To drive innovation and change, you require organizational mindfulness, deliberateness, and focus. Bernard Putz, VP IDL and Fintech partnerships and transformation from First Tech Federal Credit Union, explains why the importance of people and culture cannot be underestimated when it comes to instilling a culture of continuous improvement and innovation. The bottom line in becoming an innovative company is to foster a creative culture in the workplace.

 Which one is better? 

“Ready, Aim, Fire” or “Ready, Fire, Aim” describes how organizations operate. 

These are two contrasting views, and there are advantages and disadvantages to both. Ready, fire, aim is using competent teams, smart money, and intelligent adjustments to strategy to hit the suitable moving targets every minute that you’re in business. On the other hand, ready, aim, fire, you need intelligent intelligence infrastructure and a skilled team to know what to aim for and when and what targets to avoid that might throw you off track.

A combination of both viewpoints is desirable. But if an organization is siloed, data will also be siloed, which is the most significant barrier to innovation. 

If there is no framework for data and no standard definitions in data analytics, it can impact cross-functionality. Here, you would require the best mix of both approaches to bring data innovation. 

 Mental Models 

The second question comes up is - “How quickly is an organization able to align mental models and make them explicit?” For example, if everyone has a different model for conflict resolution, it will not be a fruitful discussion because everyone is bringing their perspective and actions to the table.  

Mental models should be made explicit through pictures, framework, dialogue, etc. An alignment between mental models is very critical. The quicker the organization can make the models explicit, the faster it will be with innovation. 

 Assumptions 

 What assumptions underlie the data, strategic planning, or department planning? These items should be brought to the surface and made as explicit as possible.  

 Alignment 

A simple view of what gets in the way of the speed of execution and transformation is crucial. Alignment requires honest dialogue and a willingness to confront the elephants in the room. Non-alignment will drag siloed behavior. 

 Align on what is success 

 Here are a few questions you can delve upon to head towards alignment - 

• How have we defined our destination? 
• How will we know we are on the road to success? 
• What milestones will we use to recognize progress? 

 Every department will have a different understanding of what the data will bring. A standard view and definition need to be established and shared with key stakeholders through dialogue. 

Align on strategy 

You need to ensure that data is complete, stable, and usable. Only if you have a clear aligned strategy can you achieve this objective. 

 Align on approach 

When you start on a transformation journey, what should your approach be? Of course, there can be a lot of different views on mental models, ready, aim, fire vs ready fire, aim methods, use of data, time frame, and much more. First, however, a foundation needs to be laid, and a common approach needs to be decided to solve immediate business problems and turn data into actionable insights.  

 Align on the journey 

 Determine where the gaps lie. You need to develop a framework to determine the key variables necessary to move the organization forward and assess the common perception of the present and future capability. Develop a roadmap accordingly. 

 Align on where to begin 

 Question yourself on where to begin. It is always wise to start with the end in mind. Determine what business decisions need to be made to reach the end and what hypothesis should be tested to drive innovation. 

 Conclusion 

 When innovation and changes are driven, we make the process more complicated than necessary. You need to ask yourself whether you can live with the solution. Decide on the most appropriate course of action and take it. Agree to disagree and commit to disagree. Please keep it simple by filtering out inefficient alignments and techniques.

 Watch the full workshop here - https://culytics.com/articles/driving-innovation-and-change