Energy companies are very risk-averse. Power is always on. The Netherlands has an uptime/reliability in the 99,99%+ range; only a few minutes in the year there is a disruption. When you are looking at innovation in the energy industry, how do you balance that with the risk-averse mentality? How can you test out new technologies in such a risk-averse environment? How can you successfully innovate, without putting the grid at risk?
Run the business, or go out of business
In your business, there is no room for error. In all seriousness, play-time was over a long time ago. You are in the business of running the business or risk going out of business. Experiments are for laboratories. Remove anything that threatens the continuity of the company. Don’t fix whole things. But you don’t want to be stuck in the status quo either, so you are interested to learn how to do both; apply innovation in a risk-averse energy company.
Environmental Tooling
Luckily, there are two proven methods to make innovation happen in a risk-averse environment, such as the energy industry. They allow the regular business to continue, allow room to innovate and limit the potential damage that is possible when designing new things.
These tools are:
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Roadmaps
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Sandboxes
So how can these two help you implement an innovative technology within your energy company? And how do they mitigate any downsides or negative consequences?
A Road Map
Illustrating what the future holds is done with visions. Far away in some distant future, things will be great. But how do you get there? That is where a roadmap comes in. It describes in smaller steps how to progress towards that vision. To make the journey seem less daunting. The size of the steps depends on your organisation and its comfort level with uncertainties.
The roadmap should bring comfort to the involved stakeholders. Comfort that the end-game is desirable. Comfortable that the steps outlined work towards that vision. And comfort that the first step is achievable. It makes what is daunting, actionable.
A Sandbox
With a sandbox environment, you typically build a walled-off environment from the rest of the business. I initially came across the term when I read up on how Apple has set up its operating systems; every app is in its separate sandbox. In this way, an app cannot access data from other apps, without the user getting informed about the app reaching out of its designated sandbox.
In innovation, you want to make sure that the day-to-day operations will not impact your innovation project. The project gets a budget, a timeline and no (or in most cases, minimal) interference from the business. In a way, you are trying to grow a small seedling and do not want to suffocate it in the big forest.
Tool Tips
With both a road map and a sandboxed environment for your project, you have the two biggest wins in creating an environment to successfully execute your innovation project. If you want me to help you implement these two tools and learn about others, please reach out so we can talk about your needs.
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