The business case for IT divisions to adopt best practices should be based on the potential to achieve a greater efficiency, a higher level of effectiveness, or to optimize costs for the organization.   If any one of these three goals are met, the businesses supported by IT will benefit as their ability to achieve their objectives is heightened. 
 
Before you send the next IT staff member to the latest certification training or devote time and energy to creating a project or adoption plan for a best practice, ask the following questions:

1. What results are expected?  How does the results support achieving business objectives
2.  What are the goals and objectives for the adoption?  How will we measure progress?
3. Will the culture of my organization support adopting this best practice?  What behaviors need to change?  How will we influence the behavior changes to achieve the necessary return?
4. What risks are created by this initiative?  How will we mitigate the risk?

 
Answering the four sets of questions above will provide the IT organization with a better view of the value of a best practice adoption effort.  The answers provide a foundation that can be used as a springboard for determining the next steps.

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At AdOPT, we are transformation consultants focused on strategy, innovation, process, and culture to increase effectiveness, improve efficiency, and optimize costs.  Discover how a facilitated session on defining value can help you to understand your stakeholders perspective of the value IT is providing.  Ask us to facilitate a value definition exercise with your team by emailing info@adoptitsm.com or by calling 520-591-2427.   ​

In part 1 of “Are You Killing or Encouraging Innovation”, we looked at three innovation killers that often aren’t recognized by companies.  Read part 2 to explore some steps you can take to foster innovation in your company.

Organizations can foster innovation but it does require some focus and investment.  If your organization does not have a focused effort to foster innovation, you can still take action.  Leaders can encourage innovation by investing mostly time and perhaps changing some of their perspectives.  

Three Techniques to Encourage Innovation…

1. On a routine basis, allow your staff to invest some time observing how the customer uses your product or service.  Observing a business process that includes understanding how the technology supports the process can yield incredible results.  Consider asking a small number of staff to spend 1-2 hours per week observing how technology is used by the customer.  Task each staff member to provide one suggestion every week which will improve the end user experience.  Host a weekly meeting with this team to review suggestions and brainstorm potential solutions.  
2. Rather than tasking one person to resolve an important issue, host a solutioning session by asking for volunteers from the group of staff that are affected by the issue.  Change the rules by removing barriers to fostering creative solutions by letting the team know that nothing is out of bounds.  Yes, limitations may exist but they can be addressed later in the process.  Spend time brainstorming all of the options, categorizing them into similar solutions, and then determine a feasible course of action.
3. Fostering innovation can feel daunting as employees identify opportunities and solutions that can sometimes cause even the best leaders to heave a big sigh….  The opportunities are sometimes hard for a leader to recognize and the solutions may fall outside of the norm.  Both of these scenarios can be seen as resulting in extra work.  Rather than becoming overwhelmed, leaders need to change their perspective by developing their employees to not only recognize opportunities and find innovative solutions but further empowering them to create a business case and plan to charter the initiative.

Even if your organization subscribes to some of the “innovation killers” noted in part one of this blog series, as a leader you can encourage innovation within your team, your peer group, and even your management team.  It starts with changing your perspective and investing some time.  The investment is minimal considering the potential return.

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