Why ISO 56000 Innovation Management matters to CIOs

Jackie Fenn

To that end, the ISO 56000 series presents a new framework for innovation, laying out the fundamentals, structures and support that ISO leaders say is needed within an enterprise to create and sustain innovation.

More specifically, the series provides guidance for organizations to understand and respond to changing conditions, to pursue new opportunities and to apply the knowledge and creativity of people within the organization and in collaboration with external interested parties, said Alice de Casanove, chairwoman of the ISO 56000 standard series and innovation director at Airbus.

ISO, which started work on these standards in 2013, started publishing its guidelines last year. The ISO 56002 guide for Innovation management system and ISO 56003 Tools and methods for innovation partnership were published in 2019. ISO released its Innovation management — Fundamentals and vocabulary in February 2020. Four additional parts of the series are forthcoming.

The committee developed the innovation standards so that they’d be applicable to organizations of all types and sizes, de Casanove said.

“All leaders want to move from serendipity to a structured approach to innovation management,” she explained, noting that the committee similarly developed these ISO 56000 innovation standards to be applicable across functional areas, including the C-suite, the RD teams and the IT department.

The standards are intended to help organizations establish the leadership, internal culture and support required to successfully make innovation an ongoing activity that produces results — rather than leaving it to pockets of work or to chance inspiration.

“It’s to provide guidance. It’s not to create a new project. Our goal is to really help the organization take advantage of our knowledge,” she added.

Unlike other ISO standards, this innovation framework currently does not have a certification process whereWith that in mind, and considering that the standards are new, experts said it’s hard to determine whether organizations across the board will find success if they implement the framework.

And while ISO officials are promoting the series as a useful tool for enterprise executives seeking to boost their innovation prowess, some business leaders caution against seeing the ISO 56000 series as being a panacea for all the challenges that CIOs and their C-suite colleagues face as they try to transform their organizations.

“I would find it off to judge a company whether it’s compliant on an innovation standard,” said Joseph Tobolski, CTO at the digital consultancy Nerdery.

Joseph Tobolski

Tobolski acknowledged that the ISO 56000 innovation series could offer enterprise leaders insights into how to develop an innovation culture, but he said market-related metrics would ultimately determine whether an organization is successful at the task.

“The market will answer that question for them,” he said. “Are they delighting customers in a useful way? Increasing revenue? Increasing market share? Doing something different that adds value to customers and to the ecosystem? If they’re doing that, at that point who cares if they’re following a standard. They’re getting innovation done.”