Companies have to innovate faster and want to encourage internal entrepreneurship. Management Team paid attention to the Innovation Studio from Movares and wrote about social innovation in this setting.
Innovation studios at engineering consultants Movares encourage staff to launch their own innovation projects. For instance, staff can be given a ‘blank cheque’ in the form of 40 hours to spend on an idea. First, they present an outline plan to an ‘innovation committee’. The innovation committee brings together the company’s best innovators, who can help the staff member develop and market their idea. Movares also invites specialists, non-specialists and random staff members to brain-storming sessions on a variety of topics. And any staff member can ask to be invited to one of these sessions. The sessions involve nine people asking probing questions, with the aim of finding concrete solutions.
Monthly brain-storming sessions
This open approach ensures that hidden ideas see the light of day, says Movares employee Erik van Weerdhuizen. ‘For instance, one colleague had the idea of square roundabouts. At first sight, that sounds odd. But our specialists didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand, so who knows?’ One aim of the monthly sessions at Movares is to make it easier for staff to put forward ideas. ‘Engineers have a tendency not to submit an idea until they’ve got everything sorted, whereas this approach only requires half an idea. Right at an early stage, we ask potential customers to give us feedback on innovation.’
