Hack:
ENABLING INNOVATION @ EVERY ROLE WITH FOCUS AND AGILITY

4IQ MODEL

The corner stone of the solution is a simple 2x2 grid that captures and communicates a team member’s role in a single page.

THE TWO DIMENSIONS

Known domain/ Experimental domain

This dimension differentiate between what is already known within the company in form of knowledge, skills, practices, technology etc. (the Known domain) from what has to be acquired, learnt, developed and experimented (the Experimental domain). The primary assumption on this perspective is that any innovation program must attract “new” knowledge, skills, practices, technology etc.

Current role/ Growth role

This dimension articulates expectations of the current role and the expectations of the currently envisaged future role. The primary assumption in this perspective is that every job role will change its context and shape due to the evolution of the innovation agenda of the company and the team member must be ready to play a different role in the future.

While the current role would encompass the next period (e.g. quarter, but can be longer), the Growth role would capture the 2 periods following that. Together with the evaluation at the end of the period, the next 2 periods need to be reviewed (and revised if necessary) and another period tacked on.

DISTRIBUTION

How the role is distributed amongst the quadrants will vary based on factors such as job expectations (e.g. a R&D role will have much more emphasis on the experimental domain), stage in job cycle (e.g. a new recruit would have more emphasis on known domain), etc:

IN EACH QUADRANT

The space in the each quadrant must articulate the following

1. Key tasks/ expectations

Describe what is expected from the role in brief (of course within the scope of the quadrant )

1. Key Performance Indicators with weightings.

How the tasks or role outputs would be measured. The percentages shown above could be used as guidelines for the sum of the KPI weightages within a quadrant.

1. Development needs

Describe the development need to fulfill expected role the from knowledge and skills perspectives. This information’s will stem from matching the team members capability to the role expectations.

IMPLEMENTATION

ALIGNMENT

In implementing the innovation agenda, first it must be broken in to periods (e.g. a year plan can be broken into 4 quarters, although based on business needs and organizational readiness, a period might even be 6 months).

The innovation agenda  must be carefully cascaded to all the roles at different levels. It should encompass both current roles and growth roles.

CLARITY

The cascaded role must represent its space in both value creation process and in the innovation agenda. The role must represent the ambition and not the person associated with the role. The clarity check must ensure both vertical and horizontal integration of the strategies and encapsulation of both the short and the medium term ambition of the organization. The task descriptions, KPIs must be adjusted to communicate laser beam focus to the team member and probable role evolution within the innovation agenda.

ENSURING MOMENTUM

Ensuring momentum is begun, when the weekly/ monthly management process is actively driven along the articulated agenda including resource and time allocation for people development.  The chief innovation officer must ensure these are woven in the management culture of the organization.

At the end of each period, a formal evaluation of role performance of each team member must take place, together with revisions for upcoming periods and adding a new period – the further away we move from the present, the more ambiguity we must allow.

Notice that in this case, innovation is measured as part and parcel of the overall performance measurement – because the fruits of innovation are not treated as something additional to the role of the person.

If we assume that the innovation agenda is running smoothly, the next 4IQ articulation must showcase the following.

1. Some of the tasks detailed in experimental domain should shift to known domain.
2. Some the tasks detailed in growth role should shift to current role.
3. Some of the tasks detailed in current role may become irrelevant as organization does not operate at that level or shifted to another lateral  role or delegated down.

Each round of evaluation will provide following insights and opportunities to the organization.

1. Realities of the innovation agenda in motion.
2. Bottlenecks and trouble spots
3. Pace of development of people
4. Space to adjust the agenda or infuse changes to the agenda or its components or to implementation strategies.
5. Introduce learning’s from previous failures.