Innovation program deployment for industries with irreversible processes

Innovation processes and methods have taken center stage in many organizations as companies begin to evaluate new ways to deliver growth and maintain a competitive edge. Specifically, the proliferation of methods originating in software development (agile) and product development (design thinking) put pressure on organizations to dedicate resources to apply these methods, irrespective of industry. The challenge is that innovation program deployment is being mistakenly compared to the relative ubiquitous deployment of Six Sigma programs over the past decade. This is most apparent in industries such as Construction, namely mega-project construction, that face irreversible processes (concrete curing), risk (both life-critical and business), and elongated project cycles. To address this challenge, companies need to recognize limitations to agile methods as well as the impact of project time to the delivery of innovations. For example, a multi-billion-dollar rail project may take several years to deliver, during which technology advancements can change dramatically and project agency issues can impact the implementation of solutions to make the next job. Bechtel recently deployed an innovation program that addresses this alignment issue by providing a “fail-safe, fail-fast, fail-forward” process that is matched to a centralized fund for innovation. This paper presents key considerations for the deployment of a robust and scalable innovation program that maintains the ad-vantages of design thinking and speed of development for industries with similar challenges.