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THE FIRST STEP TOWARD EDUCATING MORE INNOVATIVE ENGINEERS IN CORPORATE AMERICA

Understanding Innovation and Intrapreneurship in Corporations and the Implications for Engineering Education

March 23, 2013

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I-ship Study Process

Phase I Phase II Phase III

3 years

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I-ship Study Process

Phase I Phase II Phase III

3 years

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We asked over 100 innovation leaders:

“What behaviors and competencies do you want in your new engineers that would make them more effective innovators and intrapreneurs in your company?”

and received 160 responses.

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Six Broad Areas of Competence

1. Technical competence

2. Innovationa. Anthropologist

b. Cross-pollinator

c. Experimenter

3. Breadth (“T-shaped”)

4. Communication/value proposition

5. Teamwork

6. Confidence

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Go to this site to take a short survey

www.surveymonkey.com/s/6NKQNQ2

(note: when you rank the nine competency areas they will move to their rank)

The internet password for “Renaissance Conf” is “nciia”

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100 innovation leaders said:

We want confident, competent, open minded engineers who work effectively on teams that employ experimentation, analysis and innovation to create and “sell” products that are truly responsive to customers around the globe.

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Frequency

Techn

ical c

ompe

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e

Inno

vatio

n/Id

eatio

n

Antro

polog

ist

Cross

Poll

inato

r

Exper

imen

ter/m

odele

r

Comm

unica

tion/

Value

Team

work

T-sha

ped

Confid

ence

Other

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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1 – Technical Competence

• Systems Engineering• Deep knowledge of product domain

“car guy” . . . “airplane guy”• Optimize the whole product for the right problem

• apply an axe to chop the problem down to its essence, and resist immediately using a drill to search for the nugget of innovation – LM

• focus on the right problem and the value proposition before creating the product – IBM

• keep the composites engineer from using composites for all “light-weighting” challenges - Ford

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2 - InnovationAir Force Intellectual curiosity

BASF Inquisitive; brainstorming

Campbell Soup Curiosity – proactively curious

Comcast Design; many design courses (like IDEO)

DuPont Design/innovation: Can come up with strong IP

Ford Innovative

IBM Creative; able to come up with ideas; architectural/innovation skills; experienced in

innovation

IMDS We want the most innovative engineers

Lockheed Martin Product focused: innovation over invention; creating assumptions for ambiguous problems; identifying alternative

approaches

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Patents are key element of IBM’s culture

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Three “Faces of Innovation”

1. Anthropologist

2. Cross-pollinator

3. Experimenter

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2a - Anthropologist• Listening and Empathy – Ford and IBM• “observe and listen and document and clarify with

customer first; determining what is driving the client's mission?” - IBM

• Concern regarding the lack of conversational skills that are so valuable in seeking out customers’ wants and needs - multiple

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Place in the world - Connectedness

“Connectedness implies certain responsibilities. If we are all part of a larger picture, then we must not harm others because we will be harming ourselves. We must not exploit because we will be exploiting ourselves. Your awareness of these responsibilities creates your value system. You are considerate, caring, and accepting. Certain of the unity of humankind, you are a bridge builder for people of different cultures. Sensitive to the invisible hand, you can give others comfort that there is a purpose beyond our humdrum lives.”

- Gallup Business Journal

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2b - Cross-pollinator• Look anywhere for solution – Air Force• Open to seeing potential ideas in other areas – IBM• People need to pick up the phone and call – Pankow• BASF Innovation Space

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2c - Experimenter• strong experimental skills - DuPont• learning from failure - BASF• engineers need to “accept a failure and move on” - Lockheed Martin

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Prototyping• Lockheed Martin - engineers who can “model, design, build

and test products” • Ford emphasized the use of “experimental prototyping” such as

that employed at IDEO, for exploring a design space, rather than proving out a design concept or product

• Campbell’s Soup

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3 – Breadth• Right brain capabilities (such as art) – Pink, Kelley, Brown• “T-shaped people” – BASF, Ford, IBM • “Need to read more than Aviation Week” - Lockheed Martin

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4 – Communication and Value Proposition

• “How to propose; how to report; how to write; how to sell; how to make a presentation.” – DuPont

• “articulating what the technology will mean to customers; when presenting your concept or product to the customer, stick to ‘small words and simple concepts.’” - Lockheed Martin

• break down communication and selling skills into several components including “document ‘use cases, articulate technical skills to client, show relevance to client.” - IBM

• see how the parts fit together, including the market and the consumer.” – Campbell Soup

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5 - Teamwork

• value people with different skills and perspectives - BASF• respect for all people, especially the people making the

products - IMDS• understand people, especially different generations - Pankow• ability to understand people; how to deal with people -

Comcast• collaborative teamwork in cross generational groups;

understand the generational issues of team members - Campbell Soup

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6 – Confidence (and attributes and behaviors that depend directly on confidence)

• question the status quo enough to consider disruptive solutions

• take risks and learn from failures• be a self-starting seeker of opportunities• have the pride and motivation to make a big difference • have the integrity to tell the truth, even when its bad news• live with and function well with ambiguity

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The ultimate goal: competence and confidence leading to openness to “crit”

• Team based design/innovation require openness to others’ ideas

• The natural defensiveness of youth leads tends to close their minds to criticism of their ideas

• An engineer with high levels of confidence and competence is less threatened by criticism and ideas that diverge from his/hers.

• Seeking competence/mastery is a powerful intrinsic motivation (far more powerful than extrinsic motivators such as grades, praise of others or pay) – Pink (Drive)

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Design Reviews:balance learning and rigor

The design review process is one of the most important operating mechanisms that we have in the engineering community. Design reviews are led by technical specialist. One of their jobs, in fact their most important job, is to lead design reviews and make it a constructive learning experience for all of the engineers. These meetings are hard-nosed design reviews . . . , often run over digital systems with people from around the world.

Derrick Kuzak

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Competencies that YOU say are most important