Then we have the problem of the industry, competition, the market, and in that case
we need to think about who is it that we are competing in, who are the rivals, who
are the suppliers to us. You know, what are the kinds of, what's
the market, what is the nature of the market, are people going to want this?
And so that is something we are going to think about as well, and talk about.
Actually, we are going to spend the week talking about it.
We then need to think about the societal constraints.
We gave a couple examples already where society basically says these things we
like, these things we don't like. So how can we make sure that for ourselves
through the innovation that we're proposing that society is going to say,
yeah, that's okay. At the very least, we don't want society
to come in and say, you can't do that and make it illegal or make it immoral or make
it unethical, the innovation that we have. And then finally, we're going to have to
make sure the thing can work. That is the technological constraints are
met. That we know that in fact by the end that
this thing is going to work, right, functionally.
And so if we say this is the condition, these are the conditions of success.
This is what has to be true in order for an innovation to happen, well then why on
earth would we say, think outside the box? Right?
Because that's what thinking outside the box represents is going way outside here,
going to a whole new place that makes no sense.
No wonder ideas kept getting, this is too expensive, this is too weird, this is too,
you know, difficult, all these things. This, that's why.
We actually need to be thinking inside the box and find ways of growing the box, of
making the box bigger, of making more possibilities in this space where a
solution could be possible. And that's what we're going to work on
today. But it's not arbitrary how it is that we
want to open this thing up because some places, some aspects of this constraint
system represented in this venn diagram. Some aspects of this, if I make it bigger
like here, I might haven't made the space any larger, the space where solutions
could live any larger. I have to really pinpoint the one that
will actually make the difference. And so if I can diagnose, that's where I'm
going to spend a lot of time doing that looking at a very pinpoint way, which of
these constraints do I have. Let me work on that constraint then I
won't waste a lot of energy making things better that don't need to be made better.
That won't you know, the world will be a better place but it won't improve your
likelihood of reaching a successful innovation unless you solve what I call a
show stopper. The constraint that will stop your idea
dead. Remember I said creative people must be
stopped? The world behaves that way, and this is
the way they're going to stop you. Which ever one of these things is the most
constrained. And it could be any of them.
Doesn't have to be any one. And our job is to figure out for the idea
that we have, for the solution we're trying to get, which one of these things
is the one that was going to stop it. So, turns out that the truth about
innovation is that all these things have to true.
And, in fact, we have to satisfy them all. Another question is, when are they true?
And that's where your diagnosis helps. So, maybe it's, you've been a little bit
puzzled as I talk this through, about why constraints.
So you say, hey, you know, Professor Owens we're talking about innovation which is a
positive thing. You said so yourself.
You said innovation's good, it's something that we want.
Now why all of a sudden, we're all of a sudden talking about the things that we
can't do? Why is it meaningful to talk about the
constraints instead of talking about the possibilities?
And why not talk about what we can do and not what we can't do?
Well, let me just give you a couple ideas here.
One thing is, from a management perspective, and again, I teach in a
business school, and this is about managing innovation, you know, managing it
ourselves. Well, constraints are something we can
focus on. So if I know which of the constraints I
have, which is the problem, I'll focus on that one, because we know if we're going
to be efficient, if we're going to be effective, if we can stay focused, that's
a good thing. Because we don't have lots of, of excess
energy to waste. The world is requiring us to be much more
efficient. And so if we can focus, that's a much
better thing. Constraints are also something we can
often agree upon. It's really hard to say, I maybe worked in
a project, with, with some other people, a school project, a, a work project, but
say, hey let's make something really cool. Well, what you think of as cool, or
desirable or as creative is really different than what another person thinks
of as cool, as desirable, as creative. And so how do you come to decisions about
that? It's really hard to agree on what's cool.
On the other hand, constraints if we could say look, we're going to make something
but it has to fit in a person's hand. That's really easy to agree upon.
And then in fact, there are is a certain size of hand that we can do all say, lets
measure the hand and it won't be the 99 percentile hand, the big hand and will be
the small hand, will be some more in the middle, the average size hand.
And then everyday we can say, does it fit in the hand, yes, we agree upon that.
Every idea we get we can say does it fit in the hand, and if it does we can agree
upon that. Constraints are all something that we can
measure. And so if we say the cost of this product
is to take a product example, the cost of this product has to be less than $10 or
people will not buy it. Well, if we can measure that, that's
great, because if we know the current way we have the idea that costs $12, 12 Euros.
All right, or 12 denote, what ever, that we know that we have to bring it down to
10 and if we know that we're 12 then we have work to do.
If we're at 9 then we have no work to do, we're done or we can stop.
And that's very important in managing people in a group managing motivation,
managing progress because if I know I'm close to the end I work really hard just
to finish it off. Whereas I think if I have no idea where I
am, I'm not going to be working as hard to push the innovation forward.
Then finally the thing about constraints is that constraints are what drive
adoption. So when we look things, when we look at
propositions for change we look at innovations that people are offering us
and we say, should I do that? You say well how does that fit in my life?
I have a certain set of constraints, I have a certain amount of money, a certain
amount of time, a certain set of habits, a certain way I live.
A certain set of constraints around myself.
And whatever you propose for me has to fit in that constraint.
And so the constraints drive adoption. They're exactly what drives adoption.
So if we want to think about adoption as innovation, the constraints are the most
important thing that we can actually think about.
That's why I think, thinking about what stops innovation, the constraints on
innovation is much more productive, especially in the short term than thinking
about what, you know, what's possible. All those things out there, because
there's too much to think about. If you're a designer, work in design, or
in, in graphic design for that matter, you'll know that knowing more of what the
constraints are is actually very much more helpful than not being told what the
constraints are until after the fact. So if we think about why innovation's
hard. Well, innovation's hard because we don't
find a good problem. We have to find a good problem in order
for innovation to happen. Innovation is problematic, because we
don't generate good ideas. So we have a problem, but we don't have
good ideas for that problem. You know, that can stop it also.
In the nation's heart, when we don't choose the best idea, we may have great
ideas, but we don't choose the best one because that's the difficult one, or
because our boss likes that one, or because that one's easier, or because that
one's faster, but not necessarily the best.
But I think the most important reason that innovation is hard is because we don't
anticipate, as we don't become strategic and think ahead about the constraints that
we know we are going to face. And so that's what we're about in this
class. It's about understanding the innovation
constraints and how it is that we're going to get around them.
