Innovation, Standards, and Mature Organizations Ted Habermann NOAA National Data Centers

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Innovation, Standards, and Mature
OrganizationsTed HabermannNOAA National Data
Centers
There are special management challenges, and I
think that that's an area that we in agencies
such as NOAA, need to spend an extra amount of
time on. We have very talented workers and very
talented employees, many of whom have advanced
degrees, and they have been successful because of
certain behaviors in their field. As you
progress through the system in any organization,
you need to develop other skills Vice Adm.
Lautenbacher
Mature Organizations
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The Technology S-Curve
We all know that new technologies emerge slowly,
grow quickly (if they catch on) and then fade
away. This common knowledge has been described as
the technology S-curve. Why does it exist?
Luddites
Pragmatists
Visionaries
TIME
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The Chasm
Moore has described the chasm in the adoption
life cycle. He proposes that many new
technologies do not make it across the chasm
between visionaries and pragmatists. They fall
into the chasm. The technology S-curve with the
chasm might look like
TIME
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Technology Cycle
Technology Cycle
Technological Disruption
Selection
Era of Ferment
Dominant Design
Disruption 2 (destroys existing competence)
Standards
Network Effects Value f(N2)
(non-compliance cost increases with time)
TIME
OReilly, C.A. and Tushman, M.L., The
Ambidextrous Organizations, Harvard Bus. Rev,
April 2004.
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Types of Innovation - 1
Sustaining / Incremental Innovation generally
small innovations in products and processes aimed
at existing customers. Disruptive /
Discontinuous Innovation significant innovations
generally aimed at unknown or non-existent
customers.
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Unidata Objectives (1998)
Sustaining Innovation
These objectives either respond to users'
current needs or advance Unidata toward meeting
future needs effectively. Most of the
"responsive" items are continuations of current
Unidata objectives, and their importance is well
established. But only by looking beyond present
needs to anticipate future ones, and by pursuing
the most promising technical advances, can
Unidata remain effective. This is true even
though some of these advances involve
uncertainties, and the demand for them may not be
apparent as yet. Unidata, 2003 Proposal.
Disruptive Innovation
Clayton Christensen, The Innovators Dilemma
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Unidata (netCDF) Evolution
Disruptive Innovation Always includes a decrease
in metrics for current customers so it is
difficult for mature organizations.
In the Unidata case we are now seeing the
disruptive switch to Java play out. The
capabilities of the Java version of the netCDF
libraries have now surpassed the original C
version.
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Types of Innovation - 2
Component Innovation Making existing components
better. Architectural Innovation putting
existing components together in new ways.
Mature organizations Architectural Innovation
usually involves organizational change
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Innovation Technology Cycle
Disruptive Innovation
Component, Architectural, Sustaining
and Process Innovation
Product Innovation Design Competition Community-dr
iven technology change
What do we make?
How do we make it (better)?
TIME
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How Standards Change The Game

• Expanded Network Externalities (Network effect
  turns on)
• Reduced Uncertainty and Risk in Technology
  Decisions
• Reduced Consumer Lock-In to Particular
  Components
• Competition in the Market vs. Competition for
  the Market
• Competition on Value vs. Features
• Competition to Offer Proprietary Extensions
• Component vs. Systems Competition

Standards shift the locus of competition from
systems development to component development.
Specialists tend to thrive in the mix-and-match
environment created by interface standards.
Generalists and system (stovepipe) developers
tend to thrive in the absence of standards.
In the absence of standards 1) there is no
architectural innovation (no mix-and-match)
and 2) the organization can not benefit from
component innovation. Once a standard has been
agreed on (selection), the organization benefits
from component innovation and architectural
innovation.
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Why No Standards?
The longer the market takes to determine a
standard, the more expensive it will be for firms
operating within that market. The more expensive
this competition becomes, the greater the
tendency for firms to cooperate at the beginning.
The difficulty with this reasoning is that it is
difficult for individual firms to determine how
expensive or how long it will take the market to
determine the dominant standard. Nor are
companies willing to cede control of such an
important aspect of their market early in a
competition. Booz Allen Hamilton, 2005.
The science community generally values sharing
results more than they value sharing data.
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Innovation, Standards NOAA
There is a considerable innovation literature
that can help NOAA learn the new skills required
to innovate strategically and effectively. Techno
logy is evolving from a computing tool to a
communication tool. It is becoming an
infrastructure technology. Standards are
critical to building value of infrastructure
technologies. Standards are critical to
organizationally effective component and
architectural innovation. NOAA must develop and
use processes for selecting and applying
standards. The requirements and approaches to
planning are very different in the different
phases of the technology cycle. Understanding
and explicitly recognizing the differences in
phases of the technology cycle and the
differences in balance between management and
leadership skills might help NOAA.
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NASA Standards
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NASA Standards
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Organizational Capabilities

• Sum of individual capabilities
• Resources
• Money and people, easy to change
• Processes
• Hard to change
• Organizational boundaries facilitate current
  processes
• Current processes have worked in the past
• Values
• Hardest to change

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Good people, wrong process / values
The reason why innovation often seems to be so
difficult for established firms is that they
employ highly capable people and then set them to
work within processes and values that weren't
designed to facilitate success with the task at
hand. Ensuring that capable people are ensconced
in capable organizations is a major management
responsibility in an age such as ours, when the
ability to cope with accelerating change has
become so critical. Clayton Cristensen, Coping
With Your Organizations Innovation Capabilities,
in Leading For Innovation and Organizing for
Results
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Values Statements
From a paper on standards As an agency, NASA
has particular needs, and so the SPG process is
tailored for the particular pragmatic demands of
the agency. As an agency, NASA has a technology
adoption curve just as any population does even
if, as a research agency, NASA may skew toward
innovation and early adoption. NASAs great
advantage is that it sponsors a large pool of
innovators
NASA is here and life is good!
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What Approach?
Where are NASA Standards Efforts?
Clark and Wheelwright, Organizing and Leading
Heavyweight DevelopmentTeams, 1992.
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Functional Team
FM
FM
FM
FM
FM
Working Level
Markets
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Lightweight Team
FM
FM
FM
FM
FM
NWS
OAR
NOS
NMFS
NESDIS
Working Level
Project Manager and area of influence
Liason
Markets
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Heavyweight Team
Functional Manager
FM
FM
FM
FM
FM
Project Manager and area of influence
NWS
OAR
NOS
NMFS
NESDIS
Working Level
Liason
Markets
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Microsoft in 1995
Apple Computer
Balkan Peninsula
Companies Employing Independent Contractors
Christensen, C., M. Marx, and H. H. Stevenson,
The Tools of Cooperation and Change, Harvard
Business Review, Oct. 2006
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Culture Tools
Leadership Tools
Broad concensus

• Fokelore

• Religion

• Charisma

• Vision

• Rituals

• Salesmanship

• Democracy

• Tradition

• Role Modeling

Management Tools

• Apprenticeship

Power Tools
Extent to which people agree on what they want

• Strategic Planning

• Negotiation

• Financial
• Incentives

• Transfer Pricing

• Measurement
• Systems

• Role Definition

• Hiring and
• Promotion

• Fiat

• Control Systems

• Threats

• Standard
• Operating Proceedures

• Coercion

• Training

No concensus
Extent to which people agree on cause and effect
(how to get there)
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Different NASA Standards Groups?
Scientists?
Scientists?
Contractors?
Christensen, C., M. Marx, and H. H. Stevenson,
The Tools of Cooperation and Change, Harvard
Business Review, Oct. 2006
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Organizational Challenge
A new business with high growth potential (lets
call it NewCo) rarely coexists gracefully with
the most closely related established business
unit within the company (lets call it CoreCo).
The unnatural combination creates three specific
challenges for NewCo forgetting, borrowing, and
learning. NewCo must forget some of what made
CoreCo successful, because NewCo and CoreCo have
elemental differences. NewCo must borrow some of
CoreCos assetsthe greatest advantage it has
over independent start-ups. And NewCo must be
prepared to learn some things from scratch. 10
Rules for Strategic Innovators From Idea to
Execution, Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble,
Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. 2005
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Leadership Model Positive Deviance
Positive deviance says that if you want to create
change, you must scale it down to the lowest
level of granularity and look for people within
the social system who are already manifesting the
desired future state. Take only the arrows that
are already pointing toward the way you want to
go, and ignore the others. Identify and
differentiate those people who are headed in the
right direction. Give them visibility and
resources. Bring them together. Aggregate them.
Barbara Waugh
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Ted.Habermann_at_noaa.gov
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References
Booz Allen Hamilton, Geospatial Interoperability
Return on Investment Study, 2005,
http//gio.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ROI20Study.pdf. Ch
ristensen, C., The Innovators Dilemma, Harvard
Business School Press, 1997, 225p. Christensen,
C., M. Marx, and H. H. Stevenson, The Tools of
Cooperation and Change, Harvard Business Review,
Oct. 2006. Clark and Wheelwright,
Revolutionizing Product Development, The Free
Press, New York, 1992, 364p. Govindarajan, V.
and C. Trimble, Building Breakthrough Businesses
Within Established Organizations, Harvard
Business Review, May 2005, p. 58-68. Lautenbacher
, C., Business of Government Radio Interview,
http//www.businessofgovernment.org/main/interview
s/bios/conrad_lautenbacher_frt.asp, 2005. Moore,
G., Crossing the Chasm, Marketing and Selling
High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers,
Harper Business, 1991, 211p. OReilly, C.A. and
Tushman, M.L., The Ambidextrous Organizations,
Harvard Business Review, April 2004. The
Positive Deviance Initiative, http//positivedevia
nce.org/ Pascale, R.T. and J. Sternin, Your
Companys Secret Change Agents, Harvard Business
Review, May 2005, p. 72-81. Tushman, M.L.,
Anderson, P., and OReilly, C.A., Technology
Cycles, Innovation Streams, and Ambidextrous
Organizations Organizational Renewal Through
Innovation Streams and Strategic Change, in
Managing Strategic Innovation and Change, Tushman
and Anderson, eds., Oxford University Press, New
York, 1997, 657p.
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Background
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Team Structures
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How to Forget

• Dont be insular.
• Dont assign status based on size.
• Rearrange the moving parts.
• Build a new dashboard.
• Dare to make complex judgments.
• Promote new thinking about success.

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How to Borrow

• Balance the yin of forgetting with the yang of
• borrowing.
• Find common ground.
• Be careful what you ask for.
• Co-opt CoreCo. 
• Be alert to tremors.
• Force authority uphill.

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How to Learn

• Dont try to mix oil and water. 
• Protect predictions.
• Avoid being defensive.
• Do less, faster.
• Analyze through a new lens.
• Measure what you dont know.