A non-technical guide to continuous process of innovation.

Innovation

Innovation is a word that represent a very global concept.  But like many other concepts – meaning of this word also changed, evolved over time. Even at some point in time in history(16th century or so) it was considered as a negative term which was associated with efforts to rewrite religious texts.  During the period of beginning of industrial revolution this word started to get associated with technological inventions and advancements.

General definition of innovation is that it’s a mental process of creating something new.  However, there is also debates and reshaping of this definition as creativity is thought about something new – there is also another challenge which is relevant in today’s fast changing world which is ability to get the new ideas adopted and influence business.

German inventor Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press sometime between 1440 and 1450. This changed the world greatly – by means of ability to document and spread information. It affected the ways in which innovations could be recorded.

We are in a similar situation right now. We do have so much of information available to us and in today’s world the concept of innovation is evolving much faster than we think. Infact lots of innovations happening on the area of “how to innovate better” and “how to make an innovation result in successful business” or even “is this matter to my organization and the world”.

Ideation

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it”. Michelangelo 

Ideation is the process in which new mental models are created.  In reality there can be infinite categories of ideation types – however usually for defining a process I have seen that there can be 3 categories – 

Incremental:  These are improvements in an already established context. 

Substantial:  Such ideas adds value to the scope of an existing context, in away expands the contextual scope.

Disruptive:  Such thoughts generally change how the world works and creates a new context itself.

General Strength of team work

Ideation is the result of creativity and again its generally difficult to define creativity.  However, you could usually see that it happens in the intersection of your  

a) expertise. 

b) creative thinking and 

c) motivation.   

When you lack any of these dimensions you could bring the value by having more people in your team who can enlighten you with those dimensional thoughts. 

My personal experience is when you have heterogenous experience in the team – the innovativeness of the discussion increases. You may be talking about a problem statement in ecommerce and the team member with hybrid cloud experience might be able to connect with something in that territory.

How should you disclose your ideas effectively?

You should generally touch below 4 dimensions to keep it effective, whether its for IP and patenting or even to do some demonstration of your product innovation ideas to leadership

1.     Explain the problem and why prior arts cannot affectively solve it

2.     Convey value to your organization/company and the world.

3.     Novelty

4.     Prove the idea is implementable. 

These are the fundamental dimensions you should take care of and there may be other aspects; but if your work is grounded and strong on these points there is a high chance of successful innovation that matters

Problem Statement & Prior art analysis

The default assumption should be that – we are the only ones who know exactly what the problem is. So it needs a structured way to communicate it clearly to a third party

Domain:   We should clearly mention whets the technical domain of the problem

Example: Clear and concrete example of a problem. Explain a problem that exists in the domain. 

DO NOT PROVIDE THE SOLUTION YET AND DON’T TALK ABOUT IT YET.  Its like an organic growth.  We must be patient with our idea and its natural growth lifecycle.

Prior art Analysis:   Thoroughly do a prior art analysis even outside the domain. Make sure that there exists no patents/publications or similar solution that is available in public domain or even known within the organization.  

Prior arts can be of 3 types generally.

a.     Usual Prior arts:  Prior arts that are solving the problem may be in different way.

b.     Conflicting prior arts: Prior arts that’s solving the problem in a better or similar manner as compared to your idea

c.     Supplementary Prior arts: Prior art that will make your idea implementable without losing the novelty.

(a)   And (c) allows to strengthen your claims and the novelty of your idea.  If you find (b) you need to work more on the novelty side of your idea.

How to check whether you should proceed?

If you are able to document problem statement and prior art analysis successfully and able to clearly see the value – you must stop at nothing

Usually, you are the biggest judge of your own ideas.  Never underestimate and shoot down your own/your team’s ideas.   Even if you see conflicting prior arts – keep digging – you will figure out an altogether new idea may be even in a different domain.

Documenting the solution

There is no hard and fast rule that it should be done in a particular way. But looking at all the problem statements I have worked on I could say that generally it can have

a)     Summary:  If your idea is getting productized – how will you introduce that product. This is like the trailer of your solution.  Usually problem statement and summary hits the review committee/leadership. 

b)    Detailed solution:   You should have all the details here related to you idea

a.     System – it can be explained as an elaboration of existing system – for eg: Service Mesh

b.     Methods – Novel methods that you want to claim as your invention.  If it’s a patent these claims must stand legally.  If its product innovation – these claims must be unique and improve the market value of your product among the competitions

c.     Implementability  - The idea must be grounded and realistic even if its futuristic.   

What have we learned so far?

We all can innovate and publicize it and it just needs a blend of ability to work as a team and ability to effectively communicate our ideas.  

Thanks to IBM and all my mentors who helped me learn some of these basic aspects.

How do you shift the gear: Template based organic and continuous process for innovation? 

We all have seen innovators who do this quickly. Based on my interactions with some of them my own personal experience I came up with above model. Its basically a template-based feedback loop.   As domain and problem statement + prior art analysis is trailer of your innovation – you must have a faster way to document and articulate this.You can build template for each domain with references to common prior arts in that area

For example: Template for hybrid Cloud Security problems

You may start with 1 or 2; believe me – you will have so many branches of the templates later. Follow the above loop – templates will give you accelerated methods to begin your affective documentation as well when you have more inventions you will change/improvise your templates. This is true for product innovation even POCs you will do using this method

As a summary – there is only a thin line between doing 1 invention or doing 10.  You just have to be smarter enough to just quickly make your document a carbon copy of your invention in an effective manner

Read through this and let me know your thoughts.  Lets innovate together may be a new method to innovate :)