveness and profitability; develop more efficient processes.
  • Culture: Foster a culture of creativity and experimentation within the organization, encouraging employees to think outside the box.
  • Positive impact: Address social challenges such as poverty and climate change.

Develop a strong value proposition for your innovation program

Demonstrate the value to the business.

A strong value proposition not only articulates the value that the business will derive from the innovation program but also provides a clear focus, helps to communicate the innovation goals, and ultimately drives the success of the program.

Focus
Prioritize and focus innovation efforts to create solutions that provide real value to the organization

Communicate
Communicate the mandate and benefits of innovation in a clear and compelling way and inspire people to think differently

Measure Success
Measure the success of your program by evaluating outcomes based on the value proposition

Track appropriate success metrics for your innovation program

Your success metrics should link back to your organizational goals and your innovation program's value proposition.

Revenue Growth: Increase in revenue generated by new products or services.

Market Share: Percentage of total market that the business captures as a result of innovation.

Customer Satisfaction: Reviews, customer surveys, or willingness to recommend the company.

Employee Engagement: Engagement surveys, performance, employee retention, or turnover.

Innovation Output: The number of new products, services, or processes that have been developed.

Return on Investment: Financial return on the resources invested in the innovation process.

Social Impact: Number of people positively impacted, net reduction in emissions, etc.

Time to Launch: The time it takes for a new product or service to go from idea to launch.

Info-Tech Insight

The total impact of innovation is often intangible and extremely difficult to capture in performance metrics. Focus on developing a few key metrics rather than trying to capture the full value of innovation.

How much does innovation cost?

The top innovators(1) in the world spend 5% to 15% of their revenue on innovation.

Innovation requires a dedicated investment of time, money, and resources in order to be successful. The most innovative companies, based on Boston Consulting Group's ranking of the 50 most innovative companies in the world, spend significant portions of their revenue on research and development.

Note: This data uses research and development as a proxy for innovation spending, which may overestimate the total spend on what this research considers true innovation.

(1) Based on Boston Consulting Group's ranking of the 50 most innovative companies in the world, 2022
(2) Macrotrends, based on the 12 months ending Sept 30, 2022
(3) Statista
(4) CNBC, 2022

Activity 1.3 Develop your value proposition and performance metrics

1 hour

1. Review your mandate and vision statement. Write down your innovation goals and desired outcomes from pursuing innovation, prioritize the desired outcomes, and select the top five.
2. For each desired outcome, develop one to two metrics which could be used to track its success. Some outcomes are difficult to track, so get creative when it comes to developing metrics. If you get stuck, think about what would differentiate a great outcome from an unsuccessful one.
3. Once you have developed a list of three to five key metrics, read over the list and ensure that the metrics you have developed don't negatively influence your innovation. For example, a metric of the number of successful launches may drive people toward launching before a product is ready.
4. For each metric, develop a goal. For example, you may target 1% revenue growth over the next fiscal year or 20% energy use reduction.
5. Document your value proposition and key performance metrics in the appropriate sections of the Innovation Program Template.

Input

• Understanding of your innovation mandate
• Vision statement

Output

• Value proposition
• Performance metrics

Materials

• Innovation Program Template

Participants

• CINO

Phase 2: Align Your People

Create a culture that fosters innovative behaviors and puts processes in place to support them.

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Understand the key aspects of innovative cultures, and the behaviors associated with innovation.
• Assess your culture and identify gaps.
• Define your innovation operating model based on your organizational culture and the focus for innovation.
• Build your core innovation capabilities, including an innovation core team (if required based on your operating model).

This phase involves the following participants:

• CINO
• Innovation team

2.1 Foster a culture of innovation

Culture is the most important driver of innovation – and the most challenging to get right.

• Fostering a culture of innovation requires a broad approach which considers the perspectives of individuals, teams, leadership, and the overall organization.
• If you do not have support from leadership, it is very difficult to change organizational culture. It may be more effective to start with an innovation pilot or lighthouse project in order to gain support before addressing your culture.
• Rather than looking to change outcomes, focus on the behaviors which lead to innovation – such as growth mindset and willingness to fail. If these aren't in place, your ability to innovate will be limited.
• This section focuses on the specific behaviors associated with increased innovation. For additional resources on implementing these changes, refer to Info-Tech's other research:

Info-Tech's Fix Your IT Culture can help you promote innovative behaviors

Refer to Improve IT Team Effectiveness to address team challenges

Build a culture of innovation

Focus on behaviors, not outcomes.

The following behaviors and key indicators either stifle or foster innovation.

Ensure you are not inadvertently stifling innovation.
Review the following to ensure that the desired behaviors are promoted:

• Hiring practices
• Performance evaluation metrics
• Rewards and incentives
• Corporate policies
• Governance structures
• Leadership behavior

Case study

INDUSTRY: Commercial Real Estate and Retail
SOURCE: Interview

How not to approach innovation.

This anonymous national organization owned commercial properties across the country and had the goal of becoming the most innovative real estate and retail company in the market.

The organization pursued innovation in the digital solutions space across its commercial and retail properties. Within this space, there were significant differences in risk tolerance across teams, which resulted in the more risk-tolerant teams excluding the risk-averse members from discussions in order to circumvent corporate policies on risk tolerance. This resulted in an adversarial and siloed culture where each group believed they knew better than the other, and the more risk-averse teams felt like they were policing the actions of the risk-tolerant group.

Results

Morale plummeted, and many of the organization's top people left. Unfortunately, one of the solutions did not meet regulatory requirements, and the company faced negative media coverage and legal action. There was significant reputational damage as a result.

Lessons Learned

Considering differences in risk tolerance and risk appetite is critical when pursuing innovation. While everyone doesn't have to agree, leadership needs to understand the different perspectives and ensure that no one party is dominating the conversation over the others. An understanding of corporate risk tolerance and risk appetite is necessary to drive innovation.

All perspectives have a place in innovation. More risk tolerant perspectives should be involved early in the ideas-generation phase, and risk-averse perspectives should be considered later when ideas are being refined.

Speed should not override safety or circumvent corporate policies.

Understand your risk tolerance and risk appetite

Evaluate and align the appetite for risk.

• It is important to understand the organization's risk tolerance as well as the desire for risk. Consider the following risk categories when investigating the organization's views on risk:
  • Financial risk: the potential for financial or property loss.
  • Operational risk: the potential for disruptions to operations.
  • Reputational risk: the potential for negative impact to brand or reputation.
  • Compliance risk: the potential for loss due to non-compliance with laws and regulations.
• Greater risk tolerance typically enables greater innovation. Understand the varying levels of risk tolerance across your organization, and how these differences might impact innovation efforts.

It is more important to match the level of risk tolerance to the degree of innovation required. Not all innovation needs to be (or can feasibly be) disruptive.
Many factors impact risk tolerance including:

• Regulation
• Organization size
• Country
• Industry
• Personal experience
• Type of risk

Use Info-Tech's Security Risk Management research to better understand risk tolerance

Activity 2.1 Assess your innovation culture

1-3 hours

1. Review the behaviors which support and stifle innovation and give each behavior a score from 1 (stifling innovation) to 5 (fostering innovation). Any behaviors which fall below a 4 on this scale should be prioritized in your efforts to create an innovative culture.
2. Review the following policies and practices to determine how they may be contributing to the behaviors you see in your organization:
   1. Hiring practices
   2. Performance evaluation metrics
   3. Rewards, recognition, and incentives
   4. Corporate policies
   5. Governance structures
   6. Leadership behavior
3. Identify three concrete actions you can take to correct any behaviors which are stifling innovation. Examples might be revising a policy which punishes failure or changing performance incentives to reward appropriate risk taking.
4. Summarize your findings in the appropriate section of the Innovation Program Template.

Input

• Innovation behaviors

Output

• Understanding of your organization's culture
• Concrete actions you can take to promote innovation

Materials

• List of innovative behaviors
• Relevant policies and documents to review
• Innovation Program Template

Participants

• CINO

2.2 Define your innovation model

Set up your innovation practice for success using proven models and methodologies.

• There are many ways to approach innovation, from highly distributed forms where it's just part of everyone's job to very centralized and arm's-length innovation hubs or even outsourced innovation via startups. You can combine different approaches to create your own approach.
• You may or may not have a formal innovation team, but if you do, their role is to facilitate innovation – not lead it. Innovation is most effective when it is led by the business.
• There are many tools and methodologies you can use to facilitate innovation. Choose the one (or combination) that best suits your needs.

Select the right model

There is no one right way to pursue innovation, but some methods are better than others for specific situations and goals. Consider your existing culture, your innovation goals, and your budget when selecting the right methodology for your innovation.

Use the right methodologies to support different stages of your innovation process

Adapted from Niklaus Gerber via Medium, 2022

Methodologies are most useful when they are aligned with the goals of the innovation organization.

For example, design thinking tends to be excellent for earlier innovation planning, while Agile can allow for faster implementation and launch of initiatives later in the process.

Consider combining two or more methodologies to create a custom approach that best suits your organization's capabilities and goals.

Sample methodologies

A robust innovation methodology ensures that the process for developing, prioritizing, selecting, implementing, and measuring initiatives is aligned with the results you are hoping to achieve.

Different types of problems (drivers for innovation) may necessitate different methodologies, or a combination of methodologies.

Hackathon: An event which brings people together to solve a well-defined problem.

Design Thinking: Creative approach that focuses on understanding the needs of users.

Lean Startup: Emphasizes rapid experimentation in order to validate business hypotheses.

Design Sprint: Five-day process for answering business questions via design, prototyping, and testing.

Agile: Iterative design process that emphasizes project management and retrospectives.

Three Horizons: Framework that looks at opportunities on three different time horizons.

Innovation Ambition Matrix: Helps organizations categorize projects as part of the core offering, an adjacent offering, or completely new.

Global Innovation Management: A process of identifying, developing and implementing new ideas, products, services, or processes using alternative thinking.

Blue Ocean Strategy: A methodology that helps organizations identify untapped market space and create new markets via unique value propositions.

Activity 2.2 Design your innovation model

1-2 hours

1. Think about the following factors which influence the design of your innovation practice:
   1. Existing organizational culture
   2. Available funding to support innovation
   3. Type of innovation you are targeting
2. Review the innovation approaches, and identify which approach is most suitable for your situation. Note why this approach was selected.
3. Review the innovation methodologies and research those of interest. Select two to five methodologies to use for your innovation practice.
4. Document your decisions in the Innovation Program Template.

Input

• Understanding of your mandate and existing culture

Output

• Innovation approach
• Selected methodologies

Materials

• Innovation Program Template

Participants

• CINO
• Innovation team

2.3 Build your core innovation capabilities

Develop the skills, knowledge, and experience to facilitate successful innovation.

• Depending on the approach you selected in step 2.2, you may or may not require a dedicated innovation team. If you do, use the job descriptions and sample organization charts to build it. If not, focus on developing key capabilities which are needed to facilitate innovation.
• Diversity is key for successful innovation – ensure your team (formal or otherwise) includes diverse perspectives and backgrounds.
• Use your guiding principles when hiring and training your team.
• Focus on three core roles: evangelists, enablers, and experts.

Focus on three key roles when building your innovation team

Types of roles will depend on the purpose and size of the innovation team.

You don't need to grow them all internally. Consider partnering with vendors and other organizations to build capabilities.

Evangelists

Visionaries who inspire, support, and facilitate innovation across the business. Their responsibilities are to drive the culture of innovation.

Key skills and knowledge:

• Strong communication skills
• Relationship-building
• Consensus-building
• Collaboration
• Growth mindset

Sample titles:

• CINO
• Chief Transformation Officer
• Chief Digital Officer
• Innovation Lead
• Business Relationship Manager

Enablers

Translate ideas into tangible business initiatives, including assisting with business cases and developing performance metrics.

Key skills and knowledge:

• Critical thinking skills
• Business knowledge
• Facilitation skills
• Consensus-building
• Relationship-building

Sample titles:

• Product Owner
• Design Thinking Lead
• Data Scientist
• Business Analyst
• Human Factors Engineer
• Digital Marketing Specialist

Experts

Provide expertise in product design, delivery and management, and responsible for supporting and executing on pilot projects.

Key skills and knowledge:

• Project management skills
• Technical expertise
• Familiarity with emerging technologies
• Analytical skills
• Problem-solving skills

Sample titles:

• Product Manager
• Scrum Master/Agile Coach
• Product Engineer/DevOps
• Product Designer
• Emerging tech experts

Sample innovation team structure (large enterprise)

Visualize the whole value delivery process end-to-end to help identify the types of roles, resources, and capabilities required. These capabilities can be sourced internally (i.e. grow and hire internally) or through collaboration with centers of excellence, commercial partners, etc.

Streamline your process by downloading Info-Tech's job description templates:

• Chief Innovation Officer
• Chief Digital Officer
• Innovation Lead
• Business Relationship Manager
• Product Owner
• Business Analyst
• Scrum Master
• Project Manager

Activity 2.3 Build your innovation team

2-3 hours

1. Review your work from the previous activities as well as the organizational structure and the job description templates.
2. Start a list with two columns: currently have and needed. Start listing some of the key roles and capabilities from earlier in this step, categorizing them appropriately.
3. If you are using an organizational structure for your innovation process, start to frame out the structure and roles for your team.
4. Develop a list of roles you need to hire, and the key capabilities you need from candidates. Using the job descriptions, write job postings for each role.
5. Record your work in the appropriate section of the Innovation Program Template.

Input

• Previous work
• Info-Tech job description templates

Output

• List of capabilities required
• Org chart
• Job postings for required roles

Materials

• Note-taking capability
• Innovation Program Template

Participants

• CINO

Related Info-Tech Research

Fix Your IT Culture

• Promote psychological safety and growth mindset within your organization.
• Develop the organizational behaviors that lead to innovation.

Improve IT Team Effectiveness

• Address behaviors, processes, and cultural factors which impact team effectiveness.
• Grow the team's ability to address challenges and navigate volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments.

Master Organizational Change Management Practices

• Transformation and change are increasingly becoming the new normal. While this normality may help make people more open to change in general, specific changes still need to be planned, communicated, and managed. Agility and continuous improvement are good but can degenerate into volatility if change isn't managed properly.

Phase 3: Build Your Practice

Define your innovation process, streamline pilot projects, and scale for success.

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Build the methodologies needed to elicit ideas from the business.
• Develop criteria to evaluate and prioritize ideas for piloting.
• Define your pilot program methodologies and processes, including criteria to assess and compare the success of pilot projects.
• Conduct an end-of-year program retrospective to evaluate the success of your innovation program.

This phase involves the following participants:

• CINO
• Innovation team

Case study

INDUSTRY: Government
SOURCE: Interview

Confidential US government agency

The business applications group at this government agency strongly believes that innovation is key to progress and has instituted a formal innovation program as part of their agile operations. The group uses a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) with 2-week sprints and a 12-week program cycle.

To support innovation across the business unit, the last sprint of each cycle is dedicated toward innovation and teams do not commit to any other during these two weeks. At the end of each innovation sprint, ideas are presented to leadership and the valuable ones were either implemented initially or were given time in the next cycle of sprints for further development. This has resulted in a more innovative culture across the practice.

Results

There have been several successful innovations since this process began. Notably, the agency had previously purchased a robotic process automation platform which was only being used for a few specific applications. One team used their innovation sprint to expand the use cases for this solution and save nearly 10,000 hours of effort.

Standard 12-week Program Cycle

Design your innovation operating model to maximize value and learning opportunities

Pilots are an iterative process which brings together innovators and business teams to test and evaluate ideas.

Your operating model should include several steps including ideation, validation, evaluation and prioritization, piloting, and a retrospective which follows the pilot. Use the example on this slide when designing your own innovation operating model.

3.1 Build your ideation and prioritization methodologies

Engage the business to generate ideas, then prioritize based on value to the business.

• There are many ways of generating ideas, from informal discussion to formal ideation sessions or submission forms. Whatever you decide to use, make sure that you're getting the right information to evaluate ideas for prioritization.
• Use quantitative and qualitative metrics to evaluate ideas generated during the ideation process.
  • Quantitative metrics might include potential return on investment (ROI) or effort and resources required to implement.
  • Qualitative metrics might include alignment with the organizational strategy or the level of risk associated with the idea.

Engage the business to generate ideas

There are many ways of generating innovative ideas. Pick the methods that best suit your organization and goals.

Design Thinking
A structured approach that encourages participants to think creatively about the needs of the end user.

Ideation Workshop
A formal session that is used to understand a problem then generate potential solutions. Workshops can incorporate the other methodologies (such as brainstorming, design thinking, or mind mapping) to generate ideas.

• Define the problem
• Generate ideas
• Capture ideas
• Evaluate and prioritize
• Assign next steps

Crowdsourcing
An informal method of gathering ideas from a large group of people. This can be a great way to generate many ideas but may lack focus.

Value Proposition Canvas
A visual tool which helps to identify customer (or user) needs and design products and services that meet those needs.

Evaluate ideas and focus on those with the greatest value

Evaluation should be transparent and use both quantitative and qualitative metrics. The exact metrics used will depend on your organization and goals.

It is important to include qualitative metrics as these dimensions are better suited to evaluating highly innovative ideas and can capture important criteria like alignment with overall strategy and feasibility.

Develop 5 to 10 criteria that you can use to evaluate and prioritize ideas. Some criteria may be a pass/fail (for example, minimum ROI) and some may be comparative.

Evaluate
The first step is to evaluate ideas to determine if they meet the minimum criteria. This might include quantitative criteria like ROI as well as qualitative criteria like strategic alignment and feasibility.

Prioritize
Ideas that pass the initial evaluation should be prioritized based on additional criteria which might include quantitative criteria such as potential market size and cost to implement, and qualitative criteria such as risk, impact, and creativity.

Quantitative Metrics

Quantitative metrics are objective and easily comparable between initiatives, providing a transparent and data-driven process for evaluation and prioritization.
Examples:

• Potential market size
• ROI
• Net present value
• Payback period
• Number of users impacted
• Customer acquisition cost
• Customer lifetime value
• Breakeven analysis
• Effort required to implement
• Cost to implement

Qualitative Metrics

Qualitative metrics are less easily comparable but are equally important when it comes to evaluating ideas. These should be developed based on your organization strategy and innovation goals.
Examples:

• Strategy alignment
• Impact on users
• Uncertainty and risk
• Innovation potential
• Culture impact
• Feasibility
• Creativity and originality
• Type of innovation

Activity 3.1 Develop prioritization metrics

1-3 hours

1. Review your mandate, purpose, innovation goals and the sample prioritization and evaluation metrics.
2. Write down a list of your goals and their associated metrics, then prioritize which are the most important.
3. Determine which metrics will be used to evaluate ideas before they move on to the prioritization stage, and which metrics will be used to compare initiatives in order to determine which will receive further investment.
4. For each evaluation metric, determine the minimum threshold required for an idea to move forward. For each prioritization metric identify the definition and how it will be evaluated. Qualitative metrics may require more precise definitions than quantitative metrics.
5. Enter your metrics into the Initiative Prioritization Template.

Input

• Innovation mandate
• Innovation goals
• Sample metrics

Output

• Evaluation and prioritization metrics for ideas

Materials

• Whiteboard/Flip charts
• Innovation Program Template

Participants

• Innovation leader

Download the Initiative Prioritization Template

3.2 Build your program to pilot initiatives

Test and refine ideas through real-world pilot projects.

• The purpose of your pilot is to test and refine ideas in the real world. In order to compare pilot projects, it's important to track key performance indicators throughout the pilot. Measurements should be useful and comparable.
• Innovation facilitators are responsible for supporting pilot projects, including designing the pilot, setting up metrics, tracking outcomes, and facilitating retrospectives.
• Pilots generally follow an Agile methodology where ideas may be refined as the pilot proceeds, and the process iterates until either the idea is discarded or it has been refined into an initiative which can be scaled.
• Expect that most pilots will fail the first time, and many will fail completely. This is not a loss; lessons learned from the retrospective can be used to improve the process and later pilots.

Use pilot projects to test and refine initiatives before scaling to the rest of the organization

"Learning is as powerful as the outcome." – Brett Trelfa, CIO, Arkansas Blue Cross

1. Clearly define the goals and objectives of the pilot project. Goals and objectives ensure that the pilot stays on track and can be measured.
2. Your pilot group should include a variety of participants with diverse perspectives and skill sets, in order to gather unique insights.
3. Continuously track the progress of the pilot project. Regularly identify areas of improvement and implement changes as necessary to refine ideas.
4. Regularly elicit feedback from participants and iterate in order to improve the final innovation. Not all pilots will be successful, but every failure can help refine future solutions.
5. Consider scalability. If the pilot project is successful, it should be scalable and the lessons learned should be implemented in the larger organization.

Sample pilot metrics

Metrics are used to validate and test pilot projects to ensure they deliver value. This is an important step before scaling to the rest of the organization.

Adoption: How many end users have adopted the pilot solution?

Utilization: Is the solution getting utilized?

Support Requests: How many support requests have there been since the pilot was initiated?

Value: Is the pilot delivering on the value that it proposed? For example, time savings.

Feasibility: Has the feasibility of the solution changed since it was first proposed?

Satisfaction: Focus groups or surveys can provide feedback on user/customer satisfaction.

A/B Testing: Compare different methods, products or services.

Info-Tech Insight

Ensure standard core metrics are used across all pilot projects so that outcomes can be compared. Additional metrics may be used to refine and test hypotheses through the pilot process.

Activity 3.2 Build your program to pilot initiatives

1-2 hours

1. Gather the innovation team and review your mandate, purpose, goals, and the sample innovation operating model and metrics.
2. As a group, brainstorm the steps needed from idea generation to business case. Use sticky notes if in person, or a collaboration tool if remote.
3. Determine the metrics that will be used to evaluate ideas at each decision step (for example, prior to piloting). Outline what the different decisions might be (for example, proceed, refine or discard) and what happens as a result of each decision.
4. Document your final steps and metrics in the Innovation Program Template.

Input

• Innovation mandate
• Innovation goals
• Sample metrics

Output

• Pilot project methodology
• Pilot project metrics

Materials

• Innovation Program Template
• Sticky notes (in person) or digital collaboration tool (if remote)

Participants

• Innovation leader
• Innovation team

3.3 Conduct a program retrospective

Generate value from your successful pilots by scaling ideas across the organization.

• The final step in the innovation process is to scale ideas to the enterprise in order to realize the full potential.
• Keeping track of notable wins is important for showing the value of the innovation program. Track performance of initiatives that come out of the innovation program, including their financial, cultural, market, and brand impacts.
• Track the success of the innovation program itself by evaluating the number of ideas generated, the number of pilots run and the success of the pilots. Keep in mind that many failed pilots is not a failure of the program if the lessons learned were valuable.
• Complete an innovation program retrospective every 6 to 12 months in order to adjust and make any changes if necessary to improve your process.

Retrospectives should be objective, constructive, and action-oriented

A retrospective is a review of your innovation program with the aim of identifying lessons learned, areas for improvement, and opportunities for growth.

During a retrospective, the team will reflect on past experiences and use that information to inform future decision making and improve outcomes.

The goal of a retrospective is to learn from the past and use that knowledge to improve in the future.

Objective

Ensure that the retrospective is based on facts and objective data, rather than personal opinions or biases.

Constructive

Ensure that the retrospective is a positive and constructive experience, with a focus on finding solutions rather than dwelling on problems.

Action-Oriented

The retrospective should result in a clear action plan with specific steps to improve future initiatives.

Activity 3.3 Conduct a program retrospective

1-2 hours

1. Post a large piece of paper on the wall with a timeline from the last year. Include dates and a few key events, but not much more. Have participants place sticky notes in the spots to describe notable wins or milestones that they were proud of. This can be done as part of a formal meeting or asynchronously outside of meetings.
2. Bring the innovation team together and review the poster with notable wins. Do any themes emerge? How does the team feel the program is doing? Are there any changes needed?
3. Consider the metrics you use to track your innovation program success. Did the scaled projects meet their targets? Is there anything that could be refined about the innovation process?
4. Evaluate the outcomes of your innovation program. Did it meet the targets set for it? Did the goals and innovation ambitions come to fruition?
5. Complete this step every 6 to 12 months to assess the success of your program.
6. Complete the "Notable Wins" section of the Innovation Program Template.

Input

• Innovation mandate
• Innovation goals
• Sample metrics

Output

• Notable wins
• Action items for refining the innovation process

Materials

• Innovation Program Template
• Sticky notes (in person) or digital collaboration tool (if remote)

Participants

• CIO
• Innovation team
• Others who have participated in the innovation process

Related Info-Tech Research

Adopt Design Thinking in Your Organization

• A user's perspective while interacting with the products and services is very different from the organization's internal perspective while implementing and provisioning those. A design-based organization balances the two perspectives to drive user-satisfaction over end-to-end journeys.

Prototype With an Innovation Design Sprint

• Build and test a prototype in four days using Info-Tech's Innovation Design Sprint Methodology.
• Create an environment for co-creation between IT and the business.

Fund Innovation With a Minimum Viable Business Case

• Our approach guides you through effectively designing a solution, de-risking a project through impact reduction techniques, building and pitching the case for your project, and applying the business case as a mechanism to ensure that benefits are realized.

Summary of Accomplishment

Congratulations on launching your innovation program!

You have now completed your innovation strategy, covering the following topics:

• Executive Summary
• Our Purpose
• Scope and Value Proposition
• Guiding Principles
• Building an Innovative Culture
• Program Structure
• Success Metrics
• Notable Wins

If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through an Info-Tech workshop or Guided Implementation.

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Related Info-Tech Research

Accelerate Digital Transformation With a Digital Factory

• Understand the foundations of good design: purpose, organizational support, and leadership.
• Understand the design of the operating model: structure and organization, management practices, culture, environment, teams, technology platforms, and meaningful metrics and KPIs.

Sustain and Grow the Maturity of Innovation in Your Enterprise

• Unlock your innovation potential by looking at your innovation projects on both a macro and micro level.
• Innovation capacity is directly linked with creativity; allow your employees' creativity to flourish using Info-Tech's positive innovation techniques.

Define Your Digital Business Strategy

• Design a strategy that applies innovation to your business model, streamline and transform processes, and make use of technologies to enhance interactions with customers and employees.
• Create a balanced roadmap that improves digital maturity and prepares you for long-term success in a digital economy.

Research Contributors and Experts

Kim Osborne Rodriguez
Research Director, CIO Advisory
Info-Tech Research Group

Kim is a professional engineer and Registered Communications Distribution Designer with over a decade of experience in management and engineering consulting spanning healthcare, higher education, and commercial sectors. She has worked on some of the largest hospital construction projects in Canada, from early visioning and IT strategy through to design, specifications, and construction administration. She brings a practical and evidence-based approach, with a track record of supporting successful projects.
Kim holds a Bachelor's degree in Mechatronics Engineering from University of Waterloo.

Joanne Lee
Principal Research Director, CIO Advisory
Info-Tech Research Group

Joanne is an executive with over 25 years of experience in digital technology and management consulting across both public and private entities from solution delivery to organizational redesign across Canada and globally.
Prior to joining Info-Tech Research Group, Joanne was a management consultant within KPMG's CIO management consulting services and the Western Canadas Digital Health Practice lead. She has held several executive roles in the industry with the most recent position as Chief Program Officer for a large $450M EHR implementation. Her expertise spans cloud strategy, organizational design, data and analytics, governance, process redesign, transformation, and PPM. She is passionate about connecting people, concepts, and capital.
Joanne holds a Master's in Business and Health Policy from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Science (Nursing) from the University of British Columbia.

Jack Hakimian
Senior Vice President
Info-Tech Research Group

Jack has more than 25 years of technology and management consulting experience. He has served multi-billion-dollar organizations in multiple industries including Financial Services and Telecommunications. Jack also served a number of large public sector institutions.
He is a frequent speaker and panelist at technology and innovation conferences and events and holds a Master's degree in Computer Engineering as well as an MBA from the ESCP-EAP European School of Management.

Michael Tweedie
Practice Lead, CIO Strategy
Info-Tech Research Group

Mike Tweedie brings over 25 years as a technology executive. He's led several large transformation projects across core infrastructure, application, and IT services as the head of Technology at ADP Canada. He was also the Head of Engineering and Service Offerings for a large French IT services firm, focused on cloud adoption and complex ERP deployment and management.
Mike holds a Bachelor's degree in Architecture from Ryerson University.

Mike Schembri
Senior Executive Advisor
Info-Tech Research Group

Mike is the former CIO of Fuji Xerox Australia and has 20+ years' experience serving IT and wider business leadership roles. Mike has led technical and broader business service operations teams to value and growth successfully in organizations ranging from small tech startups through global IT vendors, professional service firms, and manufacturers.
Mike has passion for strategy and leadership and loves working with individuals/teams and seeing them grow.

John Leidl
Senior Director, Member Services
Info-Tech Research Group

With over 35 years of IT experience, including senior-level VP Technology and CTO leadership positions, John has a breadth of knowledge in technology innovation, business alignment, IT operations, and business transformation. John's experience extends from start-ups to corporate enterprise and spans higher education, financial services, digital marketing, and arts/entertainment.

Joe Riley
Senior Workshop Director
Info-Tech Research Group

Joe ensures our members get the most value out of their Info-Tech memberships by scoping client needs, current state and desired business outcomes, and then drawing upon his extensive experience, certifications, and degrees (MBA, MS Ops/Org Mgt, BS Eng/Sci, ITIL, PMP, Security+, etc.) to facilitate our client's achievement of desired and aspirational business outcomes. A true advocate of ITSM, Joe approaches technology and technology practices as a tool and enabler of people, core business, and competitive advantage activities.

Denis Goulet
Senior Workshop Director
Info-Tech Research Group

Denis is a transformational leader and experienced strategist who has worked with 100+ organizations to develop their digital, technology, and governance strategies.
He has held positions as CIO, Chief Administrative Office (City Manager), General Manager, Vice President of Engineering, and Management Consultant, specializing in enterprise and technology strategy.

Cole Cioran
Managing Partner
Info-Tech Research Group

I knew I wanted to build great applications that would delight their users. I did that over and over. Along the way I also discovered that it takes great teams to deliver great applications. Technology only solves problems when people, processes, and organizations change as well. This helped me go from writing software to advising some of the largest organizations in the world on how to how to build a digital delivery umbrella of Product, Agile, and DevOps and create exceptional products and services powered by technology.

Carlene McCubbin
Research Lead, CIO Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

During her tenure at Info-Tech, Carlene has led the development of Info-Tech's Organization and Leadership practice and worked with multiple clients to leverage the methodologies by creating custom programs to fit each organization's needs.
Before joining Info-Tech, Carlene received her Master of Communications Management from McGill University, where she studied development of internal and external communications, government relations, and change management.

Isabelle Hertanto
Principal Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group

Isabelle Hertanto has over 15 years of experience delivering specialized IT services to the security and intelligence community. As a former federal officer for Public Safety Canada, Isabelle trained and led teams on data exploitation and digital surveillance operations in support of Canadian national security investigations. Since transitioning into the private sector, Isabelle has held senior management and consulting roles across a variety of industry sectors, including retail, construction, energy, healthcare, and the broader Canadian public sector.

Hans Eckman
Principal Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group

Hans Eckman is a business transformation leader helping organizations connect business strategy and innovation to operational excellence. He supports Info-Tech members in SDLC optimization, Agile and DevOps implementation, CoE/CoP creation, innovation program development, application delivery, and leadership development. Hans is based out of Atlanta, Georgia.

Valence Howden
Principal Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group

With 30 years of IT experience in the public and private sector, Valence has developed experience in many Information Management and Technology domains, with a particular focus in the areas of Service Management, Enterprise and IT Governance, Development and Execution of Strategy, Risk Management, Metrics Design and Process Design, and Implementation and Improvement. Prior to joining Info-Tech, he served in technical and client-facing roles at Bell Canada and CGI Group Inc., as well as managing the design, integration, and implementation of services and processes in the Ontario Public Sector.

Clayton Gillett
Managing Partner
Info-Tech Research Group

Clayton Gillett is a Managing Partner for Info-Tech, providing technology management advisory services to healthcare clients. Clayton joined Info-Tech with more than 28 years of experience in health care information technology. He has held senior IT leadership roles at Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound and OCHIN, as well as advisory or consulting roles at ECG Management Consultants and Gartner.

Donna Bales
Principal Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group

Donna Bales is a Principal Research Director in the CIO Practice at Info-Tech Research Group specializing in research and advisory services in IT risk, governance, and compliance. She brings over 25 years of experience in strategic consulting and product development and has a history of success in leading complex, multi-stakeholder industry initiatives.

Igor Ikonnikov
Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group

Igor Ikonnikov is a Research and Advisory Director in the Data and Analytics practice. Igor has extensive experience in strategy formation and execution in the information management domain, including master data management, data governance, knowledge management, enterprise content management, big data, and analytics.
Igor has an MBA from the Ted Rogers School of Management (Toronto, Canada) with a specialization in Management of Technology and Innovation.

Research Contributors and Experts

Michael Newcity
Chief Innovation Officer
ArcBest

Kevin Yoder
Vice President, Innovation
ArcBest

Gary Boyd
Vice President, Information Systems & Digital Transformation
Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield

Brett Trelfa
Chief Information Officer
Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield

Kristen Wilson-Jones
Chief Technology & Product Officer
Medcurio

Note: additional contributors did not wish to be identified

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