Understanding Innovation. Series editors Christoph Meinel Larry Leifer

Transcription

1 Understanding Innovation Series editors Christoph Meinel Larry Leifer

2 More information about this series at

3 Banny Banerjee Stefano Ceri Editors Creating Innovation Leaders A Global Perspective

4 Editors Banny Banerjee Stanford University Stanford, CA, USA Stefano Ceri Politecnico di Milano Milano, Italy ISSN ISSN (electronic) Understanding Innovation ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Library of Congress Control Number: Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media (

5 Preface We all witness the tremendous demand for innovation that is occurring in a wide array of contexts, social, technical and organizational. Unprecedented changes in the business environments and social challenges are driving this demand for innovation. Organizations are nowadays recognizing that innovation does not happen by simply proposing something new, but is dependent on the capability to enact change. In turn, this depends on the existence of what we can term innovation leaders. Innovation Leaders are people who have the right skills and competencies and are in a position to influence points of view, practices, decisions and actions. This is in contrast to the traditional culture of leadership, which has grown around the norms of hierarchical decision making, risk-averse decision making and resource management for efficiency. In fact, innovation is emerging as a new mode of leadership, one that imagines and crafts alternative futures in the context of open and cooperative processes. Educational institutions around the world have in recent years given birth to a variety of educational programs having the aim of generating the next cadre of innovation leaders. Such programs have originated somewhat independently and from different fields, but share very similar objectives and a common understanding of the central role of multidisciplinarity and creativity in problem solving. In 2012 and 2013, a selected group of senior decision makers from these educational institutions, together with representatives from public agencies and private organizations, met in Como (Italy) for what has been named the Creating Innovation Leaders summit, a think-tank of selected individuals for promoting innovation and creating the leaders of such cultural change, and for reasoning about the opportunities that may favor innovation programs (or the obstacles that should be removed) so as to increase the spreading and relevance of such programs. During 2014, a small group of ten participants to the two summits decided to spend a week together in further discussion targeted to the consolidation of the main results of the 2012 and 1013 summits in the form of a book. The focus of the book is the process of educating (creating) innovation leaders through specialized v

6 vi Preface programs, pursued by leading academic schools, in the hope that such programs will soon become widespread, consolidate, extend, and become viral; the authors felt that their educational experiences were very similar, and they agreed that a greater awareness of these educational experiences is by itself a tangible output that will help the creation of innovation leadership. Content The book starts with Part I consisting of six chapters which have been jointly designed by the ten authors, with a rigorous plan of content progression in mind, which moves from (1) innovation to (2) the ecosystems where innovation occurs, to (3) innovation leadership, to (4) the needs of changing education, to (5) a taxonomy of advanced educational experiences, to (6) cases of positive vs. negative innovation leadership in action upon complex problems. We show that a new kind of innovation leadership is much needed, how it can be created, and how it is put in action. Subsequently, Part II is a collection of invited chapters which describe ten leading academic programs for creating innovation leaders: their objectives, curricular organization, enrollment procedures, impact upon students. Selected programs include four north American institutions (Stanford s d.school, Harvard s Multidisciplinary Engineering Faculty, the Kambar College at Philadelphia University, OCAD s Master of Design on Strategic Foresight & Innovation), five European institutions (Alta Scuola Politecnica of Milano and Torino, the EIT Master Program, Paris D-School, Brighton s Interdisciplinary Design Program, Aalto s International Design Business Management Program) and the Mission D program at Tongji University. Thus, while the first six chapters provide the theoretical foundations of why and how innovation leaders should be created, Part II gives evidence that such theoretical foundations are already in action in the programs of ten top-level universities. We next describe the six chapters of Part I in greater detail. In Chap. 1, we question what is innovation. At the most fundamental level, innovation is the ability to deliver new outcomes, paradigms, value, and transformations. It involves using many different skills and modalities to creatively frame the problem, generate radically effective options, make strategic decisions, and manage a pathway to effective execution in a way such that no matter how complex or ill-defined a challenge happens to be, a disproportionately effective or valuable set of outcomes is generated. In Chap. 2, we discuss how the innovation ecosystem results from the complex intricacies between pedagogy, practical processes, delivery systems and services. The innovation ecosystem is working well when educational institutions work together with partner stakeholders, such as government agencies, industry, startups, venture capitalists and non-profit organizations, to build new types of platforms and relationships that create impactful outcomes. This chapter also proposes

7 Preface vii innovation diagnostic instruments to measure the degree of penetration of innovation and the presence of key individual roles and collective group skills within the organization, and the overall strength of the ecosystem in terms of relationships and networking. Chapter 3 dwells into the main topic of this book, innovation leadership, defined as the capacity to continually outperform normative techniques and to identify leverage points for delivering scaled transformations which generate new system behavior. The need of innovation leadership is framed in the context of current society evolution which requires breaking disciplinary silos and normative patterns, yielding to an innovation ecosystem with many new actors and their relationships. The resulting innovation methodology brings about the culture of reframing intentionality, developing new perspectives, reframing the goals, creating powerful and transformational strategies and iterating the delivery of impact through an iterative process of ideating, prototyping, testing, and continuous reframing. Chapter 4 deals with the changing face of education. After recognizing that education is challenged by online sources of commoditized knowledge, the super-fast evolution of technology required by many professions, and the need of continuous education and of deeper interdisciplinary approaches, the chapter dwells upon new participative models of activities in class and develops a qualification framework for innovation leadership that details knowledge, skills and competences for innovation agents, leaders, and gurus. It then reframes the purpose of higher education and discusses new pedagogical models of interaction, motivation, and engagement, from teaching-centric to learning-centric. Chapter 5 deals with interdisciplinary innovation programs. Interdisciplinary programs and courses are being recognized as an important aspect of education, but curricula transformation is occurring in a multifaceted, chaotic way; codification and systematization are needed for a broader dissemination. The chapter offers a taxonomy of concepts (including intra-, inter-, cross-, trans-disciplinarity) and of innovation program characteristics, offering short descriptions of relevant examples and discussing the key issues and emerging questions for the future. Finally, Chap. 6 takes an applied view, by showing examples of complex contexts where a new innovation leadership has led to a positive outcome, and of problems where the lack of a leadership modalities, as discussed in Chap. 3, has instead created damage, concluding with a discussion of emerging challenges that will require a heavy application of the innovation leadership described in this book. Intended Readership The book is dedicated to those who feel the need of providing stimuli regarding innovation and innovation leadership, primarily but not exclusively in academia. These include, but are not limited to, deans and provosts of academic institutions, senior managers in private organizations and policy makers in government. Its

8 viii Preface intended readership also includes anyone who is engaged in promoting innovation within his own organization, and who feels the need to enrich the intellectual and practical toolbox he uses for this demanding and exciting endeavor. Though most of the editors and coauthors of the material come from higher education institutions, the overall approach is not academic and research-based. In fact, the discussion directly comes from the collective and practical experience gained not only by designing and running educational programs, but also by delivering innovation-focused projects in many types of organizations, and in assisting governmental institutions in defining policy. Stanford, CA Milano, Italy February 28, 2015 Banny Banerjee Stefano Ceri

9 Contents Part I Theoretical Foundations 1 Why Innovate?... 3 Banny Banerjee 2 The Innovation Ecosystem John Body and Fawwaz Habbal 3 Innovation Leadership: A New Kind of Leadership Banny Banerjee, Stefano Ceri, and Chiara Leonardi 4 A New Kind of University Randy Swearer, Véronique Hillen, and Paola Bertola 5 Charting Interdisciplinary Innovation Programs: Map of Experiences Paola Bertola, Nabil Harfoush, and Federica Vacca 6 Innovation Leadership in Action Today and in the Future John Body and Stefano Ceri Part II Best Practices in Higher Education 7 Best Practices in Higher Education: An Introduction Chiara Leonardi and Federica Vacca 8 Embedding Design Thinking in a Multidisciplinary Engineering Curriculum at Harvard University Fawwaz Habbal 9 Teaching the Innovation Methodology at the Stanford d.school Banny Banerjee and Theo Gibbs ix

10 x Contents 10 Reimagining a University for the 21st Century: The Kanbar College of Design, Engineering, and Commerce Randy Swearer 11 The Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation (SFI) at OCAD University Lenore Richards and Nabil Harfoush 12 Mission D, an Interdisciplinary Innovation and Venture Program at Tongji University Lou Yongqi, Fan Fei, and M.A. Jin 13 Alta Scuola Politecnica: Innovation, Multi-disciplinarity and Passion Marco Ajmone Marsan, Stefano Ceri, Roberto Verganti, and Roberto Zanino 14 The Paris d.school Veronique Hillen 15 Interdisciplinary Design in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Brighton Anne Boddington, Jyri Kermik, and Tom Ainsworth 16 The EIT Digital Master School: A Program to Foster the Education of Entrepreneurial, Innovative and Creative Students Maurizio Marchese, Lena Adamson, Carl-Gustaf Jansson, and Anders Flodstr om 17 Making an Interdisciplinary Difference: Twenty Years of Design, Business and Technology at Aalto Mikko Koria

11 Authors Banny Banerjee, is the founder and Director of the Stanford ChangeLabs, which has been conducting research to develop the theoretical underpinnings and new models towards an advanced innovation methodology, especially directed towards grand challenges such as climate change and water security. Banny teaches innovation, strategy, and leadership at Stanford University s d.school. His area of expertise is innovation methodology for large-scale transformations in the context of complex multi-dimensional challenges. Stanford University, Stanford, CA Paola Bertola, Phd, is Professor at the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano, where she teaches in the Fashion Design programmes (BA & MSc). She is Co-Founder of Fashion in Process research collective [ com]. She is an expert of design processes management and design-driven innovation in culture intensive industries, with a specific focus on fashion companies. In 2011 she was awarded the Compasso d Oro Price for leading the research program Design Research Maps. Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy John Body, founded ThinkPlace in Australia in 2005, after a number of senior roles in the Australian Taxation Office where he pioneered the application of design to Australia s taxation system. ThinkPlace now has studios in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Kenya addressing the challenges faced by governments, non-government organisations and the development sector. John works with very senior leaders to bring innovative solutions to challenges of interest to societies. John holds a Master s in Chaos and Complexity Theory. Thinkplace, Kingston, Australia Stefano Ceri, PhD, is Professor of Database Systems at the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria (DEIB) of Politecnico di Milano. He has been Director of Alta Scuola Politecnica (ASP) of Politecnico di Milano and Politecnico di Torino ( ). His research work is generally concerned with extending database technology. He is the recipient of the ACM-SIGMOD "Edward xi

12 xii Authors T. Codd Innovation Award" (New York, June 26, 2013), an ACM Fellow and member of the Academia Europaea. Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy Fawwaz Habbal, is the Executive Dean for Education and Research at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. His research is in nano-photonics and innovative pedagogy. Prior to Harvard, he held the position as Corporate Vice President, responsible for research and product design at Polaroid Corporation, where he served as a Senior Research and Engineering Fellow as well. After leaving this position he initiated three start-ups related to imaging semiconductor electronics. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Nabil Harfoush, is Assistant Professor in the Strategic Foresight & Innovation graduate program and Senior Fellow of Strategic Innovations Lab (s-lab) at OCAD University, Toronto. He is also a Fellow of the College of Design, Engineering & Commerce at Philadelphia University and Adjunct Professor in the Strategic Design MBA program. Nabil previously served as Chief Information Officer for HelpCaster Technologies, MedcomSoft, and Nightingale Informatix. He has consulted for enterprises, national governments, and international organizations, including the World Bank, WHO, UNESCO, and IDRC. OCAD University, Toronto, ON, Canada Véronique Hillen, is the dean of Paris Est d.school since She has developed many academic programs in design thinking, including ME310 Design Innovation in collaboration with Stanford and its international network SUGAR. She has been the academic director of the Industrial Engineering department at ENPC (2007/ 2012), a leading engineering French school. She is a visiting professor at the Center for Design Research at Stanford. She has also been a professor of corporate strategy at Ecole Ponts ParisTech since She has published articles and books in corporate strategy and design thinking. Her professional interests include pedagogical action research for capstone projects with design thinking and how to rejuvenate mature businesses with a culture transformation thanks to design thinking. Paris Est d.school, Champs-sur-Marne, France Chiara Leonardi, a Research Fellow at the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering of Politecnico di Milano, graduated in Product Service System Design with a Master of Science. Her research interests focus on products and complex services and systems to be placed in competitive business environments. Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy Randy Swearer, is Provost and Dean of the Faculty at Philadelphia University. His primary focus is on innovation in higher education during periods of sector disruption. Dr. Swearer has spoken at venues around the world on the topics of transformative change in higher education, new university models, and innovation leadership in academia. Philadelphia University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

13 Authors xiii Federica Vacca, PhD, is Post-Doc Researcher at the Design Dept. of Politecnico di Milano and Lecturer in the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano, where she teaches in the Fashion Design Programmes (BA & MSc). She is Co-Founder of the Fashion in Process research collective [ Her research interests concern handicraft-driven creation processes for the enhancement of local culture knowledge and design-driven innovation in culture-intensive industries. Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy