Innovating To Win

Incremental Innovation - It’s A Good Thing

Exhausted from practicing basic kicks for two hours, I asked, “Master Chen, why do we practice the same moves over and over?”

“So that your body will know what to do without your mind thinking about it,” the Master replied.

Hey, let’s innovate and make something new.  This is what we all want to do, right?  After all, everyone likes to be on the forefront of the next great thing, and there’s no denying that proprietary products based on controlled IP yield the highest margins.  But, what about the forgotten, mundane, incremental improvements to existing products?

Don’t turn you nose up at incremental innovation.  It’s not only a good thing; it’s vital to developing a sustainable innovation culture.  That’s right.  If you focus solely on the big game hunting in your innovation program, you will never achieve the pervasive innovation environment needed for success in the emerging climate of global competition.

So, why is incremental innovation important?  In a nutshell, incremental innovation provides the dual benefits of short term impact to the business and the long term impact to innovation capability development.

In the short term, the margin on an existing product line may be enhanced; the product’s revenue life may be extended; and a brilliantly executed incremental innovation can have a disproportionately large impact on market share.  These are all very good arguments for incremental innovation.  Add to these benefits that the risk of incremental innovation is relatively low, and what’s not to like?

Of course, when I talk about incremental innovation, I am making a tacit assertion that should be highlighted.  To get the maximum benefit of these more pedestrian innovation projects, it is important to pursue them with the same focus on proper execution of innovation best practices which you would bring to bear on more exiting forward looking innovation projects.  Using these disciplines with ensure that your incremental achievements deliver to their highest value potential.

This discipline will also help hone the innovation skills and readiness of your innovation workers.  And this is exactly the long term benefit I mentioned earlier.  If every time you want to look at a more ambitious path you have to reset the innovation engine of the organization, your chances for success are greatly diminished.  But if your designers, engineers, and scientists are well practiced in repeatable innovation strategies and comfortable with thinking as innovators, they will know how to move forward and not miss a beat.

In other words, you reduce the risk of big innovation not just by employing innovation best practice, but also by practicing the sustainable innovation paradigm every day.

Small Business Success and Innovation Success

On Seth’s Blog, there is a short bit of advice on success for the small business.  I comment on it here, because these same points are relevant to the business of driving innovation.

Seth’s points were (with my comments inserted in italics):

Three things you need:

1. the ability to abandon a plan when it doesn't work,

Don’t ever stop evaluating your strategy.  Even something that seems to be working can be made to work better.  Is 35% growth good enough?  Maybe a change in your model can accelerate your growth.

2. the confidence to do the right thing even when it costs you money in the short run, and

Don’t forget, it’s never too late to do the right thing.  Keep your objective in sight at all times, and consider midcourse corrections.

3. enough belief in other people that you don't try to do everything yourself.

Always hire the best people you can attract.  Your organization will never be better than the people that drive it.

However, never think you can ignore the details.  Knowing the details can be the difference between wild success and dismal failure in the small business environment where the margin of safety is very thin.  Remember, you can delegate authority, but the ultimate responsibility is always your own.

HBS On The Ethnic Composition of U.S. Inventors

Here’s an interesting piece from Harvard Business School.  According to new research findings by assistant professor William R. Kerr of the Harvard Business School, Chinese and Indian scientists and engineers have made a disproportionately large impact on U.S. technology formulation over the past 30 years.

Okay, I know what your thinking…  How is that a surprise?  We are all aware of the valuable contribution our Chinese and Indian team mates make in the world of high-technology. 

What I find interesting are the observations that since 2000 the contributions from Chinese scientists have leveled off, and Indian contributions have shown a slight decline over the same period.  Kerr sites some global influences that may explain these phenomena.  But the question remains, what impact will this have on America’s innovation capability in the future?

If Kerr is right about the potential impact for U.S. companies, the message is clear.  We need to focus our energies on improving the productivity of innovation workers.  Kerr suggests that factors aboard are making people rethink their home countries as attractive climates for technology development.  This means that we need to drive more and better innovation with our resident innovation workers if U.S. companies are to maintain their competitiveness.

Can Johnny Innovate?

Innovation consultant and occasional blogger Jim Belfiore is teasing us with “Why Johnny Can’t Innovate.”  In this post, Jim promises to deliver us some interesting insights into the challenges that keep engineers and designers from become successful practitioners of repeatable innovation methods.

Six key factors are introduced:

• lack of incentive
• lack of time
• lack of domain knowledge
• lack of innovation skills experience
• lack of simple access to critical information
• lack of vision (i.e. not looking beyond the immediate need)

These are certainly some interesting problems to consider.  I have had the pleasure of knowing Jim for five years now, and we regularly talk about what we are seeing in the landscape of commercial innovation practice.  So, it is with that understanding of Jim’s experience that I am expecting his series to be very interesting, and I am waiting for the first installment.

Of course, thinking about these issues makes me want to ask all of you a question.  What do you see as the greatest innovation challenge that you see on a regular basis?  Let’s hear it.  Inquiring minds want to know.

Killer Innovations

Over on Phil McKinney’s Blog, Phil posted a rather nice presentation on an approach to innovation he labels Killer Innovation.  It is definitely worth a look if you’ve missed it.

A brief summary can be gleaned from slides 11, 12, and 16.

Slide 11 talks to the failures of traditional unstructured brainstorming methods.  For some strange reason, this topic seems to engender a lot of passion in people.  You either love these brainstorming exercises or you hate them.  I have to agree with Phil on this one.  In general, unstructured brainstorming is ineffective and yields mediocre results.  Sure, once in a while a good idea comes out of these sessions, but in general the output is the same old ideas heard for the umpteenth time.

Slide 12 shows the distinction between incremental and breakthrough innovation.  While this might seem obvious, people often forget that there is substantial value in both variants.  The challenge for companies is be to good at both.  Perhaps this is one area where I would fault Phil’s deck.  I didn’t notice anything on how to uplift the value of the incremental component of a company’s strategy.  Of course, that may simply be because Phil’s clearly more focused on the mission of driving breakthrough thinking.

Slide 16 is the big picture slide.  Here, FIRE (Focus, Ideation, Ranking, and Execution) is outlined as the high-level killer innovation game plan.  As a summary, this is very good.

Focus ensures you are looking at the right problems.  This focus leads to higher quality ideas.  Let face it, when we hear about the 6000 ideas it takes to lead to one deliverable product, a big part of the issue is the preponderance of low quality of ideas that we have to sift through to identify the ones that will yield the killer innovations.

For Ideation, Phil talks about using structured questions to lead thinking.  This type of structured brainstorming is one of many possible approaches (as is SCAMPER, also mentioned in the presentation).  This area is the one I found somewhat weak in the presentation.  I have no doubt that the approaches Phil recommends are an improvement over the unstructured alternative.  Yet, there is still a lot missing here.

Today’s technology capabilities allow ideation exercises to be greatly enhanced by integrating rich knowledge, harvested from both inside and outside the organization, to be leveraged by concept generation teams on demand.  Additionally, ideation technology should really be integrated with the knowledge workers’ activities for best leverage.  In other words, should I really have to stop and put aside my design project while I put on my ideation hat?  Ideally, the answer is no.  I should be able to have idea generation practices woven seamlessly into my work patterns.

Completing the FIRE discussion, are the points about ranking and execution.  There is no debating that good innovations are ones that align properly with the company’s objectives, and once identified crisp execution is needed to bring those innovations to fruition.

Obviously, there’s a lot more detail in the presentation.  Take a look, and let me know what you think.

Timely Software Innovation

Do you find it as interesting as I do that innovation is so many things to so many people?  Today, I noticed this article by Miguel Carrasco arguing that innovation is the reason that version 1.0 software products are so hard to build.  Now there are many things that innovation is, but an excuse for late delivery is not one that I have ever thought of.

Software innovation and development is an area I happen to know a lot about.  I’ve been in the business of designing complex software systems for over thirty years.  With the exception of the first five years when I was cutting my teeth on mundane accounting and telecommunications software, I have had the pleasure of working on software that either pushed or redefined the envelope.

So, what’s my point?

Yes, innovation can be hard.  Creating a vision that no one has had before is both exciting and challenging.

Yes, innovation can take you down unforeseen paths.  As your vision unfolds and you explore how to build a tangible expression of the idea, you learn more about the problems you set out to solve and refine your vision accordingly.

But, I don’t agree with the assertion that there is no way to give a ship date on version 1.0 software.  Over the years, I have had to forecast the delivery of many software systems with precision, and I am happy to say that my teams have an exceptional record of delivering software—including 1.0 versions—on time and on budget.  This has not been a happy accident, but it is the result of good disciplines and a no excuses attitude.

I don’t say this to boast.  I say it only to point out that innovation can be predictable, even in the world of software.

Of course the rewards of such innovation are great, and nothing beats hearing a client saying, “Wow! I didn’t even know I could ask for that!”

Reflecting On Past Innovations

Everything is new at one time or another.  Of course, nothing stays that way.  I am reminded of this everyday.  However, it is easy to forget the innovations of the past as progress continues at its every quickening pace and yesterday’s breakthroughs fade into obscurity.  I was reminded of this point when I read “Techno Samhain” by fellow blogger and occasional commenter on Innovating To Win, Jim Belfiore.  As I read the piece, two thoughts filled my head.

The first thought was how little many designers and innovation workers think about the past.  This is really a shame because all innovations build on the past.  If you don’t have a good understanding of the past and the patterns represented by that past, you won’t be able to capitalize on it or avoid the mistakes of your predecessors.  The appreciation of the past is at the core of many innovation disciplines.

TRIZ for example is a direct distillation of the past so to speak.  Many of the core elements of TRIZ come from a focused study of the past as represented by patent documents.  That past is distilled and captured in a variety of TRIZ tools that form the foundation of the methodology.

The other second thought was how quickly we not only forget but also devalue the innovations of the past.  I have seen numerous statements calling for the abandonment of the light bulb as the symbol of innovation.  Oh, how the once mighty light bulb has fallen in the estimation of the modern practitioner.

The light bulb and its attendant infrastructure ecosystem have been truly transformational in the impact that has been felt by mankind around the globe.  We have emerged from the dark, not only figuratively, but quite literally.  Yet in the span of 127 years, the incandescent electric light bulb has gone from liberating technology to trite and antiquated symbol of innovation.

Personally, I like the light bulb.  I think it represents a rich tradition of innovation and the transformational power that forward thinking can have.  Don't you?

Innovation Hype

Andy Mulholland claims, “Innovation is hitting the top of the Hype cycle.”  In a somewhat meandering article, Andy asserts that despite reports that 75% of people claim to be innovating, if you are not innovating your business model using SOA and Web 2.0 technology then you aren’t really innovating.

What a load of hooey!

There is no doubt that business model innovation is an interesting and important strategic element for companies to consider.  But, let get real!  SOA and Web 2.0 are technologies, not strategies.  The assertion that these are fundamental to innovation is unsubstantiated.  The fact that some companies have experienced success following this path only shows that success is possible, not that the path is necessary to achieve success as the article claims.  SOA and Web 2.0 are interesting.  But they are by no means the answer to every situation. 

Business model innovation begins with understanding the needs of the business, not with a popular technology.  By understanding how the needs of the business and customers intersect within the business’ opportunity space, companies can begin to map out innovative business model change.

Let’s also not fall into the trap of thinking that business model innovation is the only way to effect game changing innovation.  Product is still where much of the core value delivery is embodied.  This is true whether your product is a toothbrush or banking services.  Find a new way to deliver new and substantive proprietary value through your product and you can change the rules of the game without tearing up the business model.

In short, innovation is an open field, and there are many different pages in the play book that can be use to tremendous effect.  Your task as an innovation practitioner is to study the situation and pick the right innovation best practices from the play book to win the game.

What do you think?