Module 7 - Incenting Innovation

This module will cover the subjects of incenting, recognizing, and rewarding tangible innovation. There are a variety of structures, processes, tools, and techniques that managers have at their disposal. Certain approaches are bigger picture and help to drive and foster innovative cultures and environments, but have little application at lower levels such as recognizing innovations that occur on a specific product or project. Other approaches are more tactical and operational in nature and are best applied to reward product and project innovations. These tactical approaches, when done over a long period of time can begin to have positive cultural and environmental implications.

Does your company have a technical track and a management track? Is group innovation recognized and rewarded? How about individual innovation? What types, frequencies, and levels of recognition and reward get the most meaningful results? While the management science that addresses these questions is still far from exact and statistically correlated at this time, there are some "practice-verified" techniques that are generally believed to correlate to innovation improvement.

Selected results from the 2004 APQC Study [see Module 2 abstract], in which Brad Goldense was Subject Matter Expert, also addressed certain recognition and reward techniques used by the five best practice partners and the fifteen sponsor organizations. One section of GGI's 2000 Product Development Metrics Survey also researched reward and recognition techniques. Relevant results from these two research-based benchmarking activities will be presented.

The goal of this module is to present Summit participants with a range of motivational mechanisms to nurture innovation from both a top-down and bottom-up perspective.