"The pivotal point in the strategic management process is the point at which strategic direction (i.e., the organization's goals, objectives and strategies) and plans to achieve its vision, mission and values are set", Vice President Al Gore, in National Performance Review, February 1997.
Innovation adoption is a high-level business and technical management challenge. The pace of innovation in the 21st century receives great attention because it touches everyone's lives. Especially in government, where the lag between state-of-the-art in technology, business and program management processes is seen as emerging challenges, the pace frequently become cause for comparison to the state-of-the-art in business, financial, academia, and nonprofit organizations. This pace poses challenges for leadership, whose choices for implementing innovations are tightly linked to the budget cycles controlled by Congress, and administrative policies that sometimes set shifting priorities, and the perception of constituents that compare services between providers, public and private.
Strategic planning can visualize the need of innovative adoptions, but consideration of key elements must be given to the scope, scale, and magnitude of the impact of adopting innovative technologies and services to assure success. Industry best practices, prevailing industry and government standards, policy, and resources have to be reviewed in the context of considering an innovative approach or solution to a common business practice. The internal, and external business practices are vital to successful innovations. Understand the impact and ultimate value of an innovation is crucial before launching an attempt to innovate. Once a decision to innovate is made, communicating a clear and accurate understanding of the value of an innovation is the hinge point of its success.
North American Management has been a leader in assisting public entities with these considerations for decades, and provides expertise and process that facilitate the innovation process.
Decision Points for Innovation Challenges
- Establish realistically tailored program objectives and constraints
- Assess the balance between cost effectiveness and Return on Investment
- Identify Technical Assistance requirements for stake holders and program constituents and identify resource gaps to support implementation.
- Assess competing alternatives and risk mitigation factors
Our Expertise
- Identify & quantify the 'need'
- Assess the situational realities
- Select concepts(s) for adoption
- Business Continuity Planning
- Impact review on Critical Infrastructure
- Contingency Planning & Procedures
- Process Quality Control Exercises and results reporting
- Modeling & Simulation
- Public Outreach & Education
- Special Needs Planning
- Training