Recipes for Innovation
This article is an extract from a talk about product innovation. You may contact Esteban Díaz on LinkedIn or in www.estebandiaz.net.
Leer “Recetas para la innovación” en Español.
In a previous article, “Ingredients of Innovation”, we reviewed what role innovation plays in the progress of society with a historical perspective, and we broke down the necessary ingredients and factors for innovation to take place. After this analysis we can now talk about facilitating innovation.
How do you innovate
Many authors have proposed different frameworks to facilitate innovation, each of them with its own advantages for specific circumstances. An article published by Pierre-Benoît Joly in the Journal of Innovation Economics & Management in 2017 reviews different innovation models comparing what they propose and offer a new perspective.
“Although we live in an exceptional period where innovation seems to have been reinvented, innovation policies remain geared to the […] competitiveness framework, which continues to be the dominant paradigm.”
— Pierre-Benoît Joly, 2017
Joly addresses the "directionality of innovation." In the linear model, the most conservative approach, innovation tries to be produced in order to satisfy competitive interests, arising from interested parties towards users. A clear example of this type of innovation is the war of functionalities in mobile phones and other devices, in which sometimes it is difficult for us users to see the value it provides us. The impact of this innovation affects media coverage, but it does not persist because it contributes little or nothing to people.
Even so, there is value in a purely pragmatic approach to innovation, and in contexts of high uncertainty they are the most appropriate as optimization models or to facilitate decision-making. After all, innovation can also occur in process improvement. Some examples of innovation management models from the competitiveness perspective are Lean Startup, Blue Ocean Strategy and Agile methodologies.
In contrast, other models are presented where innovation arises from the affected groups, that is, from real needs. All user-centered methodologies and social entrepreneurship initiatives also achieve competitive advantages, but they do so as a result of their process, not as its main tractor. Some examples are:
- Design Thinking: popularized by IDEO and the Stanford School of Design in the 1990s, it seeks to understand the needs of users and generate innovative solutions to meet them. Although this process can offer excellent results, it is more expensive in time and resources due to the need to know users well.
- Design Sprints: this adaptation of Design Thinking accelerates the process to five days, fitting better with the rhythms of agile methodologies. However, this constant push forward can bias the process and limit feedback. In addition, the pressure to meet deadlines can inhibit critical thinking.
- Innovative Milieu: developed by Bengt-Åke Lundvall from Sweden, it focuses on the social and economic context of innovation. The milieus are spaces that promote collaboration and interaction between companies, universities and institutions, to facilitate co-innovation and the exchange of ideas. For this approach to work it requires a culture of openness and collaboration, with government institutions acting as catalysts.
- Open innovation: also focused to co-innovation, it differs from Innovative Milieu by focusing on a single organization, first internally and then opening up to the participation of third parties. The goal is to allow the company to benefit from the knowledge and capabilities of other actors. Although it is easier to accept by decision makers because control is retained by the company, the moderation of the relationship between actors and the legal agreements of collaboration and confidentiality are complex.
Throughout my experience I have found a balance between these approaches that has helped me reconcile the search for disruption with the reality of the available capabilities, always with the needs of users as a starting point. I call it the "Viable Innovation Workshop".
Viable Innovation Workshop
This exercise requires us to narrow down specific personas and contexts to work properly. Make sure that both are described from research with users, an “exercise of empathy” that will only project the biases and expectations of the stakeholders is useless.
When the business team tells us things like “we want to attract families with young children” or “we need to increase sales of small appliances” we also have an opportunity to align the exercise with business needs by focusing on the people and contexts implicit in these priorities.
Factor-by-factor analysis
Once we have defined what type of user we are going to put at the center of the exercise and in what contexts we will seek to add value, things get morte interesting.
We will start by identifying the needs that these people manifest in the chosen context. Write the learnings from research as statements, and add hypotheses as questions that you can evaluate later.
Next we list the existing capabilities, that is, the available resources and processes through which we can currently answer to users’ needs. Think about data or systems that you already have working, teams of people, established channels or even partnering companies. Again, use statements or questions to differentiate between what you know for sure and what you still have to confirm or think it would be desirable to develop.
Thirdly, we will explore technologies that could help us articulate solutions. Some will already be in use and could be applied to these contexts, and one more time these will be represented as statements. For technologies that are promising, ask questions that help explore the feasibility of their use. Here is when the technical team represented in the workshop can help understanding whats possible and whats wishful thinking, while considering costs and deadlines.
Finally, we will include the creative factor through a slightly different brainstorming session. We will start generating ideas in a traditional way, inspired by the work done so far, and using prompts to focus creativity on combinations of needs, abilities and technologies. For example, “how could we address [NEED] by combining [CAPACITY] with [TECHNOLOGY].” Finish by clustering and classifying the ideas into three groups: the viable ones are expressed as statements, the non-viable ones are discarded, and those that are in doubt are recorded as questions.
Before ending the session, make sure to assign the questions to attendees that will be responsible to find an answer, so that you reduce uncertainty and ensure you end up only with possibilities that are truly viable, according to the capacities that already exist and the technologies that within your reach.
Validation and value proposition
Of course, before continuing it is necessary to confirm that the possibilities can really solve the detected needs. You can do a first screening, comparing against research findings, but you should always perform a concept test with real users. It is also helpful to use all workshop output as a starting point for value proposition definition or revision.
Consideraciones éticas
Innovation can have a great impact on the world, but it is also important to consider the ethical and moral implications that may arise. It is vital to ensure that innovation not only benefits certain privileged groups, but that also takes into account diversity and inclusion. It is necessary to examine the possible positive and negative consequences of innovation, first minimizing the negative impacts and seeking criticism and feedback from people with different perspectives and experiences to improve the approach. Below are three key points to take into account in the ethical consideration of innovation:
- Examine the possible consequences of innovation, both positive and negative. It is important to understand the possible side effects and be prepared for them.
- Minimize the negative impacts of innovation first before maximizing positive impacts, especially when negative impacts are concentrated on specific groups.
- Seek criticism and feedback by sharing the idea with people who have different perspectives and experiences. This is the only way to face your own biases and ensure inclusion in innovation.
Overcoming innovation barriers
All this is very nice, but the reality is that any effort to innovate will face barriers along the way. A few years ago I wrote about the dilemma of the innovator, reflecting on the balance between risk of failure and becoming irrelevant. This risk aversion and the cultural resistance to change it causes are the most common barrier you will find, and is usually the result of a combination of factors: lack of incentives to innovate, fear of uncertainty, or aversion to loss of control. To overcome this barrier, I usually present the design process as a tool for managing uncertainty and generating growth opportunities. If you have access to previous cases, you can evaluate the success or generate learnings from the mistakes with which to reduce that uncertainty.
Another barrier to innovation is excessive short term thinking. Many companies focus on immediate results, which can prevent the development of innovative solutions that require time and resources. You can help solve it by presenting success stories from other companies to inspire and demonstrate the value of innovation, and benchmark how they manage to differentiate themselves from the market.
“Failure is a necessary step on the road to innovation.” — Clayton Christensen
Fear of failing can also be an obstacle to innovation. Clayton Christensen said that "Failure is a necessary step on the road to innovation," and yet many organizations see failure as something negative and leaders can feel it as a sign of weakness or incompetence. To get over this, it is a good idea to establish phases in which value is always generated, either in the form of learning or arguments based on which to determine next steps. The key here is how to verbalize the objective of each phase in a way that manages expectations in our favor.
Finally, an inspiring example
You don't always have to use the latest tech. There is basic technology that when combined with extra doses of creativity can conquer some of the great challenges of humanity. In 2017, the initiative of Manu Prakash, an engineer at Stanford University who had invented a folding cardboard microscope and a paper centrifuge, went viral. These are the two tools needed to diagnose malaria, and the combined cost of these inventions is 68 cents. By 2022, almost two million Foldscopes had been distributed in 160 countries, facilitating more than 1,200 public health projects in India alone.
I leave you with a TEDtalk by Manu explaining how he came to connect a long-time need with already existing capabilities and technologies.
References
- JOLY Pierre-Benoît, « Beyond the Competitiveness Framework? Models of Innovation Revisited », Journal of Innovation Economics & Management, 2017/1 (n° 22), p. 79–96. DOI : 10.3917/jie.pr1.0005. URL : https://www.cairn.info/revue-journal-of-innovation-economics-2017-1-page-79.htm
- Dyer, J. H. (2019). Innovation Capital: How to Compete-and Win-Like the World’s Innovative Elite. Harvard Business Review Press.
- PwC. (2021). Global Innovation Survey 2021. https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/innovation-survey-2021/assets/pdf/global-innovation-survey-2021.pdf
- McKinsey & Company. (2018). The State of Innovation: How Can Companies Break Through? https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-state-of-innovation-how-can-companies-break-through
- Christensen, C. M. (2013). The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Harvard Business Review Press.
