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Report 103
Your newsletter on applied creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in
business – delivered to your e-mail box on the first and third Tuesday
of every month.
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Issue 136
Hello and welcome to another issue of Report 103, your fortnightly newsletter
on creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business.
As always, if you have news about creativity, imagination, ideas, or innovation
please feel free to forward it to me for potential inclusion in Report103.
Your
comments and feedback are also always welcome.
Information on unsubscribing, archives, reprinting articles, etc can be found
at the end of this newsletter.
THE ABC'S OF INNOVATION
The other night at a dinner, I met a young scientist involved in cutting edge
research in... well, she said she'd have to kill me if I told anyone about her
project. She is working on a patent - so let's just say she is involved in some
very interesting health related research. As she described her work, I realised
the approach had many parallels to business innovation and, indeed, both scientific
research and business innovation could be -- in very simplified terms -- described
as an ABC model, in which:
A = the problem or challenge
B = one or more viable solutions to A
C = the goal
The Scientific Approach
Most scientific research, very broadly, has points A and C in place. The researcher
has a clear understanding of the problem as well as an envisaged goal in mind.
These are usually very closely related. For instance, a researcher might be
looking for a vaccine against cooties (and imaginary illness that US children
joke about: http://www.answers.com/cooties). Moreover, she probably has a hypothesis
about some methods that are likely to solve her problem. Perhaps she believes
a synthetic vaccine using peptides might be the solution.
Her challenge or (A) is simply: "How might we create a vaccine against
cooties using synthetic peptides?" And her goal or (C) is closely related:
a viable synthetic vaccine against cooties.
Unlike you and I, the expert cooties research scientist has a deep understanding
of the disease and hence which peptide combinations might be used as the basis
of a vaccine. With her knowledge she forms a hypothesis of which peptides are
most likely to work and then experiments, very possibly by introducing peptides
to cultures of cooties and monitoring the results. If she finds a peptide which
works in this way, she can apply more sophisticated testing to it, perhaps with
animals and eventually even with humans.
The Business Innovation Approach
Ideally in business innovation, we also start with a problem or challenge (A)
and a goal (C). For instance, we may wish to make our widgets more attractive
to middle aged men. Hence we start with
A = How might we make our widgets more attractive to middle aged men and;
C = Increased sales of widgets to middle aged men.
In order to get from A to C, the business manager seeking solutions needs to
generate ideas. She can do this by trying to generate ideas herself; by applying
tried and tested -- an hence not very innovative -- solutions; or by running
an idea generation activity such as brainstorming or an ideas campaign.
Once she has generated a number of ideas, she will typically evaluate them
against a set of criteria as a first step. In a sense, this is similar to developing
one or more hypotheses. Promising ideas will then be further tested through
business case development, prototype construction, market research and other
procedures. This is like the scientist's testing of solutions.
An Interesting Difference
An interesting difference between the scientific approach to problem solving
and the business approach is that the scientist normally plans to try numerous
variations of a solution and expects that most of those variations will not
work. However, she learns from each solution that does not work and that facilitates
her finding a solution that does work.
In the business environment, on the other hand, the evaluations and business
case development are designed to pare down the various possible solutions to
one or very few viable solutions that are tested -- and expected to work. As
a result the riskiest -- but potentially the most radically innovative ideas
-- are not tested and therefore are unlikely to be implemented. This obviously
hinders innovation.
This implies that managers avoid testing riskier ideas for fear that they might
fail. And in my experience this is true. However, it is the riskiest ideas that,
when implemented, have the greatest innovation potential. Thus we can assume
that if managers were more willing to invest in testing ideas that had a high
risk of failure, they would be more likely to discover significantly more innovative
ideas and more effective solutions.
The ABCs of Innovation
The A B C Model of innovation also demonstrates why open suggestion scheme
are so inefficient. With A B C, you have a clearly defined challenge (A) and
goal (C), your ideation is focused on generating ideas that take you from A
to C. This focus not only makes it easier for you and others to generate ideas,
but -- crucially -- makes it easier to combine, evaluate and test related ideas
in order to develop the best possible solution to a problem.
With an open suggestion scheme, you fail to define A, B and C. As a result,
each idea generator has to define an A and a C in her mind in order to suggest
a B. Often, the idea generators will not even tell the suggestion scheme organisers
what their As and Cs are and only share their Bs. This means that ideas are
often unclear, respond to multiple problems and are very time consuming to evaluate
since each idea usually has to be evaluated individually rather than in context
of multiple solutions to a specified problem.
Returning to the scientific example, imagine the cooties researcher decides
she just wants to discover something. So she mixes chemicals, sees what happens
and then tries a completely different mixture of chemicals without any set system
or structured testing process. Of course it is possible she will discover something.
But even if she does, she may not recognise its value because she has not defined
a problem or goal.
Sometimes A and B Take You to D
An intriguing side effect of the ABCs of innovation is that sometimes the application
of solution B to problem A leads to a different result than your expected goal.
In other words, your goal is C, but when solution B is applied to problem A,
it becomes clear that the implementation of solution B would result in something
unexpected - let's call it alternative goal D.
The natural reaction in such a situation is to reject that particular solution
and try another oen. However, I would argue that it is worth making a note of
the unusual result and save it for further evaluation later. It may well transpire
that goal D is a desirable, if unexpected goal.
A good example of this scenario occurred in the late 1960s. A scientist named
Spencer Silver was experimenting with ideas to develop a strong adhesive. However,
one batch of chemicals was quite the opposite, it was significantly weaker than
existing adhesives. In such circumstances, most business managers would have
disposed of the solution and tried another one. However, Spencer realised that
his alternative solution (B) might lead to an alternative goal (D) and so he
kept the solution and its notes. When he had time, he experimented with his
weak adhesive and shared it with colleagues. Eventually, that weak adhesive
became to sticky solution on the back of Post-It notepaper.
In summary, innovation is as easy as A-B-C except, of course, when it is A-B-D!
CONTROLLING BRAINSTORMING EVENTS
Managing a brainstorming event is a lot trickier than it seems. It is not simply
a matter of posting a challenge on a whiteboard and asking for ideas. Indeed,
a study carried out at Yale University 50 years ago compared the results between
two different groups of people. One group generated ideas to solve a problem
as a group using traditional brainstorming rules. The other group followed the
same rules, but each member generated ideas individually by listing them on
a sheet of paper rather than as part of a brainstorming group. The results were
shocking! It was found that the individuals generated nearly twice as many unique
ideas as the brainstorming groups! Even when the ideas were evaluated, the groups
of individuals had more better ideas than the brainstorming groups. Similar
research over the years has confirmed this.
This doesn't mean that brainstorming doesn't always work. Rather that it is
a lot harder to run an effective brainstorming event than people realise. And
when an inexperienced facilitator is put in charge, particularly if she is an
employee managing her colleagues, the results are almost certain to be poor.
It is important to bear in mind that certain models of brainstorming are in
fact very effective. On-line brainstorming and its more sophisticated cousin,
idea management by ideas campaign, can be very effective because although there
are many participants, they are all entering their ideas individually via a
web interface. In other words they are essentially acting like the individuals
in the Yale study.
Also, non-verbal or visual brainstorming, in which ideas are developed in the
form of models, images or other non-verbal form can be very effective (see http://www.jpb.com/creative/visual_brainstorming.php).
However, sometimes you simply need to run a verbal brainstorming event. If
so, you need to manage it well in order to ensure that you get the best results
from a less than optimal idea generation approach.
Controlling the Method
The first thing a facilitator has to do when preparing a brainstorming event
is to design an effective method. If it can be done on-line or non-verbally,
go for it! If not, ensure that participants get a chance to work individually
as well as in groups.
A method I like to use is to start with group participants working individually.
Present them with a challenge and give them time to make their own lists of
ideas. After a set period of time, perhaps 15 minutes, pair participants up
and have them combine lists and add additional ideas the two people devise.
Then get the pairs to work in foursomes and finally have each foursome present
their results to the entire group while the facilitator notes down all unique
ideas on a white board. This is followed by additional idea generation inspired
by the shared ideas. Such an approach combines individual idea generation with
collaborative idea generation and can be effective.
Using Post-Its and having participants stick their ideas to a wall can also
be effective, although I find that this approach lacks the collaborative element
and pushes participants to begin evaluating ideas at a relatively early stage.
But this may just be my personal prejudice.
Whatever model you use, it is important to ensure that you can combine individual
idea generation with group work.
Controlling Participants
A lot of facilitators have trouble controlling participants in a brainstorming
event. Let's look at some key problems that can crop up in brainstorming events.
Problem 1: Squelching
The most serious problem is when one or more brainstormers criticises an idea.
Something I like to call "squelching" because when you criticise an
idea in a brainstorming event, it tends to push down not only the idea suggester,
but also other members in the group who interpret the criticism as meaning unusual
ideas are not welcome.
Because squelching is an unusual word, I tend to put a big "No Squelching"
sign up in the room. I explain the word and its meaning. Then, the moment I
hear or see a hint of squelching, I remind everyone in the room that squelching
is absolutely forbidden. This is done in a very firm voice, but with a smile
on my face.
But, if the facilitator is an employee of a company running an in-house brainstorming
event and the squelcher is a superior in the company hierarchy, the former will
find it difficult to reprimand the latter. And this happens often. Even if the
facilitator is an experienced outsider, she may find it difficult to demand
a senior manager or her contact in the client company behave better.
Nevertheless, it is critical the squelching is nipped in the bud. Otherwise
the brainstorming won't be effective and the facilitator may well end up taking
the blame for the poor results!
Problem 2: Not Following Instructions
Another problem which crops up in brainstorming events from time to time is
brainstormers not following instructions. This most often happens when the brainstormers
are not clear about what the facilitator wants and, rather than ask, they follow
the example of other members of the group who are equally unclear. For instance,
the facilitator may ask everyone to write down their own ideas before working
in groups. Some people nevertheless start talking about their ideas and soon
the whole room is filled with the rumble of discussion. This will almost inevitably
destroy the individual idea generation phase the facilitator was aiming for.
Many facilitators are reluctant to scold individuals or the entire group and
will let the wrong behaviour continue rather than ask the group to follow instructions.
However, if the group do not follow instructions at an early stage, the facilitator
loses her authority, it will be increasing difficult to control the group as
time goes on and the results may well not be what are expected.
Hence the facilitator needs to be sure her instructions are clear and that
they are being followed. If not, she must demand that the group follows instructions.
In some cases, a member of the group may ask the facilitator if a different
approach to the facilitator's may be used. For instance, if the facilitator
wants people to write down their own ideas individually, a participant may ask
"can we just share our ideas right now? That's how we usually do it!"
Again, the insecure facilitator may be too quick to agree. Instead she has to
evaluate the request and if it is viable, she can consider it. If she is not
sure, she should refuse it.
Here's an example of an acceptable modification: the facilitator asks people
to write their ideas down. A participant asks: "may we write our ideas
in mind-map form?" such a request will not affect the overall idea generation,
but will help the individual think better and so can be approved.
Problem 3: Keeping on Focus
Although it is important to permit brainstormers to think freely during the
idea generation phase of the process, it is likewise important to keep them
on focus during preparations and post ideation discussion, evaluation and action
plans. The good facilitator needs to recognise when the discussion is getting
too far from the focus and needs to bring it back again. This can often be done
with a "that's fascinating, but it's getting a bit far from the topic at
hand. Can we get back to it later and focus on...?"
Problem 4: Maintaining Motivation
Related to keeping a focus, another problem that can face the inexperienced
facilitator is motivating the group to generate ideas. However, methods of motivation
is a topic that is way too big for this article. The best advice I can give
is to be prepared. Come to the event with a list of conversation starters, inspirational
suggestions and a sense of humour. Most importantly, ensure that you as the
facilitator are motivated. Because if you are not, your brainstormers will sense
that and feel less than motivated themselves.
Wrapping It all up
Facilitating a brainstorming event is a challenge weighted against your success.
As facilitator, the most important rule to bear in mind is that you are in control
and you have to maintain that control even if it means reprimanding your superior,
your client or a friend. But as facilitator, the brainstormers expect you to
take control. Take advantage of that and you dramatically increase your likelihood
of success.
JENNI IDEA MANAGEMENT
Have you been impressed recently by a clever new snack food product? Do you
like the fact that snack foods are becoming healthier and more nutritious? You
may be surprised to learn that a leading snack food manufacturer has been using
Jenni idea management as a key component of their research division's innovation
process. By running ideas campaigns focusing on key product issues like new
flavour combinations, making their foods healthier without reducing flavour
and even new packaging concepts, this company continually keeps ahead of the
competition and remains a global leader in their field.
If you'd like to learn how Jenni can help you develop new products, improve
existing products and cut operational costs throughout your firm; check out
www.jpb.com/jenni/ -- or send me an e-mail at jeffreyb@jpb.com to arrange a
discussion. We're helping more and more companies around the world increase
their profit margins through idea management.
LATEST IN BUSINESS INNOVATION
If you want to keep up with the latest news in business innovation, I recommend
Chuck Frey's INNOVATIONweek (http://www.innovationtools.com/News/subscribe.asp).
It's the only e-newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on all of the latest innovation
news, research, trends, case histories of leading companies and more. And it's
the perfect complement to Report 103!
Happy thinking!
Jeffrey Baumgartner
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