DIN CEN/TS 16555-7:2016-05

Innovation management is critical to becoming and remaining competitive based on new products and services or new processes and business models to meet the changing needs and expectations of customers and citizens alike. Many of the highly successful and innovative organizations have developed extensive innovation capabilities while building their innovation management system and evaluating it. There are a number of good reasons for organizations to begin innovation management capability development with innovation management assessment. They include: to learn what elements should be part of the innovation management system and how to evaluate their performance; to gain insights related to an organization's innovation management capabilities and performance; to gain insights into how the organization is positioned relative to competitors in terms of innovation management capabilities and performance (benchmarking); to obtain recommendations and create an action plan to close the gap between current performance and future goals regarding higher levels of innovation management capabilities; to provide insights into customer needs and into markets; to keep the organization from being overtaken by market developments; to maintain a challenging and dynamic work environment; and to retain key employees. This Technical Specification provides guidance on assessing the innovation management system (IMS) and its performance. It describes how organizations can create transparency internally on strengths and weaknesses in their innovation management system. This transparency can be used as a basis to develop effective actions to improve the innovation management capabilities and performance. Increased innovation management performance is essential for generating value for the organization, its network partners and key stakeholders. This Technical Specification provides guidance on: various types of innovation management assessment approaches; the generic process of an effective innovation management assessment; elements of innovation management to assess, including the insights and the impact that can be gained from the innovation management assessment. By using this Technical Specification, organizations are guided to gain an overview of different innovation management assessment approaches. By knowing these approaches, organizations can design their innovation management assessment. The results of this innovation management assessment are therefore the basis to develop an action plan to improve the capabilities and performance of their innovation management on a continuous basis. This Technical Specification does not address: recommendations on choosing specific tools for innovation management assessment; the measures for improving innovation management performance; specific benchmarks or scores for the various elements of innovation management; the actual decision-making on improvements and their impact. This Technical Specification can be applied to any innovation management system. However, it is primarily intended to assess the innovation management system as defined in CEN/TS 16555-1. Annex B (normative) of CEN/TS 16555-7, includes the impact expected from an effective innovation management assessment on the innovation management system detailed in CEN/TS 16555-1. This Technical Specification is applicable to all organizations regardless of sector, type, age or size of the organization. However, specific focus has been placed on the applicability for small and medium-sized enterprises. This Technical Specification is not intended for certification purposes. The responsible German committee is NA 159-01-10 AA "Innovationsmanagement" ("Innovation management") at DIN Standards Committee Services (NADL).