I attended a panel discussion titled “Innovation and Quality: Two Faces of the Same

Coin?”. The panel was moderated by Dr. Martin, and the members of the panel
discussion were:
 Prof. Adrian
 Prof. Ebrahim
 Fahad AlSaadi

After introducing the members to the audience by Dr Martin, Fahad AlSaadi started to
talk about his topic “Innovation and Quality are two Faces of the Same Coin”.

AlSaadi said a good start is to define (creativity, invention, innovation, and quality),
then to discuss the topic (Is quality stopping innovation? OR Can there be any
innovation without quality?). He defined the terms as:
1. Creativity is the ability to think and act in a way that is new.
2. Invention is the creation of something totally new.
3. Innovation is using this invention in a useful way.
4. Quality has no single definition, many scholars has many definitions of the
term. Examples are fitness for use, or conformity to the product and so on.

AlSaadi personally believe that quality doesn’t conflict with innovation, in fact
quality specifications are important to make innovation. Quality is all about meeting
customer needs. Innovative products without or with less quality will not satisfy
customer needs.

Prof. Adrian Wilkinson commented that innovation needs experimentation,

experimentation gives risk, risk may lead to failure, failure leads to learning. The key
in his opinion is how organizations construct themselves.

One opinion from the audience was that organizations should go for quality NOT
innovation. They should manage the quality, but after getting the experience they
should go for innovation.

AlSaadi replied to this opinion by saying it depends on the mission of the

organization, what stage the company is, and what mission they are trying to achieve.
A great example given by AlSaadi was Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University.
HBMSU is going for both quality and innovation. They have quality standards, and
innovation in making it a smart university.

Another opinion from the audience was by Dr Abeer from Manchester. Dr Abeer
doesn’t agree with the title “Innovation and Quality are two Faces of the Same Coin”.
She suggested another title “Quality is a coin with wheels”, where quality is the coin,
and innovation is the wheel to make it move. She says when you are looking at
quality, you are actually talking about 1 of 6 or more nation criteria, where innovation
is the process of enabling.

At the end of the discussion Dr Martin asked the audience to vote if they agree or not
that “Innovation and Quality are two Faces of the Same Coin”. 90% agreed, and I was
one of them.
I think this discussion panel was very interesting to me, because it related two main
topics in my study (Quality and Innovation). It gave me a wider view of the relation
between those two terms, and how can an organization combine quality with
innovation.