For the most part, people do not do things unless they are motivated to do so. Of course, I’m ignoring the various forms of coercion since they are always inappropriate. Actually, motivation, on its own, is not enough. People must also be able to do what is required of them and they must receive some kind of trigger to spur them into action. This is the basis of the Fogg behaviour model and was originally focused on UX design. Its application is much broader and it can be nicely integrated with a number of other useful viewpoints that I’ll be introducing below.
Organizations are complex systems that encapsulate interactions between people, processes and enabling infrastructure. It might seem reasonable, therefore, to manage innovation within organisations using some of the key principles that emerge from systems thinking and other disciplines associated with multi-disciplinary design. However, this is not as commonplace as might be expected. I suggest that integrating systems thinking with other change and project management techniques is key to ensuring a well-rounded approach that covers all the bases critical to successful innovation.