**4.3 Forming a survival innovation**

*New Innovations in Engineering Education and Naval Engineering*

tion can be found:

age to interior of the vehicle."

introduced on the market. From the homepage of Careva, the following informa-

market in 2011, the Crossit has also become popular for use in family cars.

found to fit all wheelchairs with a sturdy backrest. It is especially suitable for elderly people who require posture assistance, helping them to achieve an upright sitting position, or for people who need extra support in a power chair. No tools are required for installation in a wheelchair or in a car seat. It does not cause any dam-

"The Crossit was initially designed for public transportation such as taxis, busses, trains or aeroplanes, as the design allows someone who does not use positioning support but who wants to sit in that location in the vehicle to do so without removing the belt. It was designed to stay in place. However, after its introduction onto the

Crossit has also been tested by users who employ a wheelchair, and it has been

**10**

**Figure 6.**

**Figure 5.**

*The development of the Careva Crossit product [17].*

*The principle of the Careva Crossit positioning belt [16].*

A turnaround project was to bring Frontec Research & Technology AB (FTR) in Gothenburg, Sweden, to a profitable position within 6 months at an undefined cost payed by the business' own income and with support from the mother company, Frontec AB. Discussions between the chairman of the board and the author about such a project started in December 1999. Prior to that, the mother company had tried traditional ways to change the negative curves without success. The discussions ended with the author being given the mission, as interim CEO and renovateur, to turn around the company. If he should not succeed, it was determined that the company was to be closed down.

When the project started, FRT had 125 qualified employees. It made a loss of about 900.000 SEK (about 90.000 USD) per month and had done so for the last 6 months. When the negative trend had started about 1 year earlier, different experts were consulted to change the situation. In early December 1999, the CEO had decided to leave the company, so the mother company had to try something radical to change the situation.

The renovateur got a free hand to do what he thought best, without having to ask the board of the company for acceptance. Monthly financial reports had to be delivered to the mother company, which was noted on the Swedish exchange market. The renovateur started to plan his work in January 2000, although the formal start as deputy CEO was on the 15th of February 2000.

The change management/turnaround project started with the reshaping of the company to be a Planetary Organization, with the sun in the middle (the author/ CEO), moons (the departments) in orbits around the planet, sub-moons (the groups) orbiting around each moon, and comets (free specialists) who moved freely in the Planetary Organization. Dynamic management principles and methods were introduced and used to speed up the changes needed to transform the company to a profitable enterprise (see [1]).

At the start of the project in February 2000, the company had no commercial value. Four months after the project start, the value of the company was calculated to be 32–44 MSEK or ca 3, 5–5 MUSD [18], and the company was sold in autumn 2000 to another company on the Swedish stock exchange—Sigma AB.

The combination of the Planetary Organization concept and the use of dynamic methods and principles were powerful in quickly getting the company to show blue figures, after its situation with heavy red financial figures. The activities specified below were especially important to improve their results:


A pure line organization was used before the change in management started. Very few of the actions carried out could have been accomplished without difficulty if self-management alone had been used. As there were people working against the changes while officially saying they were in favor of the new ways of organizing and working, they would have hampered success of the activities if pure self-management had been used. Based on these experiences, it is hard to see how self-management, a circular and/or a holacracy/holocentric/circular/ sociocratic organization [19] could have been used to obtain the results achieved in this case.

#### **5. Discussion**

The three, with PAR [1] investigation, projects showed that the dynamic principles and especially the use of DPD™ gave successful results.

The first case—SKF New Products—shows some of the difficulties an intrapreneur has to face. In this case, the good thing was that the management of SKF did not believe in the business unit, FlexLink, so they did not care that the intrapreneur broke a number of company rules, such as forming a unique trademark and developing suitable marketing material for the business and its products.

The SKF case showed an innovation that was developed into a mature, sustainable, and growing business. The case shows that it was extremely vulnerable and needed to be taken care of in a very sensible way, getting shelter, care, and nutrition offered by the renovateur and using its own localities. **Figure 7** shows, in hindsight, the fruitful situation that was created for the large organization to take care of its lean and innovation activities living side-by-side. The innovation business in the figure is SKF New Products, with its different innovation projects organized as planets. The business units of SKF New Products remained in its own premises for all innovation projects until they had grown so much that they needed to move to new premises.

The SKF case also shows that market investigations for new products can be disastrous for deciding on whether further development should be done. A "good" entrepreneur will find his/her ways to success.

The second case—Careva—shows how tricky it can be to create to a commercial product and that product development can be far from the linear and nice looking S-shaped curves common in the literature.

**13**

*How to Deal with Quantum Leap Innovations and Free-Fall Situations*

The third case—FRT—shows that Planetary Organization, in combination with dynamic methods, can give extraordinary results. Based on our experiences from the project, it can be concluded that neither the line or matrix organizations nor self-management organizations such as circular, holacracy, holocentric, or sociocratic are suited for handling modern, complex societal demands and fast-moving

*Lean projects can be handled in the core business, while innovation projects is best taken care of outside the core* 

To determine whether the findings from the FRT case can be generalized, more projects need to be done and followed up. This is especially important, as traditional management methods and techniques are not designed to handle instability and

The three principally different situations shown in **Figure 1** can be useful to have in mind when deciding what kind of organization, planning principles, and devel-

The three investigated innovation projects are examples of the fact that neither linear nor nonlinear curves can be used for the planning of new product development and innovation development activities. Often, only creativity and improvisa-

One conclusion is that product and business development based on satisfying a *need* and *a want* can be planned with traditional methods. Development based on satisfying a *wish* and a *want* can only partly be planned with traditional methods. In addition, creativity, improvisation, and the use of dynamic principles are needed to

changes. The Planetary Organization accomplished this.

opment methods should be used to get a wanted result in the end.

tion can push the development processes further when problems occur.

rapidly changing situations.

achieve successful innovations.

**6. Conclusion**

**Figure 7.**

*business [2].*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90194*

*How to Deal with Quantum Leap Innovations and Free-Fall Situations DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90194*

**Figure 7.**

*New Innovations in Engineering Education and Naval Engineering*

the rumors.

in this case.

**5. Discussion**

new premises.

entrepreneur will find his/her ways to success.

S-shaped curves common in the literature.

and mentorship.

customers, the sales increased.

and unplanned situations.

• Management by MBWA was critical to pick up on weak signals and to improve the mood of the employees. MBWA also made it possible to meet the not confirmed bad rumors in a sophisticated way without revealing knowledge of

• The three "comets" increased the efficiency of the work, based on storytelling

• By encouraging the consultants who were working at the premises of the customers to suggest small improvement projects and get feedback from the

• The risk level for the company was lowered as each of the managers got to know the other managers' duties, activities, and situations meaning that they could better support each other and even take over their jobs in case of planned

A pure line organization was used before the change in management started. Very few of the actions carried out could have been accomplished without difficulty if self-management alone had been used. As there were people working against the changes while officially saying they were in favor of the new ways of organizing and working, they would have hampered success of the activities if pure self-management had been used. Based on these experiences, it is hard to see how self-management, a circular and/or a holacracy/holocentric/circular/ sociocratic organization [19] could have been used to obtain the results achieved

The three, with PAR [1] investigation, projects showed that the dynamic prin-

The first case—SKF New Products—shows some of the difficulties an intrapreneur has to face. In this case, the good thing was that the management of SKF did not believe in the business unit, FlexLink, so they did not care that the intrapreneur broke a number of company rules, such as forming a unique trademark and devel-

The SKF case showed an innovation that was developed into a mature, sustainable, and growing business. The case shows that it was extremely vulnerable and needed to be taken care of in a very sensible way, getting shelter, care, and nutrition offered by the renovateur and using its own localities. **Figure 7** shows, in hindsight, the fruitful situation that was created for the large organization to take care of its lean and innovation activities living side-by-side. The innovation business in the figure is SKF New Products, with its different innovation projects organized as planets. The business units of SKF New Products remained in its own premises for all innovation projects until they had grown so much that they needed to move to

The SKF case also shows that market investigations for new products can be disastrous for deciding on whether further development should be done. A "good"

The second case—Careva—shows how tricky it can be to create to a commercial product and that product development can be far from the linear and nice looking

ciples and especially the use of DPD™ gave successful results.

oping suitable marketing material for the business and its products.

**12**

*Lean projects can be handled in the core business, while innovation projects is best taken care of outside the core business [2].*

The third case—FRT—shows that Planetary Organization, in combination with dynamic methods, can give extraordinary results. Based on our experiences from the project, it can be concluded that neither the line or matrix organizations nor self-management organizations such as circular, holacracy, holocentric, or sociocratic are suited for handling modern, complex societal demands and fast-moving changes. The Planetary Organization accomplished this.

To determine whether the findings from the FRT case can be generalized, more projects need to be done and followed up. This is especially important, as traditional management methods and techniques are not designed to handle instability and rapidly changing situations.

#### **6. Conclusion**

The three principally different situations shown in **Figure 1** can be useful to have in mind when deciding what kind of organization, planning principles, and development methods should be used to get a wanted result in the end.

The three investigated innovation projects are examples of the fact that neither linear nor nonlinear curves can be used for the planning of new product development and innovation development activities. Often, only creativity and improvisation can push the development processes further when problems occur.

One conclusion is that product and business development based on satisfying a *need* and *a want* can be planned with traditional methods. Development based on satisfying a *wish* and a *want* can only partly be planned with traditional methods. In addition, creativity, improvisation, and the use of dynamic principles are needed to achieve successful innovations.

Entrepreneurship was shown, in these cases, to cover not being "politically right" and daring to take risks to break against accepted rules and opinions to be successful in the end.

All three development projects resulted in sustainable businesses.
