Process to Innovate

I've been reading The Designful Company by Marty Neumeier this past month. Early on, Marty tells a quick story about what innovative companies look like:

“Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is famous for a crazy video in which he yells, I-LOVE-THIS-COMPANY. With Apple, its the customers who shout that.”

Steve Jobs saw problems consumers dealt with and found unique and stylish ways of combating those everyday problems. He designed his solutions.

So if we want to be like Apple and innovate real, needed, and wanted solutions - where do we start?

My thought...we start with our dreams. But in order to do that, we've got to first admit, acknowledge, and share the things that prevent our dreams in the first place...our realities.

Looking at how to get to this result with a business team, I came up with a 3 step process that helps facilitate a group to think together about what could be (its best to do it on a board of some kind):

1. Constraints
   We start out with the least fun part, but the part that gets everyone a little more comfortable with being able to dream - we deal with the everyday Constraints. Constraints are those sticky things that keep you from easily moving about within your business. Its the barriers that box you in to certain decisions. Things like budgets, deadlines, current service offerings, development costs, competition, etc.
   
   This list can get long, but its important to let all your Constraints be spoken outloud to give them all the attention they deserve. Afterall, most of us spend the majority of our days trying to jump these hurdles, avoid them, and figure out how to manage them. These are the things that keep us from really engaging our imagination. We assume our Constraints are largely immovable, so we resign ourselves to a worklife of working around or within them.
   
   
2. Ideals
   After everyone has given voice to every constraint you can possibly think of, its time to get everyone engage in their dreams or Ideals. Ideals are those things you wish were true about the projects you work on, the amount of profit your company makes, the types of companies you work with, and so on. This list may be shorter and you may need to encourage everyone to speak up, but this is a huge step toward the process of innovation.
   
   With your board chalked full of all your Constraints in sight, your team won't will feel the need to say things like, "we can't do that...think about how little we get paid for that service", etc. Everyone will know the ugly Constraints aren't being ignored, so they will feel increasingly comfortable letting them go (at least in the moment) and thinking about what they really wish was true about your business.
   
   
3. Innovation
   Now comes the fruition...its time to look at all you've written on your board and consider all of the Constraints you currently deal with as well as all the Ideals you wish were true. You'll begin the process of designing solutions to accomplish your Ideals while considering your Constraints. Don't get caught up on the idea that this is a matter of ignoring the Constraints to just engage the Ideals, or even vice versa. Rather, this is about asking yourself questions like,
   

• "Can this Constraint be adjusted to accommodate this Ideal?"
• "Will this Ideal increase our ability to serve our customers?"
• "If we can't adjust any Constraints to accomplish this Ideal, how can we accomplish this Ideal through another means?"
• "Is this Constraint even necessary?"

You'll be surprised to see the speed at which real, tangible, ideas start going up on the board - ideas that are feasible and have a real shot of seeing the light of day.

Even the oldest, most set-in-their-ways of companies can employ this and get to real innovative solutions to offer to the marketplace.

Give it a try...and let me know what your team came up with. And if you'd like to give it a try, but don't feel like trying to lead it yourself, give me a shout...I'd be happy to help lead a session with your team.