Over the last few years, American Express Corporate Services in Hebron, Conn. has had a significant push to encourage innovation and change within the organization as a whole. The challenge, though, has been to find a process to encourage innovation and creative thinking in its creation of new supply chain tools, but not provide vague guidelines, according to Kevin Williams, director of global technology solutions at American Express.

"When you lead a team of technical people, there is a tendency for them to think that they are not capable of being creative enough to innovate," he says. "They think that, being technical, they have to pigeonhole themselves into a standard process."

To encourage more creative thinking, Williams helped develop a flow process that was flexible enough to encourage innovation, but also formal enough that technical people could understand and feel comfortable with it. The process is being used as part of an "innovation toolkit" for designing sourcing tools, such as technology programs and reports for the sourcing department. It has four steps:

1. Idea Creation: This involves identifying the destination of the ultimate desired results for the sourcing program or tool. "It is very important to create a clear vision," emphasizes Williams. "In fact, this may take two-thirds of the whole effort. You need to think about what you want your desired end result to be." According to Williams, failing to do this is akin to going on a cross-country trip without a roadmap or without even knowing your destination. "Once you decide your destination, you also need to allow for multiple paths to get there," he continues. "You need to consider alternate routes."
2. Definition of as is vs. to be: This involves identifying the "as is" or current programs or tools being used and then identifying the "to be" or what needs to be achieved.
3. Development: This involves beginning to design what the functional solutions might look like, with a focus on practical value. Williams believes that creating a rapid prototype (a non-functional physical representation of the desired program) helps participants actually see what the result might look like.
4. Release and deployment: This involves deploying the final tool (eg: sourcing software program) to a pilot group, receiving feedback, making adjustments and then rolling out the final product.

There are a number of keys to succeeding with a process like this, according to Williams. First and foremost is developing tight relationships with the stakeholders who control the gates that need to be cleared to make the idea a reality. "These are the people whose assistance you need in order to turn your idea into a reality," Williams explains. "For example, since a lot of what we do is software-driven and technology-driven, we need good relationships with people in the technology area."

Secondly, clear priorities need to be set to define the idea so it doesn't get buried among other priorities. "For every one dollar a company has available to invest in ideas, there are probably at least three dollars' worth of ideas competing for that one dollar," says Williams. "As such, you have to be a pitch person and sell your idea above the others." He believes that this can be a challenge in supply management, because a lot of people in this profession don't think of themselves as having strong selling skills.

The last key to such a program's success is being willing to modify the tools created. For example, Williams' team created a supplier scorecard system that had to go back to the drawing board because its potential was not concise enough during the creation process.

"We made it too complicated," Williams says. "We created a theoretical matrix that said: How much impact will the idea have on the business? Should it be regionalized to one business unit, or can it be applied across the entire enterprise? Should it be national in scope, or can it be used globally?" By revising it, the team was able to roll out a more effective scorecard for its intended purpose.