Innovation

What is so special about Innovation?

Everyone "innovates" something or the other every day. Imagine an organization with 100,000 employees. If each of the employees "innovated" (if there was such a word) one thing every day there would be 100,000 innovations per work day. Employees innovate a new shortcut to open a program on their computer, they innovate a new process to pay the vendors on time, innovate a new process to manufacture their products and so on and on. These things happen every working day.

Then what is so special about innovation that companies feel the need to devote special departments to "innovate"?

They want to be able to answer the question - "What Next"? In order to enable the quest for that answer they, go on an innovation spree forgetting that there are simple things that can be leveraged and turned into killer-products or cash-cows. Take Apple Computer (as it was formerly called) - they did not completely innovate the iPOD - they leveraged an existing product and innovated a few changes and turned it into a cash-cow for the company.

The main issue with "Innovation" is that companies usually want to stick to their area of competency and want to be able to successful in their innovations. However, what happens is that over a period of time, every industry reaches a level of maturity and therefore the "killer innovative product" becomes a distant dream.

On the other hand, there are companies like 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing) that have moved from their core competency to "stickies". Nokia is another example of a company that has travelled a long long way from lumber to cellphone leader. How did they do it? The did it because they took small innovations which were outside their core expertise and turned them around into world changing products.

So, would you rather attend a session on "How to Innovate" or use your existing little innovation to change the world...think about it !

Simple is Complex

How many times have you said or heard - "It is so simple". Well, maybe it is !

Have you ever wondered how complex it is to make things simple? When I say complex, I mean the engineering involved in making an entity simple.

Take the example of the iPOD. MP3 players existed before the iPOD. However, they were complex things to use and operate because they did not show the song being played (as an example). What did the engineers at Apple do? They put a highly complex piece of hardware and software which made using a MP3 player simple. Let the team who developed this product tell you - was it complex or simple?

So how does one go about creating something simple?

There is no cookie-cutter template that will help. However a simple set of checks does help the team focus on creating / developing something simple. It is called KISS - Keep It Simple and Stupid

Want to design a new business process? A new piece of software? A new project plan? For every box in the process flow or for every line item on the project plan - ask yourself just two questions
1. Does this add any value to the end product and if the answer is YES ask yourself another question
2. Will you need more than one statement to explain this value add? If the answer is YES then you are not designing anything simple

Think about it !

Coopetition

There has been so much written about "Coopetition".

Coopetition or Co-opetition is a buzzword coined to describe cooperative Competition. There are well-known examples of companies working together in order to limit competition. However, in contrast, co-opetition focuses on cooperation between companies in imperfectly competitive markets. Examples of coopetition include Apple Computer and Microsoft Corp.

What has not been talked about or written about is coopetition between employees on the same team in companies trying to establish themselves.

Think of it like this, you have a set of highly talented individuals with similar job experience / qualification etc. staffed on the same project. Now, both of these individuals want to prove their worth to the management chain. Also, at the same time, they are responsible for the delivery of the project. So what does that result in?

It results in coopetition.

Of course, there are no legal documents signed, no big press releases, no kick-off parties but these two individuals in their own little ways moved forward into a coopetition mode where they are agreeing not to compete beween themselves in order to achieve success for their joint project. Needless to add, when it is time for the project / annual appraisal they will list their own contributions thereby moving away from the coopetition mode into a competition mode.

Is coopetition amongst the team healthy? Definitely yes. If nothing else, it ensures that there is work delivery as per plan.

Should coopetition within the team be encouraged by explicitly stating as much? No. I say this because as a Leader one is expected to lead the team to the same vision and goal - not to have more competition because then the focus of the team would move from the explicit goal to their individual goals.

What is the take away from this article? When you hear coopetition think of coopetition between companies and also between individuals on various teams.