Creating Value through Incremental Innovation: Managing Culture, Structure, and Process

Abstract

While the looming threat of large-scale disruptive innovation consumes disproportionate attention, incremental innovation remains an important tool for preserving and growing radiology practices within a dynamic marketplace. Incremental innovation, defined as the process of making improvements or additions to an organization while maintaining the organization's core product or service model, is accessible to practices of all sizes and must not be overlooked if practices are to maintain their competitive advantage. This article explores cultural, structural, and process enablers for incremental innovation. Successful innovation cultures foster the ability to import and exploit external knowledge (adaptive capacity), encourage creative thought from all levels of the organization, display sensitivity toward the competency-destroying potential of certain changes, cultivate a positive perceptual bias toward organizational threats, and build tolerance for risk and uncertainty when prototyping new ideas. Structural elements promoting incremental innovation include dedicated resources for innovation planning, flexible and organic team structures, strong centralized governance models, robust communication systems, and organizational incentives encouraging exploration of new concepts. Processes important to innovation include periodic environmental scanning, strategic and scenario planning, use of an objectively gated system for testing and filtering new ideas, and use of an approach to implementation that emphasizes empowerment of project managers, removal of barriers, and proactive communication around change.

The impact of balanced agile project management on firm performance: the mediating role of market orientation and strategic agility

“…Flexible and organic resource management offers advantages over an overly rigid systematic approach in developing an innovation portfolio as it enables leveraging the full spectrum of organizational competencies while harnessing the unique skills of individuals (Rubin and Abramson, 2018). Organization's competencies to establish new project management practices to address complex and customs requirements responsively in a turbulent market are crucial to coping with risks and uncertainties (Gemünden et al, 2018).…”

Project Lineage Management and Project Portfolio Success

“…Fourth, against the dominant view of one highly innovative project delivering a quantum leap in performance, empirical evidence shows that a sequence of comparatively short but highly interactive projects can deliver a performance increase. This increase is much higher than the existing industry standard and can reposition an underperformer into a top-in-class performer (Berggren, 2019; Rubin & Abramson, 2018). Fifth, a sequence of consecutive projects may not only be beneficial.…”

Service Design Approach to Elevate the Patient Experience during Home X-Rays

“…The service must actively participate in radiological and non-radiological advances to meet the demands of patients. Non-radiological benefits include system-wide collaboration, cultural nuances, and understanding the implications of other stakeholders (Rubin and Abramson, 2018). While these can significantly improve the service experience, healthcare delivery is difficult, and any endeavour to enhance or innovate service delivery necessitates balancing numerous different views (Lovlie et al, 2009).…”