Progress Report Austrian Mobile Power 

Austrian Mobile Power

Progress report

Why do you organise innovation workshops and what potential do you see in integrating external participants in the development of ideas?

At Austrian Mobile Power, we have already tried out different innovation formats on-site and online within the scope of brainwalks and crowdsourcing. In particular with collaborative research, development and demonstration projects in which we have been project partners, we always involve both association members and enterprise employees external to the association or the wider public in order to generate ideas and assess them. Organisations can definitely benefit from this if the integrate Open Innovation methods into their operational work. Open Innovation is a good opportunity to take a look beyond the horizon and to develop your own innovative capability and innovation culture.

How is such a big innovation workshop normally run by you?

We generally implement one-day innovation workshop via “World Café Method” to discuss different problems and/or future matters with up to approx. 60 participants from different sectors. Up until now, these have worked in up to five groups in several rounds in one room for different subjects. In order to obtain a usable result, we think a lot about a good structure and framework conditions, inspiring moderation and, above all, a good and balanced mix of representatives from different enterprises and sectors for the workshop who we would like to invite. In doing this, it is important to determine which partners I need on my side to be able to revise sound content, but also who I need to convince to bring inspiration and foresight to the group.

However, we have also already executed workshops with a newer creativity method, the so-called “brainwalking method”. With this, participants move from station to station and provide their ideas to specified questions and assess them. This is particularly exciting if you would like to targetedly obtain the external view and/or user perspective. As a temporal effort for physical innovation workshops you can estimate one to two weeks each for the preparation and for the follow-up, three weeks in total. The events themselves were each held on one day.

Such workshops are also set in an online format. How well does that work?

We have had good experiences with Open Innovation software solutions and executed them both in a restricted user circle, as well as with the wider public.

The first time, for the purpose of the test, we selected a closed participant circle, whereby we invited approx. 10 to 20 employees from around 35 member companies, which themselves were called up to generate, formulate and assess ideas on the online platform via the enterprise communication in order to collate experience with Open Innovation.

The second time, the online portal was opened to the wider public, but advertised with limitations. The third time, we advertised and distributed it wide via different associations nationally in Austria. The response was clearly better, the quality was not necessarily, although it was possible for the content and the assessment to be anonymous each time with the idea campaign tool through the virtual community.

We always accompanied the online phase with an offline phase within the framework of an editorial meeting, individuals responsible for innovation from enterprises were able to discuss and interpret the ideas and/or assessment received, in person. Alongside the variety of ideas, it was exciting for the employees to see how the internal enterprise ideas were considered and ranked by the community.

The best three ideas were prized every time.

How satisfied were you with the results of the new format?

The process and the content-related knowledge of the online workshop was very exciting here! Ideas were generated that neither us nor the experts had through of, and we received feedback from potential consumers on our own yielded ideas. This provides support, but also courage, because you need this for drive innovations forward and implement them!

If you compare the on-site innovation workshop and the online workshop, what is apparent?

The combination of online and offline innovation workshops was very positive and easy. Due to the positive experiences that we have had, we have also introduced this method within the framework of a cooperative lighthouse project in the logistics division. Here we were responsible for the communications work package and have processed an area of responsibility in the form of an Open Innovation package. The perception after this was that the content was similarly satisfactory. The time effort for the operative execution of the on-site workshop within this sector was, however, much greater (e.g. the management of invitations) and the number of ideas on the one day was clearly fewer than in other divisions. With the online version, this was not the case. There were also fewer barriers to provide ideas online, and it was above all interesting to see that many ideas were submitted participants at the start and end of the day, presumably during the commute.

What are you views on the quality of the ideas?

On the whole we could summarise that the more creative and lively ideas arose from the digital Open Innovation process. Two ideas of this were also picked up by an enterprise and implemented. It was also interesting to see that the crowd picked up ideas and combined or further developed them with other ideas.

How important is fairness to you within a company-wide innovation workshop?

Generally, fairness is a very important terms in an Open Innovation process. Similarly to the internal suggestion scheme, here recognition or remuneration must be considered and exist from the outset. To provide a fair opportunity to provide ideas is important, a fair handling in the valuation and fair remuneration must be guaranteed.

What needs to be done for a “fair” design?

Fairness is a term that must always be considered in advanced, no matter whether dealing with an internal or external innovation process. It was important to us to accompany the online dialogue, to guarantee a good, reactive presentation, and to bring out and pay the best ideas. However, it is definitely different project to project and must be determined right at the start. Fairness is an undervalued factor of success!

(Interview with Heimo Aichmaier Dipl.-Ing. led on 14/05/2019 by Diana Wieden-Bischof)