Radical innovation: crossing knowledge boundaries with ...

ideological advances. Many projects showed adventure in terms of the
complexity of the technical problem to be solved, but not necessarily in
terms of design or vision for technology in a broader societal context.
EPSRC (2009)
The implication is that, in an effective interdisciplinary funding programme, the panel
wanted to see evidence that some projects had failed through being too creative or
adventurous. The fact that they did not do so illustrates perfectly the risk of
innovation failure. (As a further point of comparison to our own research, the same
international panel commented on one of the case studies that we present in this
report: “There is potential for more research bridging the gaps between art, design and
computing. The notable exception to this is the EPSRC funded EQUATOR project
(not presented at this Theme Day)”).
5.6. Organisational management - the matrix
It appears that management of an innovative interdisciplinary initiative can be
successfully separated from leadership, although this may involved a degree of
tension between the person maintaining the vision ‘leader’, and the person responsible
for managing risk by ensuring resources are mobilised and deliveries made.
On an organisational scale, matrix management offers an approach to separating
project management from technical leadership.
Matrix management is routine in organisations such as consultancy businesses where
multidisciplinary teams are assembled to work on a shared project. These teams are
far more straightforward than the kind of interdisciplinary innovation teams that we
have described, in that the goal of the project is generally defined at the outset
(defined very carefully, with the work of the team managed to deliver a satisfactory
outcome within a precise budget and timeframe). It also seems to be the case, in
organisations such as TTP, that the other dimension of the matrix is not necessarily
groups of people with common technical skills. On the contrary, there is a tendency in
consultancy organisations for people to be presented as universal specialists.
Group leaders are then encouraged to be relatively independent entrepreneurs, which
can result in a group pursuing a single kind of business opportunity that draws
repeatedly on the same set of skills that are therefore drawn into the group. A problem
noted at TTP, and also in other flexibly organised institutes, is that an excess of ‘alpha
males’ can disrupt the flexible structure by competing for resources.
The national academies review of interdisciplinary research recommends either
matrix management or completely unstructured departments. However, that study did
not emphasise actual experiences of interdisciplinary work, but rather large-scale and
organisational perspectives. It seems likely that many of the institutions organising
themselves into matrices are likely to have been advised to do so by the kind of
consultancies that are also organised into matrices.
Innovation and Interdisciplinarity 55