Pasi Saine INNOVATION LEADERSHIP IN SOFTWARE PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

Transkriptio

1 Pasi Saine INNOVATION LEADERSHIP IN SOFTWARE PRODUCT MANAGEMENT Degree Programme in Information Technology Master s Degree 2017

2 Innovaatiojohtamisen haasteet ohjelmistotuotteen hallinnassa SAINE, PASI Satakunnan ammattikorkeakoulu Master of Engineering, DP in Information Technology Tammikuu 2017 Sivumäärä: 55 Liitteitä: - Asiasanat: Innovaatio, Johtaminen, NSN Innovaatio on ohjelmistoliiketoiminnan yksi tärkeimpiä elinehtoja yrityksen kilpailukyvyn sekä tuottavuuden kasvun kannalta katsottuna. Työn tavoitteena on selvittää, miten innovaatiojohtamisen strategiset tavoitteet toteutuvat joita Nokia Siemens Networks on määritellyt. Sekä miten ne jalkautetaan ohjelmistotuotehallinnan prosessein käytännön tekemiseen innovaatioina. Tarkoituksena on myös esittää kriittistä pohdintaa innovaatiotoiminnan prosessien ja toimintamallien toimivuudesta. Minulla oli mielikuva NSN toimista innovaatioihin sekä toimintaan sen ympärillä. Tarkoituksena oli tutkia ensin mitä innovointi yleensä tarkoittaa ja verrata sitä NSN sisällä tapahtuviin toimenpiteisiin. Löysin erilaisia tapoja sekä toimintamalleja mutta myös teorioista kirjallisuuden sisältä yhteneväisyyksiä asioihin joita olen henkilökohtaisesti tehnyt tai suunnitellut työssäni. Loppujen lopuksi minusta tuntui että tiesin vain rajatusti sekä kapeakatseisesti mitä innovaatio voi tarkoittaa suuressa organisaatiossa. Tutkittuani vertailevasti mitä innovaatio koko laajuudessaan rajatulla työalueellani oli, perehdyin innovaatio tekijöihin tuotehallinnan prosessien sekä organisaation kulttuurin kautta. Tarkoituksena oli selittää itselleni miksi organisaatiossamme tehdään näinkin suuria muutoksia jotka väistämättä hidastavat, ainakin väliaikaisesti, tekemistä sekä tuotteenhallintaa ohjelmistoprosessissa. Johtopäätöksenä voin todeta että erittäin laajalla rintamalla tehdyt muutokset ovat olennainen osa NSN tämän hetken tarpeita yrityksenä, vaikkakin taas yksilöiden kantilta epävarmuus oman työpaikan sekä työnkuvan murenemisesta on suuri. Epävarmuuden sietäminen on kuitenkin olennainen osa innovaatioi-

3 den syntymisprosessia, ja prosessimielessä onkin tarkoituksen mukaista, että synnytetään epävarmuuden sekä omalta reviiriltä irrottautumisen ilmapiiri. Tämä siten että yhteistyöllä haetaan ratkaisuja ongelmiin ja uusia tapoja ratkaista ongelmat. Ohjelmisto- tuotteen johtamisen kannalta innovaatioiden tuomat laajat muutokset ovat todella kovia haasteita ratkaistaviksi ja vaativat laajaa osaamista, tarmoa ja keskittymistä jotta asiat saadaan vietyä loppuun asti käytäntöön.

4 Innovation leadership in software product management Saine, Pasi Satakunta University of Applied Sciences Master of Engineering, DP in Information Technology January 2017 Number of pages: 55 Appendices:- Keywords: Innovation, Leadership, NSN One of the key criteria for a software company competiveness and productivity is to be innovative. Aim of this thesis work was to examine how NSN innovation strategy plans and leadership has been fulfilled by the company so far. Also with intention of observing on means how these are grounded as part of everyday working in research and development. Intention was to claim constructive arguments on how innovative processes and concepts are working in relation to the plans on NSN. I have an impression on the NSN innovation management and its plans. My first idea was to explore the innovation phenomenon and investigate what it means in practice with comparison to NSN intention on executing strategy regarding innovations. As my work proceeded I found some deviating patterns and concepts compared to theory in books. But I also found similarities and relations to my actual work role inside the NSN Company meaning things I had already done and executed. After further studying innovations I got the impression that my view on innovation as a whole was very narrow scoped and limited. I did not realize how wide functions innovation could mean in a big software company. After my work on finding an innovation meaning from theory I started to make statements and conclusion about it in relation to NSN Product Management processes and working culture. Aim was to explain myself why we are doing wide scale restructuring like announced by the media on NSN even though it has immediate impacts on working mentality inside the software development process. As a conclusion I could say that these wide scales of innovation restructuring modifications are justified in a sense of company plans and strategy, but in

5 terms of an individual worker the uncertainty and fear of losing one s job is something that seems more threatening regarding innovation readiness. I learned that uncertainty, fear and hope are something that are part of innovation factors that make people to work more efficiently, and it is intentional plan by the company to sustain such a mentality as part of the working culture. The aim is after all find solutions to the problems with cooperation by finding a new ways of solving them. Regarding innovation leadership, it takes more efforts and knowledge management skills than I could even imagine especially in a big organization like NSN.

6 CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION Background for investigation Problem and methods of investigation Analysis scope and exclusion... 9 LÄHTEET... 10

7 7 1 INTRODUCTION As a product owner, in one of the leading telecommunications company, I have a vision on current status regarding innovation leadership strategy and execution. My vision is based on moments, practices and plans that I have encountered and handled as a product leader. In my opinion we haven t been successful in creation of innovative organization to all levels of management hierarchy. We have concentrated only on research and development part of development but haven t been able to descend innovation principles in to the product management of our products. In practice this means lack of drive in renewal of processes, missing radical innovation culture and insufficient ways of working to support innovation leadership inside product management. I have two goals for this thesis, first is to investigate, that why we haven t been able to drive radical innovation inside product management in to practice. Second aim is to explore the theoretical side of innovation principles that could be taken into a practice, as part of innovation process of product management leadership. I hope that after writing this thesis, I would have a clear and justified vision on what innovation leadership really means, in practice for my company. And secondly for what areas we should aim improvement actions so that innovation process could be more efficient. On later chapters I will deep dive into actual problematics of this dilemma and try to consider solutions for improvement. 1.1 Background for investigation My employer has driven several strategic improvement and cost saving plans during the last 6 years. Ultimate goal and expectation has been to make company to be more competitive in global telecommunication markets. The speed of change and renewal of process is a must inside software and telecommunication industry. Inside my company we have merged two multimillion companies into a one a few years back to guarantee the most competitive product portfolio. First to be able to succeed in harmonization of product structure and sales, this means a huge effort

8 8 of work. This means in practice that because of extra work and confusion on product strategy, employee engagement survey results have been decreasing [1]. This continuous float of changes has created the feeling of uncertainty. This makes also the management of the people and company more challenging. How is it possible to execute changes in such a way that it does not harm the innovation spirit and therefore competitiveness in the market? Especially product management challenges regarding innovation and leadership in change are my dilemmas to examine in this thesis. My goal is to examine how a big company can benefit from agile development of software products and what are the needs for product management leadership for making this real. What does radical innovation mean in this kind of big transformations? How do we set the right target for our processes in order to succeed? 1.2 Problem and methods of investigation Thesis scope in outlined inside one company and to a certain business units innovation leadership models. Business unit main product is Operation Support System software NetActTM development. We will focus on an innovation leadership inside product management and processes. Research method for this is based on a constructive modelling in a way which compares and analyzes existing processes against theory on constructive innovation theories. Research problem is aligned on product management area, meaning which innovations are implemented in agile way and where to restore the new ideas for future usage. Other main area of investigation is that how this will be carried out as part of product management sustainable development in software business. On behalf of product management, problematics are that constant changes in strategy and change management processes will need stronger priorities. This forces management to only focus on few necessary and primary targets as spear head products. How to restore good innovation ideas for later usage? Real chal-

9 9 lenge is how we maintain and increase the competitiveness on innovation process as part of product and services with lower costs and developments cycles. 1.3 Analysis scope and exclusion Objective of my analysis is to compare company strategy towards new ways of using innovation methods inside business as today. Innovation is so called phenomenon of today and it is seen as unnecessary way to make businesses to survive in a future. For me it is not clear how we can make innovation processes efficient in our company. I hope to investigate how present agreements and past decisions will stand against innovation theories. I will examine innovation as definition model and compare current status of my business unit against it. My job is to find out, can we find some further improvements still to become best in the innovation processes, or are we on track with model of ours. In chapter 2 I will define theories of innovation meaning what is true purpose of innovation. We will also investigate the different types of innovation models. Third chapter will concentrate on strategic realization of my company and its probability to succeed in this matter. Important part of this is also to recognize company special needs under innovation concept and continuous learning processes. Fourth chapter is focusing on judging the product management processes against introduce theories of innovation types. After evaluation I will introduce different technics for process improvements and try to convince what are the most beneficial characters for innovation process success. Fifth chapter will draw conclusions on my investigations compared to my assumptions and innovation theories. I ultimately hope that my findings will also be recognized as items that can be put to the practice inside our software and telecom business area. I try to keep my thesis as open and pondering as possible by keeping in mind that I would not introduce things too deeply and therefore jeopardizing company confidential secrets on working processes. For future suggestions of improvements inside business will be introduced in conclusion chapter.

10 10 The full paper of this thesis is available: ( ). LÄHTEET [1] Nokia Siemens Networks sisäinen dokumentaatio Työtyytyväisyyskysely. [2] Apilo, T., Salkari, I., Taskinen, T Johda Innovaatioita. 1.painos. Hämeenlinna, Talentum Media Oy. 260 s. [3] Cooper, R Product Leadership. 1.painos. Cambridge, MA. Basic Books.314 s. [4] Tidd, J., Bessant, J., Pavitt, K Managing Innovation. 3. painos.. Hoboken, NJ. Wiley. 575 s. [5] Trott, P., Innovation Management and New Product Development. 5. painos. Essex, England. Pearson Education Limited. 606 s. [6] Wikipedia. ( ). Innovaatio. [WWW-dokumentti]. [viitattu ]. Saatavissa:< [7] Verkkojulkaisu. ( ). Avoin Innovaatio [WWW-dokumentti]. [viitatu ].saatavissa:< > [8] Koskinen, K.U., & Pihlanto, P Knowledge Management in Projectbased Companies: An Organic Perspective. 3. painos. Palgrave Macmillan, UK. 204 s. [9] Sisäinen verkkojulkaisu ( ) NSN Innovation kotisivut [WWWdokumentti]. {viitattu }. Ei saatavissa. [10] Verkkojulkaisu. ( ). Pörssitiedote [WWW-dokumentti]. [viitattu ].Saatavissa: < [11] Verkkojulkaisu. ( ). Choosing an Innovation strategy: theory and practice [WWW-dokumentti]. [viitattu ]

11 11.Saatavissa:< / > [12] Verkkojulkaisu ( ). Innovation Process [WWW-dokumentti]. [viitattu ].Saatavissa:< rocess_ma in.html> [13] Verkkojulkaisu ( ). Organisaatiorakenteiden vaikutuksia yrityksen innovatiivisuuteen [WWW-dokumentti]. [viitattu ]. Saatavissa: < df?sequence=3> [14] Koskinen, K.U., & Pihlanto, P Knowledge Management in Projectbased Companies: An Organic Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, UK. 204 s. [15] Virtainlahti, S Hiljaisen tietämyksen johtaminen. Talentum. 215 s. [16] Nonaka I. J., Takeuchi H The Knowledge-creating Company. Oxford University Press. New York - London. 456 s. [17] Siltala., Suomala., Keskinen., Taatila Yhteistoiminnallinen oppiminen innovaatioprosessissa. 10 s. Saatavissa: [18] Verkkojulkaisu. ( ). Tuotejohtaminen [WWW-dokumentti]. [viitattu ].Saatavissa:< us/tuotejoh taminen/ > [19] Innotiimi. (2011). Innovaatioprosessin alkupää. Integrated Consulting Group. 89 s. [20] Niemeläinen., J. (2011). NSN leikkaukset eivät liity taloustilanteeseen. [WWW- dokumentti]. [viitattu ]. Saatavissa:< [21] Verkkojulkaisu. ( ). Orchidea Ideat Inniovaatioiksi [WWWdokumentti].[viitattu ]. Saatavissa:< > [22] Verkkojulkaisu. ( ). Targetor Innomanager. [WWW-dokumentti]. [viitattu ]. Saatavissa:<