ABSTRACT
Resources are required for any endeavor—large or small, business or personal, physical or virtual. Cultivating innovation, particularly in a mature organization, requires planning and allocating resources for the explicit purpose of increasing innovation. Resources are, by their nature, finite and need 158to be appropriately allocated at both a macro and micro level. This is not a random act of arbitrary distribution—successful innovation needs resources to be allocated to the highest priority items in a systematic way. Consistent with a systems engineering approach, resources are a necessary input into the innovation process, as indicated in the innovation framework in Chapter 3. The allocation of resources impacts the innovation process and innovation initiatives in all organizations, to develop innovative ideas and advanced technologies, from large mature organizations to small start-ups. This chapter will discuss resources and their criticality to systemic innovation. Innovative organizations should take a comprehensive view of resources at a high level, including people, process, and things. Our discussion of resources will also include business and R&D processes that are part of the organization. People include the organizational staff (employees, management, and consultants) as well as the internal and external social networks associated with those staff (technical experts, designers, customers or users) and the related interfaces (collaborators, vendors, subcontractors, etc.). Process is an intangible organizational resource and describes how work gets accomplished in an organization. Processes, both formal and informal, govern how an organization and its components interact internally as well as with others outside the organization. Organizations typically excel in some process areas and find others more challenging. Things include technology (e.g., software and hardware), tools (e.g., models and simulations, engineering apps), data and information (theories, experimental data, and user inputs), and facilities and workspaces (e.g., laboratories, software development, system fabrication and manufacturing, integration and test). All of these resources—people, process, and things—and their allocation significantly impact the quantity and quality of innovation in an organization. Explicit organizational allocation of funds to acquire, develop, and evolve these items is a key assumption of this discussion. Similarly, the culture in an organization greatly impacts the effective use of all these resource categories and will be explored throughout this chapter. 1
