Ross Mayfield’s article “The End of Process” argues against a stifling organizational structure.

Proof of Ross’ contention can be found in a recent article by Wayne Hall IdeaFestial entitled How to discourage innovation: measure everything.

Pointing to a Wharton study, Wayne Hall shows that six sigma and ISO 9000 programs can discourage innovation.

the authors compare the number of ISO 9000 quality program certifications and the number of patents filed by the paint and photography industries from 1980 to 1999. During the time period, they were able to document that the number of patents based on previous knowledge (exploitation) increased while the number of patents based on entirely new knowledge (exploration) decreased. ….
And even exploitation is hamstrung. In the photogra­phy industry, Benner and Tushman found that patents that relied up to nearly 40% on previously acquired knowledge were squeezed out in favor of patents based 80% or more on existing firm knowledge.

The debate on Ross’s article is interesting and worth reading.

As a comment on some of the posts, I think it is important to note that a structured environment for supporting innovation, with some process for sharing information and ideas is fine - but those standards are standards of interaction - they are not standards of thought and not standards for what innovative solutions are built

Ross is definitely right about one thing: companies have to free up their knowledge workers, giving them the free reign to create innovations. If not, the organization falls into a defensive mode, desperately trying to protect the fleeting margins found in yesterday’s hit product. To take the offensive in the game of constant innovation, senior management must learn to trust its employees, to listen to its innovation creators, and it must to create a culture that supports innovation from every area in the organization.