As a force for change behind most industries and a catalyst for development in the public and private sectors, innovation is undoubtedly one of the keys to economic development and diversification around the world. The UAE, and Dubai especially, has set its sights on achieving the highest levels of innovation. The leadership of the UAE has emphasized its importance across all sectors through UAE Vision 2021.

Innovation 360 Group has been in Dubai for two weeks and here some highlights that I want to share with you.

• We have been running Innovation360 Group®️ Circles and workshops with different government entities to create awareness about the importance of working with data-driven insight and innovation assessment. These have been achieved and facilitated through our proprietary tool, InnoSurvey®. For more information about InnoSurvey®, see the text below.
• We have promoted collaboration within our licensed practitioner community in the region.

I ran and facilitated an Innovation360 Group®️ Circle using the event poll in InnoSurvey® for a large government body in Dubai with a high participation rate. There were 20 people from multiple departments, including, a deputy minister, management, and innovation and HR personnel. Each participant received a comprehensive 40-page customized innovation report, including tangible recommendations on how to sharpen their innovation strategy, leadership, culture, and capabilities. This was done to raise awareness and instill common terminology within the organization. The Innovation360 Group®️ Circle was highly appreciated and the InnoSurvey® was an interesting exercise for the participants, as they heard and saw how their colleagues in different departments perceived innovation within their organization, with a focus on leadership and culture.

It also enabled them to learn more about their colleagues and the way the organization functioned, indirectly improving team dynamics and relationships.

Innovation 360 Group was also represented at the Dubai Global Innovation Summit. I had the opportunity to listen and discuss with innovation experts on how to build and sustain an innovation culture. Here are two elements that I believe are essential.

• Organizations need to become insight and data-driven, allowing them to react swiftly with changes that could impact their strategy. Consequently, all actions can then be taken on evidence-based recommendations.
• Organizations should create and maintain an environment that supports a hypothesis-based approach. This is achieved through validated learning by running a series of ideations and experiments to determine whether an expected outcome is achievable or not.

The InnoSurvey® innovation capability measurement, as presented here, is based on a combination of our underlying innovation framework and our large innovation database, which has data from 6 000 companies in 62 countries. The innovation framework is defined by strategic questions (see Figure 1) and is based on decades of research and best practice, and therefore, it represents a very powerful tool and foundation for InnoSurvey®. 

By building and organizing the largest innovation capability database in history, we have helped a large number of international players to gain significant advantages, and by founding the Innovation360 Group, we aim to bring the database to a wider market to help firms become more successful in a time of change.