Peter Sims in "Little Bets" - http://www.amazon.com/Little-Bets-Breakthrough-Emerge-Discoveries/dp/1439170428/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328294549&sr=1-1
- argues that innovation rarely results from the ground breaking big idea from a clear vision of a final outcome. Instead remarkable results arise out of a series of small, experimental steps that indicate a promising direction. Here innovation is the outcome of lots of little failures, fast learning that suggest better alternatives and a recognition of better approaches.
In pursuing innovation:
Drew Boyd maps out the key sequence of a pilot to keep costs down and reduce resistance when testing out new ideas:
http://www.innovationinpractice.com/innovation_in_practice/2011/04/innovation-pilot.html
Make the case. If we can’t build a compelling argument for the pilot, maybe we should rethink the power of our ideas.
Build the base. Here elicit support from other work areas, accepting that some functions and departments may see our ideas as a potential threat. Win over those work areas that can connect to the idea. Without the backing of a few peers we run the risk of the "lone wolf" who becomes exposed if the pilot flops.
Select a method. This is the hard part of establishing a process that represents a genuine test of the impact and value of our ideas.
Choose the consultant. Here it can be useful to engage external expertise and experience to test the innovation method. It also provides an objective perspective to establish credibility.
Recruit the team. Bring together a cross functional group to participate in the pilot with members that ideally comprise a third commercial, a third technical, and a third customer facing.
Measure and share. Develop a factual and credible story of what happened in the pilot. At this stage sophisticated outcome measures are unrealistic. Focus on the only metric that matters at this stage: would the team leader in the pilot group recommend this innovation to other colleagues?
Make it stick. How should the pilot be rethought or extended to maintain momentum for the innovation?Greg Satell reviews Clayton Christensen’s approach to innovation and suggests there are surprisingly few consistent principles to guide innovation. http://www.digitaltonto.com/2011/5-principles-of-innovation/
1. Think small. A big success doesn’t seem to start from any one big idea. Instead its origins may be modest. A small idea pursued with commitment is better than any grandiose
concept to contrive the next big invention.
2. Disruptive innovations are crappy. Disruptive innovation doesn’t emerge "out of nowhere to upend an entire industry". It’s a lot messier than that. Like Canon and Ricoh who almost took Xerox out of the game by providing inferior copies that were smaller and cheaper, disruptive innovation occurs when a product or service appeals to customers the established players have neglected.
3. Innovation is combination. Rarely is innovation the outcome of a brilliant revelation. Important breakthroughs happen when ideas from different domains are integrated and synthesized.
4. Passion and perseverance are key. What looks like creative brilliance is typically the outcome of much disciplined endeavour over time.
5. The 70/20/10 portfolio. 70% of the organisation’s efforts should be directed at taking your competitors’ money; 20% allocated to taking somebody else’s money (typically your customers and suppliers), and 10% at something that is genuinely new. It is the "mundane stuff that makes breakthrough innovations possible. Without that you just have a bunch of wild ideas that you’ll never be able to see through."PsyBlog recommends seven research based tools to improve our creativity:
http://www.spring.org.uk/2010/03/boost-creativity-7-unusual-psychological-techniques.php
If we feel we’re stuck and our creativity is blocked, try any one or variation of the following:
1. Psychological distance
Jia et al http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103109001267 found that creativity was enhanced when individuals imagined the task as distant and disconnected from their current location.
2. Fast forward in time
Forster et al http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0022-3514.87.2.177
found that individuals who projected themselves forward in time to imagine their future selves were more insightful in generating creative problems.
3. Absurdist stimulation
Proulx et al http://pss.sagepub.com/content/20/9/1125 asked participants to read an absurd short story before completing a pattern recognition, finding that the readers of the story did better in recognising hidden patterns. When we’re faced with absurdity our minds have to work harder to find meaning.
4. Use bad moods
Although confidence and a positive frame of mind help creativity, negative emotions can also trigger creative insights. George & Zhou http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&uid=2007-10536-009
found that an enhancement in creativity when feelings were running high - positively and negatively.
5. Combining opposites
"Janusian thinking" (from the many faced Roman god, Janus) requires us to accommodate competing perspectives and incorporate simultaneous opposites. It was this flexibility that helped "Niels Bohr to conceive the principle of complementarity in quantum theory (that light can be analysed as either a wave or a particle, but never simultaneously as both)".
6. Path of most resistance
It’s useful to build on existing ideas to make creative progress. But if we’re searching for genuine originality we might be better to take the road "less well traveled".
When people try to be creative they usually take the path of least resistance by building on
7. Re-conceptualisation
We often move to solutions before we’ve thought through the fundamentals of the problem. When forced to reframe the issues and express the problem from different perspectives we generate higher quality ideas.