InnovaChart Measuring Innovation
09.12.2011
Joanna’s point of view
Last year, I was inspired by a section I read in Tim Brown’s Change by Design, around measuring the innovation of an organisation. So I started InnovaChart, a framework for measuring our innovation at Uscreates. It started off with a few scribbles and post-it notes on our whiteboard wall, and a few iterations later, became a clear perplex 3D structure (thanks Muji!). InnovaChart has three axes/variables, and each is split into two boxes:
Height: Existing Audience, New Audience
Width: Existing Offering, New Offering
Depth: Existing Issue, New Issue
Each method, approach, or outcome at Uscreates is then coded for these three variables and placed in the relevant box. Then innovation in boxes is measured like this:
Revolutionary Innovation Box: 3 New, 0 Existing
Evolutionary Innovation Box: 2 New, 1 Existing
Incremental Innovation Box: 1 New, 2 Existing
Minimal Innovation Box: 0 New, 3 Existing
A healthy innovative business should have boxes filled up equally, where Incremental and Minimal projects are bringing in the revenue to allow for riskier Revolutionary and Evolutionary projects.
We used InnovaChart to measure Uscreates innovation levels for the year 2011. The results showed that our broxes were heavier on the Revolutionary and Evolutionary side, which means our level of innovation might be risky. We can balance this out a bit more by working on more projects with existing audiences, offerings and issues. The plan is to use InnovaChart yearly to monitor our innovation.
Some of our revolutionary ventures this year were:
- Co-design drop-in sessions (instead of a workshop)
- Mobile Uscreates moving to client’s premises temporarily for better engagement
- Mentoring and building capacity of project team rather than implementing ourselves
If you would like to find out more or to start your own InnovaChart get in touch: joanna@uscreates.com
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