IBM Innovation Jams: A Mechanism for Change

Steve Diasio* & Núria Agell

ESADE Business School- Barcelona

GREC Research Group

* This research has been partially supported by the AURA research project (TIN2005-08873-C02), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Information Technology and the Commission for Universities and Research of the Ministry of Innovation, Universities, and Enterprises of the Government of Catalonia.

EURAM Rome, 2010

Road Map

• Introduction & Motivation

• Research Question and Contribution

• Innovation Jams at IBM

• Data Collection & Methodology

• IBM’s SmartWork Jam

• Mechanisms for Cultural Transformation

• Conclusions

Literature

• Significant driver for new ideas and products

• Varying degrees of clarity of the mechanisms

– user generated content (von Hippel, 2005)

– living labs (Admiral, forthcoming),

– marketplaces (Jeppesen& Lakhani, 2010)

– open business models (Chesbrough, 2006)

• Ways to be more innovative

Motivation

• How open innovation can break down silos and help internal innovation

• Wider organizational changes to stimulate the innovation internally (Chesbrough, 2003)

• Understand the methodological and technological changes that occur

Introduction

– How have innovation jams aided organizational transformation from static events of innovation to a fluid organizational wide culture for innovation?

Question

Contribution

Research Question and Contribution

– Contribute to the innovation literature through its methodology and in the understanding of how IBM has created a culture for innovation.

What is an Innovation Jam?

• Not in the traditional musical sense - in a collaborative and intellectual sense

• Musical sense a musical act where musicians gather and play/ jamwithout extensive preparation, predefined arrangements or completely improvisational

• Way to create a stream of different or new ideas and discussionsaround them that are normally not addressed or solved in a similar manner

Innovation Jams at IBM

• How to internally transform innovation in a complex portfolio of products and services?

• Turned to innovative and collaborative technology.

• Choice to use Innovation Jams included several factors.

– “Innovator’s innovator.”

– Culture of innovation throughout the organization

“It [Innovation Jams] really helped us. Jams served as a changing factor in IBMs culture and how we collaborate

across our businesses” (Cleaver, 2009).

•large scale communication

–mass parallel conference (MPC) using intranet

•Identification of values and corporate culture

–capture the collaborative voice of IBM 300,000 global workforce

•Consulting service offered to its clients

–goal of accelerating decision-making & action

WorldJam2001

ValuesJamConsultantJam

HabitatJam

Innovation Jams at IBM

Data Collection and Methodology

• Longitudinal study using multiple retrospective data sources from 2001 to 2009.

• 60 hours in participant observation

• Semi-structured in-depth interview with the Program Director and founder of the Jam Program Office and Collaborative Innovation

• Data contrasted with secondary data to enhance data credibility (Patton, 1990, Yin, 2003).

• Methods are appropriate in researching

– New topics and emerging technologies (Shane, 2000; Stake, 2000; McDermott and O-Connor, 2002)

– For reconstructing past contexts in discovering patterns and underlying mechanisms over time (Pettigrew, 1990).

• Conducted 2009 • Harness the collective smarts and intrinsic passion of its workforce to learn about the future of enterprise –Internal and external participants

–Brainstormed on 7 discussion topics

• Rating & reviewing of discussion threads

• Managers to build ideas into coherent business concepts and with the business units

II. Text

IBM’s SmartWork Jam

•Structured Approach

•Broad Management Support

•Feedback

•Segmentation

Methodological Technological

•Independent Platforms

•Analytical Tools

ANALYSIS OF MECHANISMS FOR CULTURAL CHANGE

“…we do not view the Jam as static, neither the technology nor theprocess, because the process and methodology in the Jam is important

if not more so then the technology itself” (Cleaver, 2009).

Shaping of Culture

Defining the intent

Jam rules

Participants to use their real names

Involvement of external collaborators

Uses trained facilitators and moderators

Structured Approach

• passionate people on the topic

• accordance to business policy and in protecting intangible assets

• reputation and credibility is an incentive to deter bad behavior common in anonymity

• build tighter relationships with internal and extranets of participants

• support the flow of dialogue for more coherent discussion

Task Outcomes

Clear signals must be sent by management

Personal commitment from all levels of management

Tangible commitments from management

Broad Management Support

• to show support for the up coming Jam and in encouraging participation

• ensure the depth and breathe of participation, as well as the quality and focus of the content

• create a buzz and transparency about future outcomes

Task Outcomes

Before, during, and after

Jams Scorecard

Feedback

• creates an iteration of trust and culture building between the company and employees

• accountability, visibility, control, and commitment on the importance on where these ideas are at

OutcomesTask

Employee level

Manager level

Executive level

Segmenting

• will make a meaningful contribution if with the right tools, incentives, and permission to act in a collaborative fashion

• looking for clearer directions from above to funnel it downward, while aiding employees to be as efficient as possible

• how collaborative innovation and the use of tools facilitate an enterprise wide mind shift or a culture change

Task Outcomes

Independent

platforms

Analytics-

Data mining & text

analysis software

Technological Changes

• aid in targeting specific audiences and purposes

• filter discussions threads, filter out noise, organizes, and slices contributions in a digestible form aiding executives, jam users,and facilitators

Task Outcomes

Discussed Suggests

IllustratedShowed

Conclusions

IBM’s SmartWork Jam 2009 was conducted

IBM’s use of jams have extended its innovation process to the roots of the organization where each employee is a source for innovative ideas

how innovation jams & mechanism for change have contributed to the cultural transformation of IBM

how jams were used to break down organizational silos with its workforce & external stakeholders

Thank You!

Steve Diasio & Núria Agell{stephen.diasio; nuria.agell} @esade.edu

ESADE Business School- BarcelonaGREC Research Group

References

Admirral, E. (forthcoming). Living Labs: Arbiters of mid- and ground-level innovation. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management.

Chesbrough, H. W. (2003). Open innovation: the new imperative for creating and profiting from technology. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Chesbrough, H. W. (2006). Open business models: How to thrive in the new Innovation Landscape. Harvard Business Press, Boston.

Cleaver, L. (2009). Personal interview.Dorset, L, Fontaine, M., and O'Driscoll, T. (2002). Redefining Manager Interaction at IBM.

Knowledge Management Review. September/ October. Melcrum Publishing.Halverson, C., Newswanger, J., Erickson, T., Wolf, T. Kellogg, W., & Laff, M., & Malkin, P.

(2002). WORLD JAM: Talk among 50,000 +. IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, NY, USA & * IBM Intranet/Online Research, NY, USA.

Helander, M., Lawrence, R., Yan, L., Perlich, C., Reddy, C., and Rosset, S. (2007). Looking for Great Ideas: Analyzing the Innovation Jam. KDD'07, August 12-15, 2007, San Jose, California, USA.

IBM Global Business Service Report. Value 2.0. (2008). IBM Institute for Business Value.IBM Report. Innovation Jam: Ideas that Matter 2007 IBM Report. Retrieved from

http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ideasfromibm/us/energy/031607/images/IFI_03162007.pdfIBM Jam Program Office Report . What's a Jam? A history of value and innovation (2008).

Retrieved from http://s3.amazonaws.com/vcv_ production/mediaplug_assets/104804/ Value_of_IBM_Jams.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=1S3G1XF4F94625E7C4G2&Expires=1262579497&Signature=0g3vIWUMC1ABUVimUbaKmU9j1mg%3D

ReferencesIBM Report. Building a smarter planet: Zurich Research Lab IBM (2009). Retrieved from

http://www.zurich.ibm.com/pdf/kai/20090622_Innovation_Leadership_Summit.pdfIBM Executive Report. Innovation Jam 2008. (2008). Retrieved from

ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/common/ssi/pm/xb/n/gbe03165usen/GBE03165USEN.PDFJeppesen, Lars Bo, and Karim R. Lakhani. (2010). Marginality and Problem Solving

Effectiveness in Broadcast Search. Organization Science (forthcoming).Patton, M. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods (2nd ed.). NewburyPark, CA: Sage.Pettigrew, A. M., (1990). Longitudinal Field Research On Change: Theory and Practice,

Organization Science, 1(3):267-92.Spira, J., Friedman, S., and Ebling, S. IBM's WorldJam: How IBM created a new standard

in intracompany communication, New Yor: Basex, (2001).Stake, R. (2000). The Art of Case Study Research, edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE

Publications.Surowiecki, J. (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few

and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations Little, Brown.

Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks,CA: Sage.

Future Enhancements of innovation jams

• Since innovation jams are in their formative stage they continue to evolve.

• Areas of improvement that further break down barriers for collaboration offer real benefits to organizations and the possibility to expand innovation jam application.

• Emerging technology such as real-time language translation that improves collaboration while removing language as a barrier for communication provides opportunities to include a wider audienceinto collaborative strategies.

• Another area being explored is technology enabling greater visualization.

• a fundamental perception of security with an open and collaborative mentality must exist.

Introduction

• Significant driver for new ideas and products

• Varying degrees of clarity of the mechanisms

– user generated content (Von Hippel, 2005)

– living labs (Admiral, forthcoming),

– marketplaces (Jeppesen & Lakhani, 2010)

– open business models (Chesbrough, 2006)

• Ways to be more innovative

Motivation

• Has explored how open innovation can break down silos and help internal innovation.

• Wider organizational and technological changes must be made on acorporate level to stimulate the innovation internally (Chesbrough, 2003).

• Imperative to understand the methodological and technological changes that occur internally that stimulate the innovation processes overtime.

Methodological Changes

Technological Changes

• “We work with colleagues in communications, and HR, lines of business colleagues and reach out to think through the intent of the Jam to find out who are the key stakeholders and key actors that we ensure as many as possible as Jam hosts- to be as real productive and show the crowd that they should participate” (Cleaver, 2009).

• “We work with colleagues in communications, and HR, lines of business colleagues and reach out to think through the intent of the Jam to find out who are the key stakeholders and key actors that we ensure as many as possible as Jam hosts- to be as real productive and show the crowd that they should participate” (Cleaver, 2009).

• It’s about tools to transform the company and what executives are most worried about. Such as how to drive revenue and that comesfrom the mind shift in the company itself, so when you segment those audiences you can look at how these collaborative innovation as both a process and technology can help these three groups in what they are looking for” (Cleaver, 2009).

• “From the technology perspective, part of what we want to do with the Jam, we look at emerging technology within IBM that we can research, that will be appropriate for a Jam” (Cleaver, 2009).

Methodological & Technological Changes

Innovation Jams at IBM

• Commenced in 2001 as a large scale communication WorldJam.

– mass parallel conference (MPC) using intranet

• Identification of values (ValuesJam) and corporate culture (ConsultantJam).

– capture the collaborative voice of IBM 300,000 global workforce

• Consulting service offered for its clients

– with the goal of accelerating decision-making & action

“this is not about the technology. This is about providing a newmedium to facilitate innovation, cross-functional dialogues across

the population within IBM.”- Nancy Lewis, Director GM Development