Team Process 1: Innovation *New ideas, processes, tools, techniques, methods, and relationships can all help an IPT reduce weapon system costs, eliminate waste, shorten cycle time, and get more performance in the product. Teams can work harder, or work smarter. They can look for incremental improvements, or they can search for free lunches that cost little, but have a big payoff. TQM's continuous performance improvement has many good applications; so do innovation and breakthroughs. Innovation, like everything new, has uncertainty that inherently carries risk with it. The focus here is on the ability of an IPT to be innovative in creating new and more effective ways of acquiring systems. Innovation means the creation of new ideas and the transformation of those ideas into useful applications. Both are needed to get results, both are difficult, and each requires its own process for success. The team leader and senior management have significant influence on the development and effectiveness of innovation within the IPT. The team leader has strong influence over the operating environment within which team members interact. An innovative environment requires open communication, collaboration, a playful attitude and critical thinking, coupled with a clear vision and objective. Such an environment encourages new ideas and different ways of seeing things, resulting in team member out-of-the-box suggestions for solving problems. IPTs have a tendency to follow their leader's approach to risk taking. If the team leader supports new ideas and is willing to take prudent risks, so will the team. Over time teams develop a certain philosophy of innovation. They may spend little time questioning the routine acquisition process and emphasize solid, well proven approaches. Or they may constantly question all aspects of their work while searching for opportunities to reduce cost and schedule, or improve product performance. The team leader usually sets the tone for which approach is taken, perhaps without the team even being aware of it. Senior management can also encourage innovation. By follow-up actions like accepting reasonable mistakes and not rejecting new ideas, they demonstrate the acceptability and importance of teams investigating, evaluating and proposing creative solutions to problems. Creating and sustaining an innovative environment is challenging and difficult. Consistency of senior management support helps give teams the confidence and incentive for taking risks through innovation. Learning makes innovation easier and innovation reinforces learning. IPTs that develop and use their innovation process find it natural to keep an open mind on new approaches. They also develop the habit of continuous learning and the willingness to remain flexible. Innovation, learning, and flexibility are closely coupled and, as a group, significantly improve an IPT's ability to develop better products. The current acquisition reform approach fosters innovation by minimizing rules, emphasizing guidelines, and encouraging flexibility and tailoring of acquisition strategies to fit individual programs. Because of these new policies, a great deal of innovation has already been identified over the past several years. The following sections provide additional information on the innovation process: The Innovation Process There are typically five stages in the innovation process:
The classical process of creating new ideas by groups has been known as brainstorming. Brainstorming takes advantage of the capability of both individuals and teams to be innovative. Individuals, working alone, first generate ideas. Then, through team member interaction and discussion, the team builds on those ideas and generates new ones as well. Assumptions The generation and acceptance of innovative ideas is hard because of unconscious assumptions that inhibit new ways of seeing things. For example, a typical assumption might be that career success in acquisition management is achieved by playing it safe and not taking any risks. New ideas and innovative approaches may then be rejected as dangerous and risky. On the other hand, if the perception is that career success depends on the overall quality of program management, while accepting the need for prudent risk taking, a different view of innovation and risk would result. Innovative ideas would be encouraged and have a much better chance of survival. Each assumption leads to an entirely different set of ideas that are acceptable for consideration. A useful technique to aid thinking out of the box is to first surface the basic assumptions underlying the initial response, then change that set of assumptions. This frees up the mind to generate more and different ideas. Other Innovation Techniques In addition to brainstorming, there are other techniques to facilitate creativity. These include the nominal group technique, metaphor/analogies, interrogatories, and problem reversal. Couger (1995) provides a detailed description of these and other insights into the innovation process. Of particular interest to IPTs is the optimal team size for innovation. Couger addresses this issue as follows: "Most of the creativity techniques described in this book can be used by individuals or groups. However, there are optimal group sizes. Some thirty-three studies of group size have resulted in a data set that shows that the optimal group size is two persons. Dyads were found to be superior because two individuals can achieve rapport more easily, reaching the level of trust necessary for optimal sharing. Stated another way, it is important for you to find a person with whom you have good rapport to facilitate creativity most effectively. Two persons can bounce ideas off each other in a less-threatening, more supportive climate." Given that Couger's idea has merit, a team might consider pairing itself off in groups of two to create innovative ideas prior to bringing the pairs together for group analysis and discussion. On the other hand, note that Couger says that achieving rapport and trust were the determinant factors in generating ideas. An IPT that has achieved a high level of collaboration will have the rapport and trust that allows the entire team to be creative as a group. Getting all team members to buy into a new idea is a prerequisite for selling and implementing the idea. To achieve team consensus and develop the internal fortitude to try new approaches and take managed risks requires a team with confidence, mutual trust, and a can-do attitude. This spirit of collaborative success, when achieved, can be one of the greatest strengths of an IPT. Implementing Innovation Once a number of ideas have been produced, they are evaluated, filtered and used to develop a plan of actions and milestones (POA&M) to achieve implementation. This latter part of the innovation process, i.e., the transforming of the idea into useful application, can be the most difficult part of the innovation process. Although from a pragmatic view, developing a POA&M and implementing it is straightforward acquisition management; in practice, new ideas may be difficult to sell to higher management or other key stakeholders in the organization. There are several reasons for this. First, new ways of doing things are usually not well understood, unpredictable, and inherently risky. This creates a natural reaction of caution and concern. Second, it may be hard for individuals to understand the new idea and they may not appreciate its value if successful. Third, new approaches may change power bases or authority relationships that can threaten individuals or organizational structures. An IPT that wants to implement new ideas should be prepared to carefully present and convince stakeholders that the outcome is worthwhile, cost effective, and feasible. After application it may be gradually accepted by the system and become part of the normal way of doing business. An example is the increasing use of government/industry IPTs in the implementation of acquisition programs. * Navy IPT Learning Campus, Version 1.1.
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