A.1: Open Interview: Sustainable Business Process Innovation
All results are strictly confidential and no results will be shared with third parties. Your name and function will not be recorded in any way. Please feel free to skip a question or subject.
Open semi-structured Interview
“Sustainable Business Process Innovation”
Introduction:
The ability to innovate as a company is of great importance. Lots of research has been done on this topic but many papers do not look at innovation from a user perspective (easy to implement and use in practice by managers).
The purpose of this research is to give an overview of important success factors on Innovation from a user’s perspective. Each question relates to a different variable that influences innovation. The results will be used to optimize the innovation process at Siemens.
Innovation of Business Process:
In the answering, think about how this factor did or did not contribute to successes or failures in your work.
Strategy:
A strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, most often
"winning".
• How does you department think to win / achieve its goals?
o Which levers?
o Use of levers in practice?
o Orientation towards innovation?
o Success in the past?
Synergies refers to the phenomenon in which two or more discrete influences or agents acting together create an effect greater than that predicted by knowing only the separate effects of the individual agents. There are firm synergies (within firm) and market synergies (between Siemens and party outside Siemens.
• Does your department create synergies:
o Internal synergies
Explain, example
How many (LS) o External synergies
Explain, example
How many (LS)
• How does your department create these synergies?
o Internal o External
• Do synergies play a part in your day to day work?
• Do you think that having synergies is positive for your creativity?
Culture:
Sustainable Business Process Innovation, at Siemens Building Technologies, Switzerland
Culture refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significant importance.
• Do you think there is such a thing as a division culture?
o How would you define this culture?
o Can you give an example?
• Could you try to explain the climate within your division?
o Do you think it is entrepreneurial?
o Is there room to make mistakes?
o How easy would it be to start your own pet project?
o How much time is there to be creative?
o Do people stimulate you to be creative?
o Do you feel you need to be creative or are there other more important factors?
• Do you have champions (explain champion if needed) in your division?
o What is there role (important or not)?
o How do they work?
o What does it mean for your job?
Project Management:
Project management is the discipline of organizing and managing resources (e.g. people) in such a way that the project is completed within defined scope, quality, time and cost
constraints.
• Are you or have you been involved in projects?
o Explain?
• Did the project you worked (or work) on have a strong project leader?
o Explain?
• How are project groups usually made up?
o Diversity in background (all the same department or not)?
o Diversity in knowledge?
• Are projects managed according to a prescribed system or methodology?
o Explain?
Human Resources:
Human resources refer to competent, professional and competent staff of the organization.
Human Resources are often seen as the most valuable asses of an organization.
• How would you describe this valuable asset within your department?
• How is this valuable asset made up in terms of:
o Diversity (background) o Knowledge
o Education o Functions
• Do you consider the staff of this division to be a very valuable asset?
o Way so?
• Are you being trained to be an innovator?
o How?
o Why?
o What investments have been made to train you as a business process innovator?
Communication:
Communication is a process that allows “organisms” to exchange information by several methods. Communication requires that all parties understand a common language that is exchanged with each other.
• When you are working on a project: how does information get communicated (means and method)?
o What methods are used to create ideas?
o What methods are used to diffuse ideas?
o Formal / informal o Direct / indirect
• How does important information get stored? How is it retrieved?
• How does important information get communicated?
• If only we knew what we know: Does your division have a system or methodology to manage information and communication?
Senior Management Support:
Senior management support refers to the stake, support and influence as deliberately exercised by managers on projects, day to day activities, etc.
• Are senior managers involved in many aspects of the business?
• What is there role?
o Do they use there position to support activities?
o Do they use there position to change the direction of projects or activities?
• Do you often agree with the new proposed change / direction?
o What could you do if you didn’t agree with this change / direction?
o Is management open / take time to explain there decisions?
o Are they open to challenge other proposals?
• Does senior management measure your progress in terms of innovation?
o Is innovativeness measured at all?
o Is it part of the Business target agreement?
o Is it part of your personal target agreement?
Resources:
Resources refer to commodities and human resources used in the production of goods and services.
• What would you have to do to get 20% of your regular working hours and 5000 Franks to test a great idea you have?
• What would you have to do to double the budget of a project that you feel is very important for the success of the company?
• What investments have been made to train you as a business process innovator?
Innovation:
• Do you think your division is innovative?
o Why?
o Explain?
• Do you think projects in this division are completed with:
Sustainable Business Process Innovation, at Siemens Building Technologies, Switzerland
o more efficiency, o on time,
o shorter cycle time
o better fit with customer needs
• Do you think the innovation has an influence on the EVA?
o What would the influence be (positive, negative, none)?
• What would the influence be on the overall success (top performer, performance index).
• Do you think the competitiveness of this department is higher because it is innovative?
Additional questions:
• Do you think managers can manage the innovation process?
• Do you think the variables we talked about are the mayor factors that managers can influence?
• Do you think managers need to manage the innovation process?
• Do you think innovation can be managed to create what is called “ongoing innovation”?
• What (project budget) part of your budget is being used to stimulate business process innovation?
Thank you for your time and input. When the thesis is completed I would be happy to send you the results.
A.2 Overview of (in) dependent variable Measures
Variable: Operational definition: attributes to measure independent variables
1:very poor 2:poor 3:acceptable 4:good 5:excellent
Independent variables: Strategy & Synergy Strategy in the past Degree of:
-success of strategy in the past 5 point Lickert scale Innovativeness in the past Degree of perceived innovativeness in the past 5 point Lickert scale Firm synergies Degree of internal synergies 5 point Lickert scale Market synergy Degree of external synergies 5 point Lickert scale
IV: Culture
Innovative orientation Degree of innovative orientation 5 point Lickert scale Project champion Degree of projects with a champion 5 point Lickert scale Entrepreneurial climat Degree of entrepreneurial traits:
Risk taking, Allowed to make mistakes, free time for pet projects, resources for pet projects,
5 point Lickert scale
IV: Project Management Cross functional teams Degree of:
- members with a different background in project
5 point Lickert scale
Strong Project- / Team Leader
-of projects with strongleader 5 point Lickert scale High Quality Processes -of projects with stagegates or other formal
system (Cooper)
5 point Lickert scale
IV: Human Resources Experienced team of
Professionals
- of team members with expert knowledge about subject.
5 point Lickert scale
Diverse mix of professionals
- Diverse background 5 point Lickert scale
IV: Communication
Medium communication -Degree of direct / indirect contacts 5 point Lickert scale Diverse means of
communicating
-Degree of:
-communication direct of indirect -formal / informal
5 point Lickert scale
IV: Senior Management Support Influence & commitment Degree of active management involvement in
projects
5 point Lickert scale Responsibility & Support Degree of owner ship by managers 5 point Lickert scale Open Enterprise -Degree of challenging current beliefs / models /
methods
-degree of power in changing current belies
5 point Lickert scale
Sustainable Business Process Innovation, at Siemens Building Technologies, Switzerland
IV: Resources
Sufficient Resources Degree of project with sufficient resources 5 point Lickert scale Dependent variable: Innovation
Innovativeness: Ongoing
process of innovation -failed/ stopped vs. successful projects -on-time, efficiently
-Cycle time
-Number of projects -Overal success -Marketshare -Profitability -EVA
5 point Lickert scale
A.3 Overview of Interviews scores per interview
Interview scores per interview
1 2 3 4 5
Strategy & Sy nergy
Cult ure
Project ma
nagement Hum
an R esour
ces
Com munic
ation
Senior Managme
nt Support Resour
ces
Innovativene ss
score
1 4 6 8 9 2 3 5 7 10
A.3 Overview of Interviews scores for innovation group
Individual Interview Scores innovation group
1 2 3 4 5
Strategy & Synergy Project management Communication Resources
score
2 3 5 7 10
A.4 Overview of Interviews scores for non innovation group
Individual Interview scores non innovation group
1 2 3 4 5
Strategy & Synergy Culture Project management Human Resources Communication Senior Managment Support Resources Innovativeness
score
1 4 6 8 9
Sustainable Business Process Innovation, at Siemens Building Technologies, Switzerland
A.5 Overview of Interviews scores for innovation group (calculation)
A.6 Overview of Interviews scores for non innovation group (calculation)
A.7 Calculation method example Culture
The scores on all variables have been calculated using the following method:
Attributes Score per attribute
Innovation champion 2
Project Champion 3
Entrepreneurial 2 Average score culture (2+3+2)/3 = 2.3
After calculating all individual scores all scores are added and divided by the number of interviewees. This represents the average score a group has on a variable.
