From Innovations to Operations – the Management of New Technology Implementations

João Claro (INESC TEC, FEUP), José Coelho Rodrigues (INESC TEC, FEUP)

Masterclass on Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship

October 21 | 4 p.m. (GMT+1) / 10 a.m. (CDT) | Duration: 2  h
Virtual | Limited attendance

 

Implementations consist of the activities between the decision to adopt a new technology and its incorporation in the routine operations of the adopter, or its abandonment. The full realization of the potential of new technologies thus requires a good understanding of their implementation processes.

In fact, the decision to adopt may be only a first – and often far from sufficient – step in integrating a new technology in the ongoing work of an organisation and benefiting from its routine use. Multiple factors influence the perceptions, decisions, and actions involved in implementations, and these factors, which concern technologies, providers, adopters, users, and external contexts, determine the implementation ecosystem, which strongly conditions the implementation process.

In particular, implementations typically face misalignments between the technology and the adopter, which cause initial losses of productivity and may require multiple alignment efforts. Misalignments result from a lack of compatibility between the technology and the adopter and are a driver of change. One of the main sources of misalignments is the technology’s systemic complexity, i.e., the structure of the users that have to coordinate to use the technology. A second important source is the technology’s learning complexity, i.e., the degree to which it is perceived as difficult to understand and use.

Alignment efforts may consequently involve adaptations in the structure, technical setting, and capacity of the adopter, or in the structure and functionalities of the technology. A thorough and early understanding of the characteristics of the technology and the adopter allows innovators and implementation managers to better evaluate the need for alignment efforts, and thus facilitate and better plan new technology implementations.

This masterclass will provide a framework to deal with the challenges of addressing misalignments in technology implementations, and work on how to plan implementations, based on real cases.

Online Session coordinated by UT Austin Portugal’s Area Director for Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship (PT):

  • João Claro, Vice-Chairman and CEO of INESC TEC, and Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management at FEUP, Portugal

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