The 3 dimensions of Open Innovation

Introduction

Since the term “Open Innovation” was coined in April 2003 by Henry Chesbrough in his book Open Innovation (Chesbrough, 2003), it has grown exponentially in use; and the practice has been researched, implemented and discussed vastly, both in academia and businesses. There’s skepticism and enthusiasm, investment and lack of, and all kinds of perspectives around it. At the core of all these perspectives we have one central question: does Open Innovation drives real value to organizations?

I know it does. But I also know Open Innovation is not the one-fits-all solution for all kind of situations and organizations. Here I aim to discuss several aspects that affect the implementation of Open Innovation and value capturing derived from it.

Whenever I talk about Open Innovation, I’m referring to the new definition revised in 2014 in a new paper titled Explicating Open Innovation: Clarifying an Emerging Paradigm for Understanding Innovation [1] (Chesbrough and Bogers, 2014). It says:

“[…] open innovation is a distributed innovation process based on purposively managed knowledge flows across organizational boundaries, using pecuniary and non-pecuniary mechanisms in line with each organization’s business model. These flows of knowledge may involve knowledge inflows to the focal organization (leveraging external knowledge sources through internal processes), knowledge outflows from a focal organization (leveraging internal knowledge through external commercialization processes) or both (coupling external knowledge sources and commercialization activities). “

In other words, Open Innovation (OI) is a process for dispersed innovation (spread around and not concentrated in one point) that deliberately creates bridges between parts that were isolated before. It can be based on immediate money gain or not (like open source code, which is free) but always aligned to each organization model. It can be outside-in (you take the innovation from outside), inside-out (you give innovation to others) or both ways.

Open Innovation is my life and passion. I’ve been working officially in the Open Innovation universe for over 7 years now, especially during my tenure as Head of Open Innovation at BBVA, but in reality, my experience goes farther away. And I dare to say it, based on the afore mentioned definition, specifically with the part that says: “a distributed innovation process based on purposively managed knowledge flows across organizational boundaries”. All my professional life I’ve been working in creating links to bridge organizational boundaries and let innovation and knowledge flow.

For me it sums up in two words: “Better together”. Because I’ve lived Open Innovation as a process of innovation in collaboration within and without the organization.

I once stumbled upon a quote by Thomas Malone from MIT: “True innovations will come not from new technologies, but from new ways of collaboration”, and it hit me as a perfect way to phrase the mindset that underlies the Open Innovation paradigm.

Here I’ll discuss what in my experience challenges organizations in the process of implementing Open Innovation. I will also introduce a new framework that helps to analyze, understand and question the mechanisms behind the innovation implementation in an organization. I’m still working and developing that framework, in the hope that it becomes a strong and useful tool for Open Innovation practitioners and organization strategists to own and improve their practice by asking the right questions. So please, reach out to me with comments and thoughts. After all, I know its better in collaboration!  

3 Dimensions of Open Innovation

In my experience, Open Innovation is a complex process because it implies collaboration. Collaboration is a human trait. And we humans are… complex.

As an OI Practitioner I’ve experimented with a variety of processes and approaches. I’ve committed all kinds of mistakes, and succeeded sometimes. What I’ve learnt along the way, what I propose here, is that in the same way an individual (a person) needs to have balance, the same way the organization and the elements involved in a collaboration need to have balance. The complexity we were referring before, implies that this balance needs to be analyzed in many dimensions.

I propose you a framework of 3 dimensions, each of which need to be aligned to ensure that the Open Innovation process works properly. The 3 dimensions are:

1.     Strategy: Open Innovation is just one of the elements of an organization. And as such it needs to be intertwined, tuned and connected to the overall mission and strategy. This idea that might seem basic and obvious is not that immediate and obvious in the daily life of the organization. A good metaphor is our own body. Have you felt the tension between what you “HAVE” to do (what you know is good) and what you “WANT” to do (what you desire in your heart)? The tension between mind and heart is commonplace for us, and so not so strange to see it in an organization. What the results / stakeholders / strategy (the mind or brain) are asking, vs. what the innovation strategy asks for you: it might be a perfect novelty, the future, a better perspective… what the innovation initiatives lead the organization to do (the heart). Ask yourself the following questions: Is every member of the organization aware of and embracing the mission? Does everyone know the general strategy and what’s the aim for the organization overall work? Is the innovation strategy aligned and tuned with the organization objectives? How will the innovation outcomes feed or help the overall strategy? Can you do everything on your own?  How collaboration (or Open Innovation) will add to that end?

2.    POP K: This is an acronym for “Processes”, “Organization”, “Procedures” and “KPIs”. In this second dimension we should analyze if how the organization is structured helps to fulfil the mission and follow the strategy. In this case the analogy would be the different organs of the human body. They are all different but work together for a common goal. And each organ has its own role and responsibility. The questions to be asked here are: Are we organized in a way that allows the collaboration the strategy needs? Are the processes helping these objectives? Are there blockages or inefficiencies in the procedures to promote the collaboration that is needed? How we measure success promotes or hinders the kind of innovation we need?

3.    Mindset: Finally, we get to the third dimension. I mentioned before that Open Innovation is innovation in collaboration. Collaboration is a relationship between different parties. We need to actively work in making sure that we understand and accept the perspective of each of the parties. The simile in this case might get a bit more sentimental, but if you’ve ever been in love and maybe considered marrying or embarking in a long-term commitment, you’ll understand me. At the end you need to validate the compatibility between the two of you. Because love is love, but the perspective spending a life together makes you, (in some cases!), think a bit more. The questions here are also at many levels: what do I want to get from this collaboration? And the other? Are these two perspectives compatible? How are going to share the revenues, Intellectual Property (IP), data, insights, visibility, branding and other take-outs? What kind of relationship do we want to have? Do we trust each other?

Of course, this isn’t an exhaustive list of questions, but intends to be an analysis tool to examine the alignment at the top, within the organization and with others. If we manage to actively identify divergences and act upon them, we will have a coherent and solid base to grow while we look into the future, and to make sure that true value comes from the innovation processes

For each of these dimensions I will propose you a framework and some tools, that will allow to go further and deeper into each topic. Till this day, I’ve worked those tools with +80 different corporations, and each experience is incorporated in the current version. I consider it to be a continuously evolving tool, because as humans learn and evolve, tools should do the same.

In next chapters I’ll explain and develop each of the dimensions and tools.

1st. Dimension: Strategy

Starting from the beginning

As I grow older, I’m more convinced about one simple truth: “the beginning is a good place to start”. Whenever an organization approaches me “who should we collaborate with” or “what kind of partnerships should we establish” I always answer with another question: What for? What are you trying to achieve with this collaboration? And for me, that’s the beginning.

After asking these questions, some might stare at you with an “of-course-we-know-our-strategy” look, or maybe with a bit of annoyance because “I don’t want questions, I want answers”. But later on, while measuring the success of an Open Innovation strategy, we might struggle if we don’t have a clear idea of where we’re trying to get with it. 

As time pases, and the realities and results of our actions show up, you’ll appreciate any time dedicated to build the right foundations, and to create a proper analysis. It was Einstein who said: “If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.”. This is part of our analysis, and as such, it will be the time best spent.

Open Innovation is just one of the elements of an organization. And as such it needs to be intertwined, tuned and connected to the overall mission and strategy. This basic idea sometimes gets lost in our daily lives in organizations. Following the “human body” metaphor, we can feel the tension between mind (the have-to-do) and heart (want-to-do) in an organization. 

But how to begin the discussion of the alignment? Based on my own experience and learnings from practice, I’ve created what I call the “Open Innovation Strategy Canvas”. It’s a simple tool that allows a team to begin a conversation, to create a common knowledge and understanding of critical elements of the general strategy and the specific aims of the innovation strategy.

Ideally this canvas is worked in a meeting with the CEO and C-Levels, and then with the innovation teams. Sometimes I’ve used it as a way to share knowledge among Open Innovation practitioners. To this day, I’ve gathered information from 105 different organizations from +10 countries, and 250 professionals (and keeps growing).  Many ask what is the best Open Innovation Practice. As a fair warning I must say that there’s not a correct answer. The most valuable result from this exercise is the discussion per se, the common conclusions, the divergence points identified, and the questions that you will get keep the conversation going with your colleagues and within the organization.

The Open Innovation Strategy Canvas

Inspired by Alex Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas, and because I share his obsession of “making strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship simple, practical, and applicable”, I've been working for over a year now in creating a simple tool to aid the definition of the Open Innovation Strategy. Something everyone could use for a discussion. 

And so, here I introduce you the “Open Innovation Strategy Canvas”. It’s a strategic management and Open Innovation tool, that allows you to design, define, challenge, discuss, improve and communicate your Open Innovation Strategy and its connection to the overall’s company strategy.

Created in 2019, this is the second updated version of the canvas. You can download the format here:

*Creative Commons Licence: Open Innovation Strategy Canvas by Marisol Menendez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Based on a work at marisolmenendez.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at marisolmenendez.com

It displays a set of 13 variables distributed in 3 groups, and 4 insight questions. Each of the variables has a general definition, and a set of values to mark your own choice. The values are not an exhaustive value list, but an illustrative selection to facilitate the selection.

In most of the workshops I facilitate, I ask the attendees to answer two questions for each variable: Where are we now? and Where do we want to be? We answer this by adding a mark, sticker or signal on each side of the answer: the present to the left, and future to the right. In this way you can get a visual map of the differences. You might select more than one option, and even indicate a degree of agreement depending on how you position your sticker. The canvas can be used as the user wishes, as long as it reflects what they’re thinking, and it helps to reflect on the strategy.

We’ve even used it to answer “what I believe vs. what the company has” or “my organization vs. my partner”. The possibilities are varied. But before exploring how to use the tool, allow me to explain the canvas itself.

Header: General information

At the top there’s a space for the name of the company, name of the participant, job title and date. Company is important if the session is with more than one company, or department if you’re sharing with different departments. The date is also important because you can repeat this exercise in the future and compare. The strategy is not static, it changes through time. It’s interesting to compare evolution and perspectives.

Strategy Variables

This group of variables is related to the general strategy of the company. Here we want to discuss the role and impact of the innovation strategy we want to implement. Ideally we would unearth differences of opinion and move towards an agreement on them.  

Remember that there are no right or wrong answers. Strategies come in all shapes and sizes but there needs to be a common understanding on what we want to achieve with our strategy. 

• Distance to Core: How far do we want to get with the collaboration? Do we want to affect core activities? 

  • Core: Exposing critical activities 

  • Mid-Layer: Connected, but not all the way to the core

  • Crust: Just willing to expose external activities, with no direct impact on the core

• Time Frame: When do we want to get results? There might be a combination of short term and long term bets, but this needs to be clear to all. Are we willing to wait for results in the long term? Is there urgency to get fast results? Please note that the range of short-term and long-term spans might change depending on the industry. Even in this post-pandemic era timings and perception of time have been deeply impacted in innovation projects, and might be affected by urgency.

  • Short Term: Results in 1 year or less

  • Mid Term: Results in 2-3 years

  • Long Term: Results in more than 3 years

• Depth of Change: How deep are the changes that we want to do? Are we undertaking this just to survive and thus we just want to improve what we have? Or maybe we’re willing to go to the unknown and want to rewrite the common concepts? Are you aiming for disruption or implementing transformation to adapt to other changes?

  • Improving: Improve or create efficiencies in current business / products / markets

  • Transforming: New value propositions either in the current market or new market for current value propositions.

  • Disrupting: New markets, models, products beyond current borders

• Certainty of Result: How comfortable are you with the unknown? This is also a measure of the risk you’re willing to take. Consider that with less uncertainty you get more control, but also the possibilities of gain are less. Willing to explore uncertain results implies tolerance to failure and willingness to invest in that exploration.

  • Defined: Results guaranteed

  • Mixed: Expected results

  • Uncertain: Tolerance to failure

• Business Model: What’s the business model supporting your innovation strategy? This will also affect the kind of relationship you have with your partner.

  • Acquire: I want full ownership of the innovation

  • Partner: Join existing businesses / products, and create a continuous collaboration

  • Co-Develop: Develop together the new product/service, and maybe even create a new organization to manage it.

Internal Organization Variables

This group of variables related to the positioning of the organization as it is, and how the assets are integrated to the current value:

• Geography: based on the current footprint of our organization, we can decide where we want to have impact. I’ve seen organizations wanting to impact the entire world (even without global footprint)... How far do you want to get? For example, Google’s mission is “To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Clearly they want to create a global impact.

  • Our Country: Only focused in countries where we have presence

  • Our Region: Want to impact broad region or set of countries

  • Global: Worldwide impact or impacting countries beyond the current footprint

• Property: This is about your ownership policies: for IP, data, customer base... How is the internal policy? And how do you want to collaborate? Who will own the innovation?

  • Mine: I want to own 100% of it

  • Shared: I can negotiate with my partner how far I want to get

  • Yours: 100% belongs to others. 

Open Innovation Variables

This group of variables define the Open Innovation strategy specifically. For deeper insights I suggest exploring Henry Chesbroughs concepts on Open Innovation. “Explicating Open Innovation: Clarifying an Emerging Paradigm for Understanding Innovation” by Chesbrough & Bogers *(1)

• Direction: It’s the direction of the flow of knowledge between organizations. It’s also related to the scarcity/excess dynamics of innovation, where one organization can share whatever they have in excess to others and combine elements to create new elements. 

  • Inside-Out: The organization exposes knowledge to others. A common example of this are the API platforms, where a specific organization shares technology or knowledge so others can build over them. 

  • Coupled: Bi-ridrectional. Implies combined knowledge inflows and outflows between actors in the innovation process

  • Outside-In: To absorb knowledge from others, and cover scarcity spots. Common examples of this are the challenge competitions.

• Internal / External: What is the combination of resources you want to apply for the innovation efforts? Remember that you can have Internal Open Innovation (by connecting internal departments of the organization and letting knowledge flow). 

  • Internal: The team involved will be 100% formed by members of the organization 

  • Mixed: Combined

  • External: All of the team will be outsourced or part of other organizations. They won’t belong to my organization (for example, the developers of apps in the Apple Store)

• Scope of Action: How far do you want the effect of your innovation impact? Is it within your company or you want to generate a broader impact? You can say that it’s related to horizontal impact.

  • Our Company: Just Us

  • Our Sector: affecting the sector in which we operate

  • Other Sectors: Impacting other sectors as they’re related to a broader vision

• Level of Impact: This is related to the vertical impact. How are the different levels of the organization and / or society active and affected by the innovation? Are they involved?

  • Decision Makers: Strategy Owners such as CEO & C-Levels, President (government decision makers), Top influencers that may bring others onboard.

  • Executive: Strategy Executors. They own the budget and priorities and make tactical decisions on the execution of the projects.

  • Ecosystem: All employees / members of an organization, and even the general public or broad ecosystem. On this level we’re affecting the culture.

• Intended Results: What are the elements that you’re seeking to improve with your innovation strategy? This is an interesting discussion, and even more productive when including different departments of the same organization.

  • Process: To create efficiencies and internal improvements. 

  • Product: To create new products or improve the definition of the products as they are. It can imply create new products

  • Market: To expand or access new geographies or customer segments

  • Business Model: To create new value propositions or value capture mechanisms

• Stakeholders: Who do you want to relate with? It’s become “trending” to collaborate with startups, but there are many possibilities in the collaboration game. These are some examples. And I invite you to think who are your closest friends / collaborators nowadays? And who do you wish to work with? I always say that in the overall perspective, each stakeholder has its own role in the innovation ecosystem and you decide how to play the game:

  • Corporates: from competitors to companies in other markets, great possibilities come from corporation collaboration. Corporations have infrastructure, customer base and relation with the regulator. 

  • Startups: They are the innovation lab of the world

  • Investors: inject money to the system, as gasoline to keep the engine running

  • Hubs: (accelerators, etc.) connect stakeholders to create connections that wouldn’t have happen without them

  • Government: Create the basic roads, regulation, infrastructure, to allow innovation to work

  • Academia & Universities: Have two speeds for the work. One related to the students that are currently training, and the other to the researchers and knowledge generation front.

  • Experts: Individuals who are leads on their fields

Insight Questions

Some final reflections in order to set the grounds for discussion:

• What are your main strengths?: To identify what you put on the table for the collaboration game. Or put in terms of abundance / scarcity, what do you have in excess and can share with others?

• What is your main challenge?: To understand what you need help with, what your partners should bring in. This helps to maintain the right focus on the collaboration search.

• How satisfied are you with the Open Innovation process you currently have? You might be a seasoned professional in Open Innovation and be completely satisfied, or maybe it’s time for a change

• How urgent is your need for change? Rate the urgency of a change. Is it urgent? Or maybe not urgent but it’s good to figure out the next step

• Are you a leader or a follower? There are different profiles for the innovation strategies. Some are first movers, others prefer to follow. What is your preference?

• What is the level of maturity of your OI Process? Remember that Open Innovation as a framework is fairly new in the business world. Even so, some companies are mature in their collaboration and Open Innovation process, while others are just discovering it. Where are you positioned right now?

Solving mysteries

As I said before, the value of this canvas comes from the possibility to have time for reflection, common ground for discussion with your peers and a way to share points of view.

When worked properly, this tool can be a good aid to - what I call “Solving Mysteries”. As a fan of mystery novels sometimes I find similarities to what we’re doing here. And here is what I refer to.

• The mystery of the secret strategy: In one of the organizations I worked with I was asking for the company strategy, so we could validate if the innovation strategy was helping to that broader vision. And one time and another I got the same answer: “I can’t share the strategy with you”. Or “I will only share one screenshot of one page, but please don’t say I gave it to you”. And frankly, I wasn’t hunting for the trade secrets here… just to answer the simple question: what do we want to achieve as a company? In this way we can always evaluate if what we’re doing helps or not to fulfill that goal. Are we building a cathedral or an apartment building? By sharing this global vision we will have an empowered team, which can make more agile and intelligent decisions. With the OI Strategy Canvas you can have a tool to define and communicate specific elements of the strategy.

• The mystery of the schizophrenic strategy: You can find yourself in situations where the indications are “Work in disruptive innovation, but only in projects with guaranteed results and immediate impact”. I have some news: disruptive innovation doesn’t have guaranteed results and they’re not immediate. Disruption requires patience. There’s incompatibility in some variables, and if you push this incompatibility through the organization there will be inefficiencies, re-work and worse: frustration, friction, tension and even burn-out. Better make sure that the variables are congruent and well known by everyone.

In future posts I’ll share learnings and discoveries from the sessions I’ve facilitated. I’m working to understand if we can identify patterns on the innovation strategies. On the current situations and the future and maybe common learnings. 

At some point maybe we can identify “innovation profiles”, as in fashion magazines where you can find if you’re winter or summer by answering a test. And maybe we can also share best practices for each profile. At the moment, it’s a pure exercise of Open Innovation to share learnings and experiences. 

It’s a dialog tool and I invite you to work with your colleagues and discuss each of these variables. Is there a common understanding? Is there room for further discussion about specific topics?

Let me know your thoughts, and let’s keep the discussion open!

2nd Dimension: POP-K

POP K - Different organs, the same goal

In the first dimension - Strategy -, we talked about aligning the brain and the heart. Now, it’s time to make sure that each organ, each system in the body is working properly and contributing so the body can reach its goal. 

Picture this scenario: The management team has asked you to scout outside your organization for innovation initiatives and projects that can help accelerate the rhythm of transformation. Market and customer demands are so intense that this collaboration is needed. You find a unique startup: since their foundation 2 years ago they’ve developed a solution and tested it with great success. They’re ready to work with organizations such as yours. Everyone is excited about the possibilities and agree to begin work as soon as possible. The required processes to draft a contract and an agreement are set in motion. At some point the procurement manager asks the startup for a 5 year financial history. Having existed for only 2 years, this history doesn’t exist. The process comes to a halt and a heated discussion begins. On one hand there’s the urgency to implement this innovation, on the other procurement procedures are clearly set to avoid fraud or failure. What do you do?

There are many examples of misalignments like the one in the story. “Local regulations don’t allow what you try to do”, “It’s not in my top 10 priorities, come back next year”, “All developments of this kind are to be developed internally”. All these cases have in common that each team is trying to comply with what is required from them, but unfortunately priorities from different teams within the same organization clash. 

In my own experience, the heat generated from these frictions can erode efficiencies within the organization, slow down success rate, burn-out teams, degrade external reputation and ultimately is behind a great number of failures in collaboration. Many good startups had died waiting for the bureaucracy to move forward, for someone to solve situations like these.

A critical success factor is to take enough time to look within the organization and untangle blocking knots, and all in all make sure that everything is prepared to process the collaborations that are activated in the innovation process. 

This is how the second dimension comes to our attention. POP K is a memorable mnemonic device gathering four concepts, that ordered from general to specific are: Organizational Structure, Processes, Procedures and KPIs. 

• Organizational Structure: It is the way or method by which organizational activities are divided, organized and coordinated (1). It directly determines how collaboration flows within and outside the organization. Reporting lines, decision making and budget allocation determine which initiatives will prosper. All organizations are in continuous change in different degrees of impact, and of course collaboration efforts are affected by these changes. That’s why there’s the continuous need to validate if the structure is set to deliver the strategic objectives.

• Processes: To be understood as a set of activities and tasks that, once completed, will accomplish an organizational goal, processes frequently lay across organizational units. Inputs are transformed into outputs by applying work and effort. Organizations need to be ready to adapt or create processes that maximize the possibilities of success.

• Procedures: Procedures are the detailed steps to perform activities within a process. And as “devil is in the detail”, sometimes are the corners when the troubles hide. Procedures need to be analysed and actively shaped to build towards the organizational goals. 

• KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): Are the critical (key) indicators of progress toward an intended result. KPIs provide a focus for strategic and operational improvement, create an analytical basis for decision making and help focus attention on what matters most (2). Some say that it was the Renaissance astronomer Rhaticus who suggested that ”if you can measure something, then you have some control over it.". But I always end up adapting an old saying in spanish to say “tell me how you’re being measured, and I’ll tell you how you’ll behave”

The Mystery of the disconnected organization

In order to generate the best conditions for collaboration, we need to try to solve the mystery of the disconnected organization and to dedicate quality time to analyse the organization. This process requires to make an effort to give the “outsider look” to the dynamics of the organization, and in an empathy exercise, step into the shoes of the others to learn about their motivations and circumstances. This broader approach will give us the insights needed to knit a solid fabric of collaboration.  

The “Areas Involved in the OI Process” Canvas

To facilitate this task, I’ve created a simple tool that guides the user in a relation analysis of the teams involved in the innovation processes. Following the inspiration thread from the OI Strategy Canvas, I’ve named it the “Areas Involved in the OI Process” Canvas. 

It’s an Open Innovation management tool that allows to analyze, discuss and understand the internal organization and interactions between the teams, and challenge and propose improvements to the organizational dynamics.

Created in 2019, this is the second updated version of the canvas. You can download the format here:

*Creative Commons Licence: Open Innovation Strategy Canvas by Marisol Menendez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Based on a work at marisolmenendez.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at marisolmenendez.com

I usually facilitate sessions with the teams in charge of the collaboration initiatives to analyze with detail the network of internal collaboration. Dedicating time to carefully understand each team, discuss the processes involved and the influence of each person behind. Here we talk about the areas currently involved and those who should be involved in the future. Identifying sponsors, enthusiasts, and even stoppers. Carefully moderated the discussion can be refreshing and informative, giving the right elements for constructive proposals. Each participant gets a copy of the canvas (either digitally or printed ideally in A3 format). 

Bear in mind that this aims to be an agile exercise, not intending to be exhaustive in the information gathering for each department. Focused on understanding the dynamics, teams and collaboration patterns.

Header: General information

At the top of the canvas there’s a space for the name of the company, name of the participant, job title and date. Company is important if the session is with more than one company, or department if you’re sharing with different departments. The date is important because you can repeat this exercise in the future and compare. The organizational dynamics are not static, they change through time and are affected by the people who are involved. It’s interesting to compare evolution through time and verify the impact of changes and improvements.

Area box

This is the core of the exercise, and one of the parts I enjoy the most. Begin by listing all areas or departments that interact in the innovation process. Write down their names in the “Area name” space. And for each of them fill out the box with the following information:

• Connection Level (1 Bad - 5 Perfect): Rate the connection level between your team and the area in the box. A basic rating from 1, indicating complete disconnection, to 5, indicating complete integration. This rating is discretional and exclusively based on your own perception. In further discussion the group will identify the least and most connected in order to identify on one hand the focal points of action, and on the other the enthusiasts that will help to build the results. Within the enthusiasts we can also identify the “emotional sponsors”, in other words, those who will go above and beyond to support the innovation processes. In early stages of the collaboration processes, if emotional sponsors disappear the innovation process might stop, or slow down.

• Goal: Write down the area’s goal, preferably in relation to the innovation processes. This part of the analysis can also try to answer the questions: “what do they need” and “what they can give” to spot limitations and leverage points. 

• Now vs. Future: For the next three variables, indicate what’s the present situation and what would be the ideal for the future. It will be easy to identify the action areas by looking where there’s a difference between the now and the future.

  • Critical: Does this area do a critical part of the work in collaboration projects? Can their work, decisions or activities potentially stop or block the projects by direct action or the lack of it? There are even cases where some areas are part of the critical path and there’s no real need for it. Is there an “idle-need-for-stamp” syndrome? In this case the marks would be “Critical now” but “not critical” in the future.

  • Connected: Is this area connected to the innovation area or process? Is the connection official and well established? Is it at all levels?

  • Interest: This variable intends to describe the enthusiasm or willingness to be part of the process. To identify sceptics and supporters. And in this case specially would be useful to look from the organizational perspective, but also, the individual perspective. Personal inclination is a powerful driving force for collaboration.

Insight Questions

Here are some final reflections in order to set the grounds for discussion. All of these questions should be answered from the perspective of the interconnection between the different areas and departments:

• Level of connectedness: What would be a global rating of the level of connectedness? 1 means that the organization works in silos and 5 that there’s total fluidity in the collaboration.

• Satisfaction with Results: Notwithstanding the answer of the previous question, answer what’s the level of satisfaction with the results so far. It can happen for example, that an organization is siloed, and happy with the results, but they know they need a change.

• Need for a change: You might be a seasoned professional in Open Innovation and be completely satisfied, or maybe it’s time for a change. Rate your perception.

Overall view and discussion

At the end, the canvas might look something like the illustration below. Even if there’s always the possibility to use more than one page to analyse more than 12 areas, it’s recommended to focus on the top priorities and do not dilute the discussion. This is of special importance in complex organizations where it’s not easy to get to know all areas. Begin with the high priority interactions, and other analysis might follow in separate sessions.

When the canvas is finished, compare one area to the other. Identify the top connections and the main challenges. Discuss with others and contrast opinions. Interesting learnings and conclusions might arise from comparing results. 

As stated before, this is only the first part of the discussion. What would follow with the main conclusions is to set action points that leverage on the sponsors, and to further investigate solutions to the challenging collaboration points.

The mystery of the opposed KPIs

Once having the collaboration map in mind, it’s time to analyse the drivers that are behind the collaboration dynamics. These drivers are clearly represented by the KPIs. “Tell me how you’re being measured and I’ll tell you how you behave”. This phrase comes to mind in many situations while structuring innovation in collaboration. 

On one occasion I came upon a situation where the Department X was having problems implementing an innovation project. While trying to understand what was happening it turned out to be that one of the teams of Department Y in the same business unit was being affected. Department Y received a bonus award for the amount of solutions to problematic situations with customers. Because of the innovation implemented by Department X, there would be a drastic reduction in problems, and consequently, of the bonus for Department Y. Of course the innovation project would increase customer loyalty and diminish attrition, and therefore the business unit income - and ultimately the company’s bottom line - would increase, but the reality was that the bonus of team Y would be affected and that affected their interest to the extent of asking for the project to stop. By transforming or complementing the KPI used for the bonus calculation, and including customer satisfaction and growth, all teams can be aligned and finally rowing in the same direction. 

But how to identify conflicts between KPIs? Let’s begin with a broad analysis.

The “KPI Mapping” Canvas

As you might’ve anticipated, I present you with another canvas. I call it the “KPI Mapping” Canvas. It’s an Open Innovation management tool that allows you to analyse, discuss and understand the KPIs at different levels, time frames and to identify gaps and action points.

Created in 2019, this is the second updated version of the canvas. You can download the format here

*Creative Commons Licence: OThe “KPI Mapping” Canvas by Marisol Menendez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Based on a work at marisolmenendez.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at marisolmenendez.com.

Not all KPIs act at the same level

One of the challenges while implementing an Open Innovation process is to keep steady support from management and teams involved in the long-term. Also, it might be challenging to engage teams to collaborate if there’s not a direct affection for their committed results. 

In all sessions I’ve facilitated when we talk about KPIs and begin with the brainstorming, the first KPIs to appear are the money-related ones. The tricky part about using only financial indicators, is that money is a short term reality, and while the projects are “in the oven” they’re not producing immediate economic results. Moreover, when we’re talking about innovation, there’s uncertainty attached to these projects. And finally, even if the final objective of the innovation efforts might be for the organization to survive and generate benefits, other factors affect the future quality of the organization such as learnings, skills, culture, customer loyalty.

So, I propose to make an active exercise to bring to the attention of everyone involved with other important KPIs. Not only from the Innovation projects, but from the organization itself and the teams involved. Because not all KPIs act at the same level.

• Financial Indicators: Beginning with someone everyone understands, here are included all indicators related to investment and return from that investment. KPIs such as Profit and Loss contribution, financial return over investment, percentage of budget allocated, etc.

• Customer Engagement: Those related to the capacity to retain and acquire customers. Might be a measure of the customer centricity of the company. Here there are KPIs such as NPS, customer satisfaction, loyalty, attrition, etc.

• Innovation activity: Related to the business and innovation projects per se. We can include KPIs such as project performance, time-to-pilot, time-to-market, portfolio diversification, etc.

• Influence and Network: KPIs related to the generated impact (inside and outside the organization) and the connectedness, such as: brand positioning, partners network, time-to-partnership, social impact, etc.

• Organizational Culture: To measure impact in the culture of the members of the organization and those connected to it. These are critical and frequently overlooked indicators. Examples can be measures of learning, improvement of inefficiencies, happiness, team attraction (or the negative side from it, the turnover).

Contribution to the future from today 

Another challenge while implementing an Open Innovation process is to show how the innovation projects are shaping the future. For example, to create one successful disruptive product in two years, we would need to experiment with several pilots, and for that, we would need a bigger number of ideas. This funnel also applies to other objectives as learning or even customer engagement. That’s why The “KPI Mapping” Canvas has three temporal dimensions: short term, mid-term, and long term. The exercise is to show how the evolution of KPIs and how in the short term other KPIs might be building the KPIs of the future.

Strategy, Innovation, and Organization

Finally, another aid to identify the KPIs involved. Think of those KPIs who are closer to the strategy and thus will be a good tool to show the storytelling of the objective contribution and alignment. Identify those indicators related to the innovation activity and their evolution towards the consolidation of these innovations into business-as-usual. And finally, consider those KPIs contributing to the growth and evolution of the organization.

Filling The “KPI Mapping” Canvas

My advice is to give each participant one set of colored sticky notes, each color representing a KPI type. First, write down all KPIs you can think of and then try to set them in the right place of the canvas. Then take a look at the canvas and think of the gaps: is there too much of one color? Is a time horizon emptier than others? And is any of the 3 horizontal variables unbalanced? It doesn’t mean that everything should be full of notes, but question yourself if this is how it’s supposed to be, or if it points out towards a line of action.

Here you can find an example of how a fulfilled canvas might look like.

Happy body, happy mind

As you can see, this chapter talks about different dynamics to understand how an organization is integrated and aligned. It’s about doing introspection, and understating if what we’re doing, how we’re behaving, and how we’re organized is helping to achieve our goals as an organization.

Someone once told me that this is as if you’d wish to be a marathon runner, and you never train, nor have a healthy lifestyle. 

Misalignment brings tension, anxiety, and suffering. And it echoes around the organization, with unsuspected effects. Conversely, alignment brings efficiency, satisfaction, and better results. The key to these exercises is to look at the others in our organization and look at the world from their point of view. In this way, we will understand better behaviours and limitations, and have more tools to propose alternatives that will resonate with other teams and engage them.

I like to think of this as an integrity exercise. The word integrity evolved from the Latin adjective integer, meaning whole or complete. In this context, integrity might be the inner organizational sense of "wholeness", of consistency. And as Marie Kondo says, “this will spark joy”. (3)

3rd. Dimension: Mindset Alignment

Collaboration and values

In the first dimension - Strategy -, we talked about aligning the brain and the heart. In POP K we wanted to make sure that each organ, each system in the body is working properly and contributing so the body can reach its goal. In this dimension, we can visualize our body, our Self, ready to connect with others. Inevitably a simile comes to my mind: the dynamics of love. What might seem to our heart as pure love, is on one hand the work of hormones and chemistry work of the brain and body, but it’s also the practicality of finding the right partner and the proper connection mechanisms with them. 

Following our simile, the same happens when you’re looking for a partner: it might be just dancing in a party or maybe a serious relationship. All is OK, but the important thing here is to be transparent about the intentions and make sure that all of the involved are on the same page. Once you’re ready to move forward, it’s time to make an active decision about the money arrangements and collaboration dynamics. And even further, when you’re ready to tie the knot, draft the right kind of contracts with the right kind of clauses. 

We’re talking about collaboration and innovation. Organizations create bridges across boundaries to let knowledge flow. But we must not forget that when we talk about organizations, there are people connecting, doing the activities, sharing the knowledge. And in this sense, innovation becomes a humanistic discipline.

In the collaboration dynamics, human traits are present: emotions, motivations, drivers, values… In my own experience, there needs to be a set of values in place for collaboration to work. Values of open innovation shared by those involved in the process. 

About values, in the Integrity & Ethics course of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) they explain: “Plato, who wrote many dialogues using the person of Socrates as his main character, argued that ethics and values should be understood through the idea of virtues, or the standard of excellence within particular activities as a guide for how to act. For example, being a good captain means ensuring that a ship does not crash, that its goods and people arrive safely in port, and that a ship remains seaworthy.” So, what makes a good Open Innovation practitioner? What values are underlying the collaboration process?

In my own experience, and following the 3 Dimensions I propose, we have the following:

• For Strategy, Congruence & Soundness: Merriam-Webster dictionary defines congruence as “Something that agrees with, is in harmony or in correspondence with another.” The strategy must be congruent with the organizational mission and goals. And the Open Innovation strategy should be congruent with the global strategy, making sure that each of the elements and variables involved is aligned (avoiding schizophrenic strategies). Soundness - “the quality of being based on a valid reason or good judgment”. - is also needed. It needs to make sense to all the involved. This creates peace of mind for the organization members knowing what they’re building together makes sense, and it’s working towards a goal.

• For POP K - Generosity and Care: Regarding Care, Inma Puig says in her book “The emotional revolution" (2) that if you take care of someone you’ll have a well-cared, nurtured person, and if not, then they deteriorate and will never perform well because they don’t feel good, and besides will make sure that everyone around them would feel the same way. There’s a lot of anguish when someone feels not cared for. In the process of collaboration we need to care about the others, be empathetic of what they need to archive and do. And with care, we will have an optimal organization, which will work in connection as a well-oiled machine. To do that, you need to do as Inma says: “Follow your biology: we have two ears and two eyes, but only one mouth. We need to listen and see the double of what we talk”. And this is the basis for Generosity. I’ve seen over and over the effect of generosity to open up collaboration paths: knowledge does not dwindle when sharing but grows. By beginning the collaboration chain by giving you can set the right mood to open up to other possibilities. It connects well with the exponential growth theories proposed by Peter Diamandis and Singularity University (3), that I advise you to look into. With generosity within the organization, silos begin to break naturally, by establishing optimal paths for knowledge to flow, and this inevitably leads to growth: for the individuals, for the organization, and for the business.

• For Mindset Alignment - Transparency & Integrity: Here we have values that affect our relationship with others during the collaboration process. The collaboration can be with different kinds of players, with one or many, for a specific project or long term. But always we will try to have this collaboration in a way that promotes and cultivates trust. And as I explain in the following chapter, to get trust we need to have transparency and integrity.

The mystery of Trust

Discussions about collaboration frequently end up focusing on trust. One can hear phrases like “the key of collaboration is trust”. But trust is a consequence and not a cause. 

Trust is the belief in the reliability of someone or something. And this belief is built upon experience. For some years I worked doing Process Engineering, and at that time I used to work a lot with ISO-9000 (4). There was a saying many consultants said trying to explain some principles involved: “Say what you do and do what you say”. I think this principle applies here. 

“Say what you do” is associated with transparency. Organizations need to be clear in what they are looking for, how far they want this collaboration to go. In the last 10 years, I’ve heard many startups complain about abusive corporations. “They just want to steal our ideas”. or “They invited us to a meeting and they just wanted a free diagnosis”. As time passed I understood that in a majority of cases these situations arose because there was a lack of transparency in the corporation side, or maybe too many illusions in the startup side. There needs to be a clear statement on what each side wants to get from the collaboration. Inspiration, advice, exploration, piloting an idea, experimentation, branding & image, acquisition, investment… All are valid collaboration schemes that, when shared by those involved, can generate great results. Of course, Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), Intellectual Property (IP) policies, revenue share, and other agreements, are critical to make sure that all the involved share objectives and commit to them. 

“Do what you say” would be related to integrity, to be true to one’s word. Of course, there’s a reputational effect by not abiding one’s word and that’s bad enough. But more importantly, it will affect the commitment not only of potential partners but also of the members of the organization. Conversely, with integrity, knowledge and possibilities of value capturing tends to grow, the effect of failures evolves more easily into learning, and the collaboration bond strengthens, increasing the probabilities of success. Investors commonly say that they invest in teams and not in projects because teams can develop many successful projects. With integrity, the cohesiveness of the collaboration team reinforces, and also future project accomplishments.

Collaboration is a two-sided game. These principles apply to all participants in the collaboration effort. If any of the participants break the dynamic, then the balance is lost. This is related to Albert W. Truckers’ “Prisoner Dilemma”, the paradox in decision analysis in which two individuals acting in their own self-interests do not produce the optimal outcome.

With transparency and integrity, there will be trust. Strong reliability in the other will increase the possibilities of success. In the end, we’re solving “The mystery of trust” where we want to make sure that “what you expect” and “what I expect” can coexist during our collaboration, and ultimately in the long term.

Collaboration Players

This trust should be built no matter who we are collaborating with. And there are plenty of possible players in the ecosystem. Every company needs to proactively decide who they want to collaborate with, depending on the kind of collaboration and objective of that collaboration. In the overall perspective, each stakeholder has its own role in the innovation ecosystem:

Startups: According to Steve Blank, a startup is “a temporary organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.” (5)(6)  In this sense, startups act as the innovation lab of the world. They’re experimenting. And they specialize in specific elements of technology or knowledge, to which they dedicate full mind and team capacity. They’re fast, small, agile, and by definition, inexperienced in the business model they’re looking for (evidently this doesn’t mean that the team is necessarily inexperienced). Sometimes I imagine them as the little hands of children that can reach wherever big adult-sized corporation fingers can’t.

• Corporations / Companies: A company in Blank’s definition is “a permanent organization designed to execute a business model that is repeatable and scalable.” (7) They do have “big adult-sized fingers” because they’re robust organizations, with important qualities in the innovation game: a) they have strong infrastructure built across many years and lots of investment, b) they have a customer base and the relationship with the customer. They have distribution channels critical to the distribution and escalation of innovation. And c)They have a relationship with the regulator. In every industry normatives and regulations shape and limit the pace of innovation. A good connection with them is critical to write the future and advance of innovation.

• Investors: They inject the fuel to keep this dynamic rolling. With their investment, they allow innovations that are in the long term side of the benefits to originate and survive. It takes time for startups to be relevant to corporations or customers, and investors provide the resources to make this happen.

• Hubs (accelerators, events, networks…): They connect stakeholders to create collisions,  impacts or connections that wouldn’t happen without them. In a way, they’re the pollinators of the ecosystem, like bees in the forest.

• Academia: Builds the first bricks of knowledge. Working longer-term, they will give enough time to structure knowledge and explore other possibilities beyond it.

• Government and Institutions: create the infrastructures for society to grow and thrive. The same way that they build roads, schools and hospitals, they need to create the right mechanisms for innovation to happen, for collaboration to grow, and for all this to happen in an orderly manner that will bring prosperity to the community.

Among these players, collaboration possibilities are endless. And collaboration needs to be managed according to the players involved, considering each participant's interests, role and drivers.

Collaborating with Startups

In the specific case of startups, we’ve witnessed a change of paradigm. Some years ago they were  perceived as a menace, agents of disruption. I witnessed many discussions about “who will survive, startups or corporations”. Now, this discussion is part of the past. There’s a common understanding that the future is common. Startups and corporations need each other. In fact, startups are engines of corporate innovation by playing their role of “innovator labs of the world”.  Collaboration is key for mutual survival. As Carlos Torres, Chairman of BBVA, says: “We must innovate to survive” (8) and to innovate, we need startups. 

For corporations, collaborating with startups requires preparation in order to be able to collaborate with them without killing them. In words of Miguel Arias from Telefonica, it’s “teaching the elephant to dance with the gazelles”.

For a corporation to think about collaboration with startups, a good place to begin is to identify the kind of relationship they want to have. Wiblen and Chesbrough (9) talk about this in their article about “Engaging with Startups to Enhance Corporate Innovation”. They present the case in clear words: “When it comes to agility, startups have an edge over large corporations—whereas large corporations sit on resources which startups can only dream of. The combination of entrepreneurial activity with corporate ability seems like a perfect match, but can be elusive to achieve.” They analyse four models commonly used to engage with startups. These models are classified based on two dimensions: the direction of innovation flow (outside-in, inside-out) and whether or not there will be equity involvement. We will go more in depth in future articles. At the moment it’s enough to say that not all collaboration models are the same, and it’s critical to do a proper analysis on the corporate objectives to decide which model (or models) to apply.

The three horizons framework or “Startups are from venus and Corporations from Mars”

Back in 2009, McKinsey Quarterly published the framework Three Horizons of Growth (10). It provides a structure for companies to assess potential opportunities for growth without neglecting performance in the present. I’ve seen this framework applied in strategy and innovation planning. And later on, in a brilliant presentation by Johan Lorenzen. I met Johan while he was CEO for Holvi, and now he’s a Fintech entrepreneur, investor, executive, and board member. With this unique mix of perspectives, he explained the distance between the corporation focus and the startup / (Venture Capital) VC focus using the Three Horizons framework. It goes like this:

• Horizon 1 - Defend: The objective of the organization is to maintain and defend the profitable core. It receives incremental improvements and development, just enough to keep day-to-day operations, our customers, and markets engaged. In this horizon the mindset is risk averse, with a high volume of operations and actions, with low growth. - According to McKinsey, organizations can apply 70% of resources to this horizon.

• Horizon 2 - Extend: Here the organization looks to extend the existing business into new areas (either new markets or new products, never both) using partnerships and proven methods. The mindset is medium risk and medium growth. The organization applies 20% of resources to this horizon.

• Horizon 3 - Search / Explore: This is the farthest shore. The organization looks to create entirely new businesses. It’s unproven and unprofitable (at least at the moment). The mindset is about small bets, requires high skill, and looks for exponential growth. 10% of the resources are allocated to this horizon.

As it is in their nature, startups are exploring the future. They are born in the Horizon 3, and while madurating and validating the possibilities of the business model, they approach a Horizon 2, until they’re completely validated and they stop being startups to become a regular company completely embedded in Horizon 1. VC’s are not different. They move in the same direction, as they walk together with the startups. 

So we get to the crux of the matter: part of the art of collaboration is to realize that each player: corporation and startup, is moving in a different realm, with different priorities. A crucial part of the Open Innovation team is to build the bridge that allows to create an understanding and collaboration. To set the threads that will allow each player to be connected, and interact in the same terms: either because both assume they’re working in the same horizon, or because they’re willing to build a bridge to connect different horizons. Coming back to the love metaphor, it’s creating a communication bridge like the one John Gray proposed in his book “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus”.

The “Collaboration Mapping” Canvas

Following the methodology I’ve presented in the previous dimensions, I introduce you to the final canvas (at least at the moment!). The “Collaboration Mapping” Canvas is an Open Innovation management tool that allows us to analyse, reflect, discuss and understand the organization's intentions while looking for collaboration partners, bringing forward relevant aspects such as equity involvement, the direction of innovation flow, time frame and needs.

I usually use this canvas in a guided discussion between the innovation team members, or the management team of an organization. In this session, the most important is to get to the right questions. In many cases answers will only come after the session, and while the teams explore within the organization and in the market what they want to do.

Here’s an explanation of the different elements of the canvas.

*Creative Commons Licence: OThe “Areas Involved in the OI Process” Canvas by Marisol Menendez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Based on a work at marisolmenendez.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at marisolmenendez.com.

Header: General information

At the top, there’s a space for the name of the company, name of the participant, job title and date. The company is important if the session is with more than one company, or department if you’re sharing with different departments. The date is important because you can repeat this exercise in the future and compare it. The organizational dynamics are not static, they change through time and are affected by the people who are involved. It’s interesting to compare evolution through time and verify the impact of changes and improvements.

Engagement Model

In this section, we have the corporate engagement models described before. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of possibilities of collaboration, but it sparks the conversation. Adaptations can be done to include the relevant dimensions to analyse. 

Usually, corporations don’t have only one model of collaboration. Use this memento to discuss the value and approach of existing programs. Are they true to their nature? To what extent? Do they need adaptations or updates? Do you need to implement a new collaboration model? Why?

And there’s a moment to come back to the first and second dimensions and analyse if the engagement models are coherent with the strategy, and if the organization and KPIs are set to make this work. If they’re working properly to assimilate the innovation that comes in or out from these programs.

Innovation Projects in Collaboration - Three Horizons

This section is to map out the main collaboration programs and projects. Begin with the corporation perspective. When you have them mapped out, continue thinking from the startup perspective. And reflect: are there distances that haven’t been properly bridged? Are the horizons and expectations aligned? Is the organization coordinated with this vision as well? 

Again, come back to dimensions one and two. Reflect on the strategic variables about risk, time-frame,  depth of change, business models, etc., defined in the strategy. Are they aligned with the map you just painted? It is also relevant to reflect the current situation and compare it to a future scenario.

Finally, consider if in the existing programs and collaborations all teams involved have a clear notion on the objectives of collaboration. This validation should be done with the external collaborators, but also within the organization (coming back to POP K). Remember the values: Transparency and Integrity have their real test at this level of detail.

Scarcity and Excess

Finally, a basic exercise about the resources that are flowing in the Open Innovation process. In Open Innovation, knowledge flows from areas of abundance to areas of scarcity. The exercise here is to think what the organization has in abundance, that it is willing to share with others. Remember that this doesn’t imply that this sharing should be free!. Also, think what the organization needs and therefore, what it should seek from others. This is a basic exercise that should continue with more detailed exercises focusing on the most crucial needs.

Insight Questions

Here are some final reflections in order to set the grounds for discussion. 

• Current Partnerships: List the main partnerships that the organization currently has. Try to think also about those who might not be actively involved or in your area of influence, like institutional connections.

• Need to Explore: During the exercise, some ideas will come to mind about partnerships to explore. Write them down before you forget!

• Satisfaction with partners: Rate from 1 to 5 your satisfaction with current partnerships. Remember that you might be happy now, but know that there's a need for a change.

• Need for a change: Rate your perception of the need for a change in the current collaboration and partnership scheme of your organization.

Good fences make good neighbors

As discussed before it doesn’t matter who you are collaborating with. In all relationships, it is important to bring in the important discussions early on. Talk about money of course, but also, about Intellectual Property (IP), and the distribution of the assets that will be generated with the collaboration: revenue, data, customer base, knowledge…

New ways of collaboration require also new contracts and new regulations. Much is being researched and changed in these areas, although many might think that it’s not enough and not fast enough. Even so, it’s critical to have these discussions. In the end, "Good fences – or in this case, good bridges - make good neighbors.”

I know that I know nothing

There are plenty of other collaboration models. Some interesting cases are cooperatives. Mondragon Group in Basque Country (Spain) is an inspiring example of collaboration as a way of doing business.(12) NASA has a huge variety of collaboration models, including connection with existing expert ecosystems. All in all, the universe is immense, and worth exploring.

I want to end with a final thought. Socrates said, “I know that I know nothing”. Adapted to today’s organizations, we’re aware that we know we don’t know everything. We know we don’t have all the good talent. We know we can’t do it all on our own. And we know we exist in a bubble of knowledge, skills and technology, a bias that comes from our own business, sector and culture. And in order to succeed, collaboration is key. Because As they say, “Sharing is caring”!