We have three learning objectives in the frame module. First of all, we want to understand frame and its role in innovation within companies. Secondly, we're going to practice using framing tools to help you improve your strategic innovation skills. And lastly, we're going to use frame to focus and gain alignment within your company. Okay, the third element of frame is definition and criteria. Now in the introductory module we talked about a general definition of innovation that I would use throughout the series.

But this definition is different. That was a textbook definition, if you will. This definition that we're talking about is a working definition and set of criteria that you will use in your company to identify what constitutes innovation, and you'll use it as a set of criteria to track innovations in the marketplace, and to report on progress. So for that reason, having a definition is critical to measuring your company's success. Definition and criteria are Both are important because they are first a filter. As this picture shows everything in the universe is not going to be considered innovation in your company.

But it also is a prioritization mechanism. So it filters out domains that are less important to the strategy and it pride or entices them in terms of what's critically important to the business. Okay, let's start with an example of what a definition and a set of criteria looks like for innovation. And the example I'm going to use is a very well known one, it's from Whirlpool Corporation. It's publicly used in many sources, including books and other places, and it's not the one that Whirlpool is using today. So we're able to use it and show it as an example.

So let's look at his three components unique and compelling to her customer or end user consumer. The second one is creates sustainable competitive advantage. And the last one is creates superior shareholder value. Now, the first one unique and compelling is really important because innovators have to show that what they're doing is valued by the customer and that there's nothing else like it in the marketplace. The second one is it sits on a migration path so that the innovator has not just one idea, but a cadence of ideas and a family of innovations that they can launch as the first one is finished and they want to keep ahead of the competition. The last one creates superior shareholder value shows that consumers are so wild by it, that the value they receive and what they're willing to pay for it is commensurate with how unique compelling and how it solves their problem in a big way.

Now, for an innovation at Whirlpool, a product or service, it has to meet all three of these. And you can begin to understand now how that set of criteria applied to products and services can be again to create a list of products and services that a company sees as innovative. And that doesn't mean every product and service. That just means this is a very high high bar. So what's interesting about a criteria definition is you can stop there, and it causes agreement and helps innovators target their work. But you can also use it as a gateway to have innovation became become a core business process.

So you can start counting how many innovations how much they're worth, how long they're going to be in the marketplace, all the things you do with core business processes and began reporting, and goaling on innovation. So, I'm going to show you seven additional examples. They come from a lab that I taught in the MBA school a few years ago where students went out to different companies and help them create a definition for their Innovation Initiative. And when you get finished with the seven, I'll join you again and we'll talk about you creating your definition for your company. Now it's time for you to create a definition of innovation for your company that you're going to use to identify what products or services that you're creating are considered innovative and which ones you want to track and fund as such. So this tool looks a little bit static by step, but it'll be a simple tool once you get started.

And it'll be a little tedious at the beginning, but I think it'll be worth it at the end. So let's look at the different steps of how you would go about creating the draft of the definition. First of all, figure out if you already have a definition, and it could be that it exists in parts of your company, and people are using it. So do a little due diligence and see if something exists. And if it does exist, then ask yourself, can we put it to use in a different way so everyone knows it's there. Now, if you don't already have one, ask yourself an important question.

Do we need one? And I think that's something that each company has to figure out. Do you need one and how would we go about creating it? The next one is to do a stakeholder analysis of who needs to be involved. This is really important because you in isolation can't create the definition for your company. So think about who needs to Be involved when and how you're going to engage them.

Certain people will help you bring in information, maybe do some data analysis, certain people will help make decisions, certain people need to be informed, etc. So, for this first one, think about what it's going to cover, is it going to cover the horizons and the types of innovation and create this definition to make sure you have your customer at the center. Use your strategy map to make sure your definition is going to lead to the results that are going to help execute the strategy. And, most importantly, articulate the value that your company is going to receive from innovation. And then make sure you talk about the unique essence of your company, what is going to offer to consumers and now begin to write a draft a three or four sentence definition not long than that you saw from the examples. And so started out and then begin to enlarge the conversation, begin to vet it with other people, and use your strategy map to help you get it to a good Working Draft.

So once you've agreed to it and have a good Working Draft, then discuss how innovators are going to use it, how they're going to use it to help frame innovations, how you're going to discuss it in the company, etc. Now, when you get this drafted, please go back and add it to the innovation blueprint that you just created. Put it on page two of that blueprint. And that will complete the blueprint as well. So please turn off the module work on this and I'll see you when you get back. Okay, we're still going through the first platform in the innovation universe and that platform is frame.

There were four elements and frame and we're down to the fourth element. This element is structure and fit. Now the structure piece of it is how the initiative is going to be structured, how it's going to be resources from a standpoint of role accountability. Are you going to have an innovation lead? Are you going to have innovation, I mentors, etc. So that's really about how it's structured and what roles are going to drive it.

But I'd like to do in this module is I'd like to focus on the fit piece. The fit piece is the last step, if you will, of frame and it's very connected to the strategic architecture. It's about how all the pieces in the company that are strategic initiatives fit together and how that relates to innovation. And so, in this sense, it's important enough to separate that out and ask companies to spend some time on fit Let's look at a structure and fit example, you know of the hundreds of companies that I've worked with on innovation embedment, I would say at least half of them have a fit problem at the very beginning when they're trying to ramp up innovation. Many of these companies have a strategic initiative, or many that have been in place. And so when they introduce innovation, sometimes there's friction.

And the most common one that I see is obex, or operating excellence. So let's take that as an example. Now on the surface innovation, and operating excellence seem to be at odds with each other. But many companies have learned that they're very codependent at many levels. Let's look at this pyramid just to see a few examples. First of all, at the very highest level enterprise funding, often op x savings will go into fun.

The end of initiative particularly until it can become self funding. Another linkage would be at the problem solving level. You know, innovation is an inductive adaptive problem solving methodology. And operating excellence is a detective, innovation or problem solving methodology. And so when you combine them, you get an excellent set of tools for employees to look at problem solving in a holistic way. It's a great methodology when you pull those two those tools together.

Now, acceptance transfer, oftentimes in operating excellence programs, you train master black belts, and an innovation. We often recommend that people train AI mentors or innovation facilitators. And if you want to start doing that you have this knowledge in the organization about black black belts and that makes that acceptance of that that transfer a little easier. Another level is tool credibility. There are some tools that overlap. You know, in operating excellence.

There's the go see tools, and an innovation. There's the field ethnography tool. So it speeds up the learning curve when you're trying to learn some of these innovation tools that either have their roots in operating excellence, or trying to cover some similar ground. And lastly, in this example, is an additive piece of it Six Sigma design for experimentation are great tools to teach innovators on how to design better marketplace experiments. Oftentimes, innovation toolkits don't really get into the detail of how to design great experiments. And luckily, if you have six sigma or op x, you might already have those tools in your toolbox.

So this is just an example. How they begin to connect, and how you can communicate to employees and innovators about why both of these initiatives are important and this helps fit enormously. Let's look at the MVA for structure and fit, which is the forced fourth element in frame. This is not a tool per se, but it's a series of steps for you to discover what will help innovation get to the next level. And it's based on the idea that many companies have experience in starting and having strategic initiative succeed. But often, they don't take that experience in that learning and apply it to innovation either to start it or to get it to the next level.

So the first thing to do is to identify initiatives that you would like to learn from, and compare innovation to. And I've given you a few to consider. And these are from examples and best case studies of people in my workshops or companies that I've worked with, where we've tackled this structure and fit issue. So some that you might think about our operating excellence, which we've talked about at some length, lean quality, safety, six sigma project management, change management, process mapping, Salesforce, there are thousands of them. But look within your company and you probably already know one that's fairly successful. And the trick is going to be to try to go back in time and try to understand how it got started.

There's some selection criteria to make sure that it was something when it was new to the company it was not well understood. Maybe those leading it, we're not always clear what the next steps will be that it impacted a lot of jobs. It's not just in one department or one division, but it was enterprise wide. It was viewed and is viewed by top management is one of the key enterprise initiatives. It helped create some kind of competitive advantage for your company. employees had to be trained on it, there was a learning curve for it.

It is now reported in operations reviews and employee meetings, and it's part of the compensation incentive system. Once you identify that, then there's just a few steps to go through. Pick one, and number three would be find the person who today who is accountable for it, and see if they can help you go back in time to the first couple years is what I would focus on of how it got started. If they're not the person if the person is somewhere else in the company, then find them and see if you can spend some time with them. But ask the person your interview during Google back in the first couple years and talk about what worked, what didn't work, what were the biggest barriers? How is it structured?

How is it resourced? How many jobs were driving it at the beginning and then over time. And then a second thing to do with the present person that leading it is to talk about the overlap at the strategy level at the implementation level at the tool level, think about that pyramid we just went through as some examples. You might also be pre emptive, and talk about what could cause confusion when both of these come together and employees need to be able to understand both and then talk about what synergies might be created. Also, maybe talk about how the two of you or your teams can collaborate Going forward. Now, there's no hard outcome for this one.

These are just some steps to think about so you understand the fit and the structuring of what has to happen either when innovation is new or when you're trying to expand it and scale it up. And doing this will do a few things it'll give you and the company confidence that you can absolutely do. This Innovation Initiative as well as some of the other ones that you've been able to accomplish in your company will also help you to explain to employees how the two are going to coexist and build on each other. And it will help you understand the requirements for structure and fit for with innovation and other key initiatives. Okay, let's look at frame at a glance. Now remember, frame is the strategic mandate.

It's that linkage between the business strategy and innovation and there are four elements The first one is strategic architecture that's this future oriented description of the enterprise prize. And the reason it matters is it will help you prioritize potential innovations. And it lessens organization confusion. And the MVA we used here was the innovation linkage map. The second piece is the initiative blueprint, which is the overall strategy for the Innovation Initiative. It's a two to five year plan that describes your intention for innovation and how you're going to try to get to the next level.

It's an alignment mechanism. And it also ensures that you're looking at innovation as a continuous improvement. And the MVA we used here was the five page blueprint template. The fourth element is definition and strategy. That's a set of descriptive concepts that we use to demarcate the offerings that we consider to be innovation that creates alignment and also establishes or begins to establish an A vacation is a key business process. And the NBA we used here we're definition creation steps.

And lastly is structure and fit. Now, this is about the roles associated with innovation. And it's also how innovation is going to create synergy by working with other key initiatives that your company has. This increases the probability of acceptance and again, lessens confusion and roadblocks. And the MBA we used here was creating synergy and collaboration. And now let's go back to our innovation universe wayfinder.

Just to remind you where we are, we just spent this module looking at frame the strategic mandate. Frame is one of four modules in the innovation universe to help companies become more innovative. The other three are embed, generate and lead Congratulations, you just finished the module on frame in the innovate universe. And now the next module will be generate