A phased and cyclical approach to innovation driven transformation

The model consists or three distinct stages which can be described as follows:

• Extract (improve and learn), focuses on understanding the situation of the organisation at that specific point in time and formulating a business and digital transformation “strategy”.
• Explore (learn and evolve), focuses on product and service innovation, design, problem solving and validating the feasibility of ideas, and solutions to problems
• Expand (evolve and improve), focuses on operationalising and eventually commoditising new and innovative products and services, and how these can be sustained, supported and scaled! Expand also aims to create an understanding of what can still be improved in the organisation.

We say “stages” or “phases” with a great amount of caution as these stages are mostly, but not necessarily sequential. Innovation and transformation are quite often messy and less orderly that what most people are comfortable with.

For documentation and teaching purposes we define these stages as distinct and defined elements, the reality is that the boundaries between stages are often blurred, in fact it’s better if they are blurred and one cannot identify when activities of the one transition into the activities of the next stage.

Note that innovation and transformational activities don’t always go through all the stages, and quite often completion of one stage may revert back to a previous stage.

Artefacts of one stage are often also used in another stage as the team sees fit. We will however account for the tools, methods and techniques in the stage where they are primarily used for purposes of documenting them.

ADapT, describes the three intercepts between LEARNING, EVOLVING and IMPROVING. The innovation activities performed in the three intercepts are supported by principles from Lean and Agile and driven (in this context) by radical changes in technology and associated social change.