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Ideation vs. Prioritization

Published date: August 2, 2008 в 7:30 pm

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Ideation or prioritization?  Imagine you had a choice of being really good at one, but not the other.  You could be a master at creating ideas, or you could excel at selecting winning ideas, but not both.  Which would you choose? 
Two things intrigue me about this trade-off.  First, companies spend too much time and energy prioritizing ideas and not enough on creating ideas.  Second, the innovation space seems to demand a completely different set of tools and techniques for selecting ideas than the tools and techniques used for making other business decisions.  In reality, there is no difference.  The tools used to make everyday business decisions should be the same ones used to prioritize ideas. 

I face this issue a lot when speaking about innovation.  “How do you select the best idea to pursue?  How do you know which idea is going to be the next blockbuster?  What is the secret to spotting great ideas?”   I just spoke to an outstanding group of MBA candidates at the Columbia Business School.   One of the students wanted to know my views on this.  It is as though I have a special eye or an innovation Magic Eightball for picking winners.  If you can unlock my formula, you will find the path to riches.  Not even close.

 

In my view, prioritization of ideas is not an innovation issue, and it does not belong in the discussion at all.  The problem of which idea to pursue from among a list of choices is a subject well covered by the behavioral decision sciences.  An amazing body of research exists in this field.  Researchers have described highly effective methods of choice that circumvent the inherent weaknesses of humans in making decisions.  The choices we make in the innovation space are no different.  The choice of which innovation to pursue should be approached the same way one decides on what clothes to wear or what person to marry:  1. consider the criteria that are important, 2. weight those criteria, 3. score each candidate on those criteria, 4. add up the results, and 5. let the chips fall where they are. The highest rated idea is the one you should pursue.  It’s that simple.

 

But innovation choices get special privileges over other choices.  We seem to require methods of choice that deserve royal treatment over other methods of choice.  A cottage industry within a cottage  industry has evolved to create a sense of uniqueness when in fact no uniqueness exists.  A wide variety of special tools have emerged to select and manage ideas.  The good news about many of these tools is that they have the right science built into them.  Here is a sample (from Innovation Tools – thanks, Chuck!)

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Accolade Idea Management
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Ameli
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BrainBank
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BrightIdea.com
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Cognistreamer Innovation Manager
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EGIP Idea-Modul
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Engage ThoughtWare
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Idea Management System
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Idea Reservoir
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IdeaBox
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IdeaCenter (Akiva)
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IdeasTracker
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IdeaValue
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Imaginatik
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Ingenuity Bank
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Insight Results
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Jenni Enterprise Idea Management
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OVO Innovation
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Prism Idea Management
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Target Idea Management for mySAP

Executives obsess over  finding the right method to select ideas when they should be more focused on how to generate ideas.  The zeal over prioritization puts a drag on the core issues surrounding innovation such as how to innovate and how to make it routine and part of the culture.   Why do executives sweat more over selecting ideas than generating?  My sense is they feel more accountable when choosing an idea than when generating the idea.  Generating an idea doesn’t carry with it any risk or obligation to spend.  Choosing an idea does both.  If companies want executives to put more priority on generating ideas, they will need to change this.

It is time to strip out this issue entirely from the innovation discussion.  Don’t mix the two.  Put the emphasis on a method to generate many great ideas and not on the method to choose the right one. For that, use the well-established science.  Just as Fortune 100 companies use the well established methods to innovate, we should use well established methods to prioritize innovations.

The LAB: Task Unification on a Guitar (July 2008)

Published date: July 26, 2008 в 11:52 am

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The suggestion from one of our readers (thanks, Erez!) is to use Task Unification on a guitar.  His  comment suggests that players have trouble keeping their guitars in tune when playing in a band.  They need to reduce the time it takes to re-tune between songs.  I liked this assignment because I play guitar, and I have a small collection of electric guitars, an acoustic guitar, and a banjo.  This will be the first time I have applied a systematic innovation process to invent new guitar concepts.  Let’s see what happens.
At least two guitar makers have addressed this with electric guitars.  Gibson has their Robot Guitar that automatically tunes itself to one of several tunings including “standard” (EADGBE) tuning.  Pull a knob, dial the tuning you want, and…presto…the guitar tunes itself.  Transperformance has their version, The Performer, which does the same but includes a clever LED on top of the guitar so you can actually track what is happening to each string.  Both have onboard computers and some sophisticated string management systems (pulleys and servos) to do this.   Here is the Robot Guitar in action:

While I consider this innovative, I see these as the traditional model of innovation:  IDENTIFY PROBLEM – FIND SOLUTION.  These guitars are cool, but they are heavily engineered and technology driven (I don’t plan to own one).  The elegance of the systematic approach is that it works in reverse: IDENTIFY SOLUTION – FIND PROBLEM THAT IS SOLVES.  This approach, in my experience, leads to simpler and thus more innovative ideas.  What would be amazing is to find solutions on the acoustic guitar without all the electronics and mechanisms inherent in electric guitars.  That is what I focused on for The LAB this month.
Task Unification is the template that assigns an additional job to an existing resource or component (either internal or external).  We start by listing the components of the product.  Here is the list I made this morning:

  1. pickguard
  2. sound hole
  3. fretboard
  4. frets
  5. bridge
  6. bridge pins
  7. dots
  8. nut
  9. strings
  10. tuners
  11. tuning pegs
  12. truss rod
  13. finish
  14. bracing

There are two tasks I want to assign, one-by-one, to each of these components:  knowing when a string is out of tune, and helping put the string back in tune…quickly.  So we phrase it this way:  “The pickguard has the additional job of knowing when the strings are out of tune.”  Then I try to imagine what the pickguard has to do to make that happen.  A more general way to innovate is to give the pickguard an additional job from a list of tasks, one-by-one, then imagining what problems that solves or what benefits that produces (using Function Follows Form).  This approach will yield a wide range of potential innovations beyond just tuning the guitar.
I came up with these ideas:
SJ-ph-LG For knowing when the guitar is out of tune:  the tuning pegs indicate when they have slipped (rotated due to the force of plucking the strings) or when the string has slipped.  It does this with some sort of pop-up indicator, perhaps gradually to the degree of slippage.  A quick scan of the tops of the tuning pegs could tell the player the status of each string independently and which ones are in most need of re-tuning.
SJ-bridge-LG For re-tuning the guitar quickly:  the bridge pins can be pushed in, perhaps in gradual notches, to place slightly more tension on a string to bring it in tune.  For playing in a band, this would be good enough until the player could use the tuners to do their regular job.  Another advantage is the bridge pins are nearest the right (strumming) hand so its convenient and unobtrusive to quickly push a bridge pin while playing.
Thank you for joining The LAB this month.  Your ideas and comments are welcomed.

The LAB: Demonstration of Task Unification (July 2008)

Published date: July 23, 2008 в 8:57 pm

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Welcome to The LAB.  This month, we will focus on Task Unification.  This tool is one of five templates in the S.I.T. method of innovation.  The tool works by taking a component of a product or service and assigning it an additional task or job.

What I need from one of our readers is:  a suggested product or service.  I will use this suggestion to apply Task Unification to innovate new embodiments.  Please post your suggestion in Comments below.  Innovation results will be posted shortly!

The LAB: Innovation in Real Time

Published date: July 23, 2008 в 8:47 pm

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The readership of this blog has steadily grown, and it’s time to start demonstrating how innovation works…in real time.  Once each month, I will post The LAB.   This is where we will use a specified innovation tool on a product or service that is suggested by one of you, the readers of this blog.

Once I have received a suggested product or service (posted in Comments) from one of you, I will use a specified innovation tool to create a new-to-the-world innovation.  I will show results in a subsequent post with a description of how I applied the tool and used each step of the process to create the innovation.  In some LABs, I may be able to include a drawing or rendering of the innovation.  We’ll start this month.

For those people interested in the innovation space, my firm belief is that we need to make a regular habit of innovating so we can perfect the craft and set the pace for others.  It is not enough to talk about and read about innovation.  It is essential that we all do it.

Innovation Stigma

Published date: July 13, 2008 в 4:02 pm

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There is an inherent bias against innovation despite the enormous value it holds for organizations.  Corporate executives know that innovation is the only true long term growth engine for their firm.  Yet innovation carries with it a certain stigma, a perception in the minds of executives, that it is “soft” and frivolous compared to other hard core business activities like productivity, quality, and demand generation.  This stigma deters executives from taking risk and investing in serious innovation initiatives.

The innovation industry itself is partly to blame.  Participants in the innovation space tend to perpetuate a mystique about innovation and creativity as though it is a deeply hidden secret that needs to be unleashed.  Walk into many innovation sessions and what you see are cans of Silly StringTM, Slinky(R) toys, Frisbees, and funny nose glasses.  The notion here is that people need to be more playful to have that “eureka” moment and invent the next blockbuster idea.  People are conditioned to believe innovation requires “skunk-works” in a specially-designed room to pursue “white space opportunities.”   Innovation is voodoo.

In an effort to differentiate themselves, participants in the innovation space create novel names for their programs and services.  Here is a very small sample: Innovations-Radar(R), Innovation Cube(R), Challenge AcceleratorTM, 360-IA(R), SpinnovatorTM, Idea BucketTM, AlphaStormingTM, Excursion DeckTM, Mindscan(R), IdeaSpring(R), Super Digilab(R), etc, etc.  The list is overwhelming and it tends to confuse the market.  More importantly, what is the efficacy of these tools?  Do they work?  The granddaddy of them all, Brainstorming, is certainly suspect given the many studies that suggest otherwise.

Is there an innovation bias?  I am polling Fortune 100 executives to describe the characteristics of people who champion certain business causes.  I ask them to describe the typical age, experience, credentials, aspirations, and personality of:

  • Productivity Champions
  • Process Excellence Champions
  • Innovation Champions
  • Leadership Champions
  • Brand Champions

The early feedback suggests innovation champions, compared to the others, are seen as more eager, altruistic “dreamers” who are out of touch with the business.  One executive described innovation champions as necessary but had low expectations of actual results.  Of more concern is the perception executives have about themselves in this role.  My sense is business people shy away from championing innovation because they believe the stigma of failing at innovation is more career-damaging than failing at other ventures.

The innovation industry needs to play a role in improving the image of innovation.  Fortunately, there are resources like Innovation Tools and CREAX that consolidate the innovation space and help companies make sense of the different offerings.  More prominence needs to be given to the classic researchers in innovation and creativity like Ronald Finke, Thomas Ward, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Jacob Goldenberg.  We need to get back to the basics of what makes innovation work so we can skip the hype.

The innovation bias has to be overcome if companies want to make progress and grow.  Leaders need to address this head on.  How?  Just as they learned to champion leadership by first becoming an authentic leader, they need to champion innovation by first becoming an authentic innovator.

Innovation Telltale

Published date: June 28, 2008 в 2:10 pm

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If you want innovation in your company, hire innovative people. But how do you know if someone is innovative?  What do you look for?  What telltale evidence might suggest that a person has superior innovation skills?

Several years ago, I ran a youth hockey league for ages 6 to 18.  A laborious part of this volunteer job was managing the selection of players for the elite travel teams.  Fifty or so boys would compete for twenty slots on one of 20 teams.  A group of coaches rated players on skating speed, puck handling, passing, and shooting.  As league commissioner, I attended each evaluation…that’s right…all them.  That’s 100 hours of evaluations plus many more hours tabulating the data, selecting players, and communicating with parents.

One year, I noticed something unusual in the data.  A bit of regression analysis of the evaluations told a remarkable story: every player selected on every team also happened to be the fastest skaters in their tryout pool.  In other words, we could have selected players with one simple variable, skating speed, instead of the tedious coaches’ ratings of multiple skills over multiple sessions.

I was shocked.  We could have done a simple race from one end of the rink to the other, about 10 seconds in duration, for the entire group of candidates at each age group.  The first twenty to cross the finish line make the team.  Skating speed was essentially a predictor of all other hockey skills.  It was a telltale of hockey success.  Fifteen minutes of time trials could predict with perfect success the best players for twenty teams instead of 100 plus hours of evaluations.  It could have been that simple.

What is the telltale of innovation?  I think I know the answer.  But, just as with the youth hockey experience, I will need to collect data to be sure.  My hypothesis is mental searching speed, an idea that Yoni Stern at S.I.T. taught me.  This is a measure of how well you “Google” your own mind and memory for information or experiences when given a task.  The task in the case of innovation is to take a Virtual Product (a mental abstract produced through the S.I.T. method), and mentally search your mind to find many productive, innovative uses for it.  Whoever can find the most ideas for a given task is more innovative in my view.  They “make the team.”

My task now is to select a different team – a team of research collaborators to find and validate the Innovation Telltale, something the Fortune 100 will surely value.

M&A Innovation

Published date: June 20, 2008 в 6:14 pm

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Relying on mergers and acquisitions for growth sends a signal that you don’t know how to innovate or how to manage it.  M&A has other problems, too.  Companies tend to overpay which actually destroys shareholder value.  At best, firms end up paying full value, neither better or worse off financially.  The firm grows in size, not value, and pays in the form of distraction.
What if you could use the tools and processes of innovation in mergers and acquisitions?  How could it help?  Would you select acquisition targets better?  Could it help understand the valuation better so you get a better deal?  Might it help you implement better?  I believe innovation techniques could be applied to all three. Here is one example: targeting – deciding who to buy.
Imagine you are the CEO of a bank, perhaps headquartered in Europe.  You and the other board members have decided its time to deliver more value to the shareholders by growing the business. You decide to
acquire another bank with all the spare cash you have accumulated (rather than just give it to its rightful owners.) The question is: which bank?  Should we buy one in Europe to expand our share while eliminating a competitor?   Should we expand to the U.S. market and buy one there?  Should we buy a struggling bank, get it cheap, and restore it to profitability?
No, no, no. Too simple and obvious.  Nothing innovative here at all.  Let’s instead apply the Subtraction Tool from Systematic Inventive Thinking and see how we can re-frame the question.  Start by listing the components of your bank.

  1. Employees
  2. Customers
  3. Assets
  4. Property plant and equipment
  5. Brand
  6. Systems
  7. Management

Now, one at a time, let’s remove a component, then ask ourselves which bank we should acquire.  Imagine you had no customers. You still have all the other components, just no customers.  What bank could you
acquire that had the ideal customer base for YOUR bank given what it’s all about?  Would you want customers who were more diverse, higher income, more profitable, lower cost to serve, more loyal, etc?  In other words, acquire a bank that delivers the perfect complement of customers.  Now remove employees.  You have all the other components, just no staff.  Now what bank would you buy?  Which has the ideal employee base for who you are?  Would you go after employees who are smarter, less costly, more diverse, younger, older, etc?
The same process, done for each component in succession, gives you a whole new innovative perspective on who to acquire.  It helps you understand why you are buying, what you are getting, and how you
expect to create new value and competitiveness.  It helps you understand The Bet – what the deal is really all about.
M&A is an expensive way to grow.  By adding the gift of innovation to the process, shareholders stand a better chance of seeing more value.

Social Innovation

Published date: June 7, 2008 в 11:05 am

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Web 2.0 social tools are swelling all around us, and the Fortune 100 are embracing them for two purposes – managing and engaging the internal employee base and managing and engaging the external customer base.  Wikis, blogs, mashups, and social networks will improve productivity, connectivity, knowledge transfer, and ultimately profitability if deployed correctly.
What about innovation?  Can the Web 2.0 environment increase, enable, accelerate, and deepen innovation within companies?  I am impressed with the emergence of tools such as Wridea and others that have taken on the challenge.  But I have yet to see one that works effectively.  I am trying to figure out why.  Are these applications using the wrong innovation tool or process?  Do they have an effective innovation process, but deploy it incorrectly?  Or, are people not using the application in an optimal way?
I experimented with online innovation about five years ago, about the time MySpace was introduced.  I used an online learning platform (eCollege 4.0) with a group of colleagues, and we tried to create new products within the health care space.  We used Systematic Inventive Thinking as the innovation process, and we structured the “event” over a four week period of time.  The goal was to invent new products without ever meeting face-to-face using asynchronous communications online.  I called it O.P.I.E for short – Online Product Innovation Exchange.
Here is how it worked.  Using simple threaded postings, a member of the group suggested an existing product as a starting point.  Another member took that product and listed the components of it.  Then, each member would select one of the components to work on.  Their job was to use one of the five templates of the S.I.T. method and create a virtual product.  They had to post these virtual products in a separate area of the online site.  Then, other members would review their suggested virtual products and use “Function Follows Form” to envision a viable use or benefit of the virtual product.  It was classic S.I.T. in an online, asynchronous environment.  The result?
O.P.I.E. was a miserable failure.  It generated few ideas, nothing really original, and it was frustrating for the participants.  I struggled with why for a long time.  Was it the wrong process, people, or platform?  As I have learned more about social media and Web 2.0 and how people really use and experience this environment, I am beginning to understand why.  All three aspects of O.P.I.E. – the process, people, and platform – needed some modification for this to work effectively.  Here is what I would do differently.
For social innovation to work, the platform has to be optimized for this purpose.  I had used a platform that was intended for traditional online learning, and it lacked the tools to properly facilitate the exchange and touchpoints needed for innovation.  The optimal platform needs to do a few things better.  For example, the site needs to notify other members when a virtual product has been posted.  With O.P.I.E., too much time elapsed in the asynchronous mode, and members were not sure when to login to check what was going on.  Other members would get frustrated because nothing seemed to be happening.  If members were notified, Twitter-like, that a new virtual product was available, they could engage the process more efficiently and all at once to create a flurry of ideas for discussion.  Secondly, the site needs to allow richer descriptions of virtual products.  This could be done either visually where participants somehow draw the virtual product, or audibly where participants leave a short, recorded description on the site for others to hear, either online or via their cell phone.  This would promote a richer response in the form of innovative uses and benefits of the virtual product.
What about the process and people?  I am still working on this, but I believe changes are needed in both.  The inherent flow of innovation is correct within the S.I.T. method, but I wonder if there are perhaps certain templates that are better suited for the online environment.  Also, there needs to be more work done in how the process is facilitated online and how expectations are set for the participants.  What components do they work on?  What virtual products do they respond to? How many ideas do they generate?  How many other ideas do they attempt to modify or improve?
Social innovation is promising.  It will reduce the cost of innovation and the time commitment allowing companies to innovate more often.  But the big win is the same as what many other Web 2.0 applications bring – it will greatly expand the numbers and diversity of participants.  This will yield more original ideas and innovations than ever before.

Innovation Muscle

Published date: May 18, 2008 в 12:37 pm

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The best Fortune 100 companies see innovation as an ongoing capability, not a one time event.  These companies work hard to build muscle around this capability so they can deploy it when they need it, where they need it, tackling their hardest problems.  Companies do this to keep up with the ever changing landscape both inside and outside the firm.
What does it mean to build innovation muscle?  I think of it as the number of people trained, the frequency of using an innovation method, and the percentage of internal departments that have an innovation capability.  Call it an Innovation Muscle Index:  N (number of trained employees) x F (number of formal ideation events per year using a method) x P (percent of company departments with at least one employee trained in an effective innovation method).   IMI = N x F x P .
Building innovation muscle is not much different than building body muscle.  Let’s turn to an authority, http://www.muscleprogram.com/, and see how to build body muscle.  Here is an exact quote taken from that website.  Then I have overlaid my interpretation of it from an innovation point-of-view in parenthesis and in bold font.

“You need to decide what kind of (innovation) muscle form you’re looking to achieve. Drawing on examples nearly everyone is familiar with, you need to decide if you want to look like Arnold (GE) Schwarzenegger (bigger bulk) or Bruce (Apple) Lee (lean and toned). This decision will help you determine which kinds of exercises you do and how you do them.

Now, with all of that out of the way, let’s look at some things you can do to build your (innovation) muscles!
If you don’t already, start getting your body (company) used to working out. Start running (innovating) every day, not jogging (brainstorming) or walking (copying others), to help get your blood (growth) moving and your (innovation) muscles primed for building. You’re not running a race so you don’t need to be a speed demon. Instead, maintain a comfortable and steady pace, taking long and powerful strides (initiatives).
If you want to have the lean, Bruce (Apple) Lee appearance, you need to work with lighter weights and have a higher number of repetitions (innovation workshops) in each set. By doing this, you are toning and shaping your (innovation) muscles into longer and thinner forms. If you want the Arnold (GE) look, you need to work heavier weights (more departments using innovation) and do fewer repetitions. By doing this, you are toning and shaping your (innovation) muscles into short and thicker forms.
Ensure that you have a regular plan, focusing on specific (innovation) muscle groups, and stick to it. Don’t try to work every (innovation) muscle in your body every day of the week. At best, this will lead to burnout (budget crunch) and at worst it will lead to injury (downsizing). Your (innovation) muscles will be getting worked hard, so they need to have time to recuperate.
However, you should rotate your plan every month. For example, let’s say that you are working on your chest, shoulders and biceps (new products) on Monday; your abdomen, forearms and upper back (new services) on Wednesday; and your lower back and legs (new strategies) on Friday. Every four weeks, rotate one day so that you’ll be working on your lower back and legs on Monday; your chest, shoulders and biceps on Wednesday; and your abdomen, forearms and upper back on Friday. The following month, rotate one more day.
This will allow each of your (innovation) muscle groups to take advantage of the fact that you probably workout differently on each of those days. If you simply stick with the exact same schedule forever, then you’ll find yourself quickly running into what are known as “plateaus,” where you just can’t seem to build that (innovation) muscle group past a certain point. With a rotation schedule, you will avoid this problem by giving each (innovation) muscle group the benefit of your natural changing body (company) rhythm.
If you keep these general guidelines in mind and consistently work at your plan with passion and intensity, your body (company) will be more toned (competitive) and shaped (growing) than you ever imagined it could be. While it won’t happen overnight, it probably won’t take as long as you’re afraid it will.”

Innovation Diagnostic

Published date: May 4, 2008 в 11:37 am

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Professor Keith Sawyer makes a useful connection between innovation and learning when he writes, “What both innovation and learning have in common is adaptability and improvisationality.”  He connects this idea with authors Joaquín Alegre and Ricardo Chiva from the Sloan Management Review.  They identified five core features of high organizational learning capability (OLC) companies: experimentation, risk taking, interaction with the external environment, dialogue, and participative decision making.  Keith has found that these five characteristics also hold true of organizations that use the power of collaboration to generate innovation.  He believes that organizations high in learning ability are more likely to be innovative organizations.
I am inclined to agree.  The reality though for many organizations is that they may be missing one or more of these characteristics.  Yet they still must innovate to grow.  What would be truly useful is a rigorous innovation diagnostic based on these five characteristics.  This diagnostic could help a company identify where it is weak and where it needs to focus attention and resources.  Here is how it might work.
Experimentation:  The authors define this as the degree to which new ideas and suggestions are dealt with sympathetically by the organization.  Measure this in several ways: the budget dollars spent on designing and running experiements, the amount of new ideas generated, and the percentage of those ideas that challenge the established order as described by Alegre and Chiva.  My observation is that organizations see the value of experimenting more during the hard times than the good times.  Therefore, measuring this characteristic over time would be most useful.
Risk Taking:  Measure employees in terms of their tolerance for ambiguity using established testing methods.  Measure organizational risk-taking in terms of the internal rate of return of projects initiated and rejected.  My observation is that organizations take too little risk not because they cannot bear it from a portfolio point-of-view, but rather from an individual career risk point-of-view.  People, not organizations, are afraid to fail.  They play “not to lose.”
Interaction with the External Environment:  The authors define this as the scope of relationships with factors that are beyond the direct control or influence of the organization and include competitors, the economic system, the social system, the monetary system and the political/legal system.  Measure this by the amount of money spent on direct contact with these entities.  Also measure the resources spent to collect information about them.  What is the net aggregage spend on issues external to the firm?  My observation is that firms tend to be very good at observing and monitoring the external world, but few are excellent at interacting with it.  That is the key to leveraging it for innovation.
Dialogue:  Dialogue is a way of spreading information and skills throughout an organization, and it helps create multiple viewpoints.  Measure both the speed, volume, and fidelity of information as it spreads through the firm.  Do this by taking a new issue as it emerges and systematically studying its diffusion.  Identify the information pathways, both formal and informal.  My observation is that firms are improving here.  They see the value in teaching employees how to 1. establish their internal network, then 2. use systematic persuasion principles to influence and change the firm.
Participative Decision Making:  This refers to the level of influence employees have in the decision- making process.  Measure employee satisfaction, motivation, and degree to which they feel involved and engaged.  The Q12 Assessment might be an effective measurement tool in this area.  My observation is that firms have gotten pretty good at this because it correlates to other success factors, not just innovation.
Alegre and Chiva note that these five characteristics combine to create an excellent snapshot of an organization’s OLC. They suggest that an organization can use surveys and other internal metrics as a way of measuring its ability to learn and innovate. If an organization measures an improvement in its learning capability, it will very likely see a concurrent increase in innovation.

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