The Innovation standard: ISO 56000
Standards are used in several management areas, – e.g. quality, environment, working environment and IT security. Areas where a certain degree of professionalization is desired, or perhaps even required. This also applies to innovation. Here, the interest in developing and professionalizing innovation as a strategic organizational competence grows. As inspiration for innovation management, the ISO 56000 series is a good tool. It is partially developed and continuously updated.
The following quote from the ISO56002-Practical handbook actually frames it quite well:
“Innovation is widely recognized as being a key factor in driving economic growth, development of society and increased well-being. Despite good intentions and successful pilots, organizations often struggle to make innovation an enduring and sustainable part of their business.
If you have…
• generated ideas through creativity sessions, design thinking, or online inventiveness and want to take them to the next level;
• struggled to commercialize ideas that your team has generated;
• recently taken up responsibility for innovation and wondered where to start;
• identified a need to fundamentally transform your organization; or
• a drive to simply do things differently.
… and you want to…
• be confident that you’re solving the right problems;
• generate solutions that will disrupt your market;
• build confidence in your ability to manage innovation; or
• avoid some of the common innovation pitfalls.
….then you should consider taking a formalized and systemic approach to delivering innovation.“
Taliz supports the ISO 56000 standard
Oquam’s innovation system Taliz is an IT platform designed to support the innovation standard. Here, both the operational innovation processes and the strategic tasks are addressed. Taliz supports the collection of knowledge (suggestions and observations). It guides through creative and systematic idea development, in addition to managing innovation efforts and ensuring alignment with the organization’s overall development strategy.
Oquam’s consultants can also help operationalize the standard. We teach the standard – e.g., at innovation management courses (at the Danish Technological Institute) and have for many years implemented innovation processes in practice – for both public and private organizations.
Can innovation follow a standard?
A standard serves as a paradigm that can be used to determine the way you want to work in an organization. For example, how should innovation be worked on strategically in day-to-day operations and in dedicated parts of the organization where processes, competencies and tools must come together?
Thus, with inspiration from the standard, it is about creating space for knowledge collection, systematic analyses, short-circuiting of knowledge, facilitation of creative processes, development, etc.
Can the standard create value?
The innovation standard can contribute to creating coherence in innovation efforts and that the organization’s resources are prioritized on an informed basis. But employees must also be motivated and involved so that innovation skills and culture are developed, and the results can be realized. This applies when executing the many small improvements and facilitating major breakthroughs.
The value of the standard lies in the fact that it inspires how management and employees can work systematically with innovation and derive more and better ideas from this. Finally, work on the standard can encourage interest from innovative investors, public funders and innovative partnerships.
The story behind the Innovations standard
The ISO standard is created on the basis of both empirical data (best practice) and academic insight. It is made as a recipe book to support building an innovative organization. Historically, the first lines were written around 2008, partly based on work at DTU and a focus on “New Nordic Innovation”. A European standard (CEN 16555) was subsequently initiated with contributions from researchers and companies from 15 European countries. The form became a “Guidance” standard as opposed to a “Requirements” standard, which can be used to certify according to (like ISO 9001). The first CEN standard was published in 2013. In the following years, it became more widespread in Europe, and a working group was set up under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The result was the first ISO innovation standard, published in 2019. Representatives from 50 countries and organisations, such as the OECD, WIPO, EPO, World Bank, WTO, etc., attended this work. The standard is now on its way to becoming internationally widespread. It is written from the same template as other ISO standards, but still with a clear imprint from Nordic innovation culture.
Who can use the standard?
Anyone who wants to improve their innovation management can!
The standard does not have an approach of: “This is how it MUST be done”, but rather: “You should prioritize between these initiatives”. To get the full benefit of prioritization and subsequent implementation, quite some work must be done with the standard. There ARE many aspects and opportunities to work with for an innovative organization. And yes, we write “Organization” and not company or anything else. That is because the standard is aimed at all kinds of organizations of all sizes. Be it companies, municipal/governmental organizations, NGOs etc.
Therefore, some of the chapters of the standard will be more or less relevant to specific organizations. However, like everything else in the standard, this is part of the selection and adaptation to the particular organization and its current status and strategy.
What does the Innovations standard contain?
Work on the standard is ongoing, and it is currently transitioning between being a European (CEN/TS/EN) standard and an international ISO standard. Therefore, it currently consists of both CEN and ISO chapters. The plan is to publish the chapters ISO56000 through ISO56010.
These briefly include:
- ISO 56000: Innovation management — Fundamentals and vocabulary
Glossary, which has definitions of some of the terms used in the rest of the standard, i.a. innovation, innovation vision, strategy etc. - ISO 56001: Innovation management system — Requirements
Not yet published, and there is no corresponding CEN version. - ISO 56002: Innovation management system — Guidance
The overall “umbrella”. Contains Innovation’s policy, vision and strategy, resource allocation, management, responsibilities, planning, support and operation.
Chapters ISO 56003 to 56008 are aimed at specific areas where the individual organization must decide: To what extent are these areas applicable to them? – and if so, in which order of priority?
- ISO 56003: Tools and methods for innovation partnership — Guidance
Partnerships and collaboration: choice of partner, rationale for, wishes for and goals for the collaboration. - ISO 56004: Innovation Management Assessment — Guidance
Evaluation and improvement. It is essential to know the starting point and the parameters to be measured against to improve something. Setup, execution and evaluation of the results. - ISO 56005: Tools and methods for intellectual property management — Guidance
Intellectual property management (IPR) is an important part of innovation. Either to protect oneself from copying but equally to ensure that one does not infringe on the rights of others. A slightly overlooked aspect of IPR in innovation is the possible inspiration from existing IPR and having a definite IPR strategy. - ISO 56006: Tools and methods for strategic intelligence management — Guidance
Where do we get knowledge from? What knowledge do we want? How do we sort and prioritize knowledge? Who will use this knowledge – and when? Including: How do we set up a system that can handle knowledge? - ISO 56007: Tools and methods for idea management — Guidance
Here, the emphasis is on ideas and how we work with the uncertainty associated with new ideas (idea emergence, value addition, validation). Including portfolio management and competence building. - ISO 56008: Tools and methods for innovation operation measurements — Guidance
Has been published in the first draft version. Here, the focus is on measuring and evaluating the innovation operation parameters based on 5 stages: Identify opportunities, Create concepts, Validate concepts, Develop solutions, and Deploy solutions.
As something new, two helpful “books” have been created in the series:
- ISO 56002 – Innovation managemant system – An practical handbook.
Contains explanatory examples of the various sections of ISO 56002 - ISO 56010: Innovation management – Illustrative examples of ISO 56000
Has been published in the first draft version. It contains a series of cases to illustrate the different aspects of innovation.
Get help with the Innovations standard
Oquam Aps can help understand and apply the standard. Feel free to contact us and find out more about course options and advice. Our digital tool Taliz also supports the standard.