I don't think I've yet blurted this out here. But I am finding that I am saying more and more as I speak with senior management at companies acros the country looking to be more innovative.
CORPORATE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT IS BROKEN!
The primary reason it is broken is that we ask that "requirements be locked down and signed off" prior to starting development. Anyone who is halfway decent at innovation, that is developing something new that creates economic or social value, understands that one needs to shape a solution overtime. It can't be specified verbally in neat form prior to getting to work on making it. Its not only software that makes this mistake, but product developers as well who equate a specification with the product itself.
It is certainly not easy to change how we work on a daily basis. But it is clear from the enthusiastic responses I get from my Innovation Culture keynote presentation that people would like to try. Here are five ways to start bringing an innovative culture to your own organization:
1. Start by crafting a story of opportunity or challenge. Too many efforts start with an idea that someone wants to implement. Instead craft a story that creates a sense of opportunity and then work with others to have ideas that bring it to life.
2. Make your work tangible and live in it. Get out of email and Powerpoint and get your content up on the walls. Pictures, videos, sample products, ideas, prototypes. You should be surrounded by the content of your work. This is studio. New idea will form, chance observations by others, and a generally more engaged
I'm reading Howard Gardner's latest book, Five Minds for the Future. His premise is that we need to cultivate these minds to be successful in the future. The minds are: Disciplinary Mind (being good in at least one discipline), Synthesizing Mind (ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines), Creating Mind (ability to uncover new questions, ideas, and phenomena), Repsectful Mind (awareness and appreciation of the differences among human beings), and Ethical Mind (fulfilling one's responsibilities as a citizen.) It's a good read and very much related to my work with the Kellogg Foundation because it calls into question what we assume education is for. And while I haven't finished it yet, he seems to make a good case that our educational system is a bit out of date.
There is an exciting storm brewing that will change the way you think about education and career development. With Matter and students at the Institute of Design, I'm working on an amazing project for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation called New Options. The goal is to provide a new path and credential for out-of-school youth to find a career. Our work over the past 8 months has led to the concept of the Exposures Academy which I'll talk more about in another post. I'd just like to highlight the existing and newly released books that are all pointing in the same direction. The Adventures of Johnny Bunko by Daniel Pink is a Manga Style Career Guide. Six principles worth understanding about career path: 1) There is no plan;
Almost as compelling as the TED video archive, the Stanford Entrepreneurship Corner offers insightful videos from both well-known valley entrepreneurs and leaders as well as some not so well known ones. I recently found out about Steve Blank who authored "Four Steps to the Epiphany," a highly regarded book about guiding a successful startup. One idea that struck me right away is Steve's Customer Development Process.
As I explain to others what I am trying to accomplish in the book I'm writing, the notion of "the culture of innovation" seems to capture it. It feels right, but I'm not sure if it will resonate with people. Culture seems to be the right term -- better than what a lot of the innovation literature focus on which is process, method, techniques, etc. Those are important, but my primary hypothesis is that many companies fail to shape new offerings successfully not because they lack the knowledge or skills necessary, but because they lack the mindset and beliefs. So I finally had the chance to look up the definition of culture. Here it is from Wikipedia: "Culturegenerally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance."
The ultimate goal of my book, besides big sales and global fame, is to help people craft organizations that are better at innovation or creating new value. I believe it is mostly the culture in organizations, rather than the knowledge or talent of the people themselves, that is the primary barrier. I was reminded today while reading Clayton Christensen's new book, Disrupting Class, of how strong an impact the organization has on the shaping of new products and services. He was referencing Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine, the classic account of Data General's engineers designing and building a new generation computer in one year. They were hoping to compete with DEC and when they
Today, Google made their new browser official after Scott McCloud's visual introduction to their concept was apparently prematurely released. It is very interesting to me to see the pundits begin to question the intelligence of Google launching a browser and "reviving the browser war" before they've tried the product. Of course they have a 50-50 chance of being right ("success or failure"). But as any organization who is in the business of
One of the least discussed aspects of innovation is its economics. I'd like to suggest two key principles. The first is that successful innovations are insensitive to research & development costs. The second is implied from this first principle. You should invest significantly in defining your offering for the marketplace so that it's value is intuitively obvious to the customer BEFORE releasing it into development. Let's explore these two ideas a bit.
I have been listening to and re-listening to the audiobook version of James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of the Crowd. I'll be making a variety of posts that explore the key concepts of the book and why they are so relevant to creative work. Similar to other books like Innovator's Behavior or Made To Stick, most people hear about the notions or read quick synopses of them and may not understand the principles to a depth where they really apply them to their own work. In short, the Wisdom of the Crowd holds fundamental principles for anyone wishing to be a successful innovator. There are four essential qualities to "crowds" that make them good for certain kinds of problems. They are:
