Sunday, March 31, 2013

Measuring and rewarding innovation

An old quote by someone that I do not fully agree with: "Necessity is the mother of invention". Instead, I think "Necessity is the mother of innovation", and "Timepass is the mother of invention". Newton did not have a “necessity” to know why the apple fell down, he was just doing timepass sitting beneath an apple tree. I wonder why he did not think about gravitation while attending the nature’s call (:-) sorry for a gross reference, but I think Newton must have sat in the bathroom more often than beneath an apple tree).

Inventions happen because people are curious to know about something.. Innovations happen because people are curious to solve some definite problem.. that is just my take..

Anyway, whatever your definition of innovation may be...

the question that I am thinking about right now is: How should an innovator be awarded? Here are my few ideas about it:

Rewarding Innovation
1. Intrinsic reward: As I mentioned, an innovator innovates out of necessity of solving a specific problem at hand... and the solution of that problem itself is an intrinsic reward available to the innovator.
2. Extrinsic rewards: An innovation benefits a lot of people at large.. and an innovator should be able to capitablize on the use of his/her innovation by other people. So, the innovation should be measured on multiple parameters and the best one should be rewarded in terms of:
            a. Annual Appraisal Goal Fulfilment: A goal should be set on everybody's goalsheet for the FY 2013 and employees should be given goal fulfilment scores based on their innovations
            b. Cash rewards:
            c. Promotion:
            d. Title, and Power: A person with great innovations should be given the title of Innovation Shaktimaan, and given responsibility and powers to direct some fixed funds annually towards making some of the innovations possible.

These are just few ideas, your innovative comments and suggestions are most welcome.

Measuring Innovation
But how do we judge the usability or popularity or utility of a particular innovation.. should we put a dollar value on it? should we measure its popularity quotient? or should we have a set of 4 or 5 different parameters on which people should be able to vote for that innovation?
In my opinion, we should list down all the innovations and give them grades on different parameters like
a. utility (how frequently will I use this innovation daily, weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, annually),
b. popularity (how much do I like this innovation Very high, high, medium, low, very low) etc.
c. respect (how much respect do you have for this innovation for its creativity, is the innovator a Steve jobs, or just an average Steve) - very high, high, medium, low, very low.

All these parameters should be averaged, and there should be an aggregate score given to the innovation based on which the innovation's potential should be guaged.

These are just few ideas, your innovative comments and suggestions are most welcome.

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