Strategy

Thinking Together about Thinking Together

Published date: January 12, 2022 в 3:53 pm

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Category: Innovation,Strategy

In the old days, some 20-30 years ago, a good leader was expected to be able, usually with some support, to see the big picture, imagine most of the possibilities and consider their respective pros and cons. Today, with a world that is more connected, more dynamic and more demanding, this is almost impossible. Therefore, in recent years there is an increased use of think tanks, sounding boards and co-management practices. It is becoming just too much for anyone to handle so much information, and to consider so many variables and possible consequences on their own.

There is, therefore, a strong need to learn and acquire methods and tools that help managers think together, in effective teams.

Historically, Think Tanks were established as institutes, corporations, or groups organized for interdisciplinary research with the objective of providing advice on a diverse range of policy issues and products through the use of specialized knowledge and the activation of networks. They were policy, ideology and strategy focused and used to perceive themselves as serving the public interest. Nowadays, Think Tanks are a synonym for an ad-hoc thinking team tasked with addressing open questions or strategies, and often act as advisory boards. In recent years we see many organizations create Think Tanks to help leadership see a bigger picture and consider additional potential directions and alternatives.

With the rise in popularity of thinking teams, one would have expected a growing number of tools and platforms to support these specific needs, and yet, although we see an increase in the number and variety of collaboration platforms and software, a search for tools, methods and approaches designed to assist with managing the actual thinking, reveals that there are surprisingly few offerings. Most models focus on ‘managing the room’, i.e. facilitating discussions and making sure they are tight and efficient. Several months of experimentation with some of these models taught us that, although they do make the work process easier to manage, there was no significant increase in the quality of the outcomes.

What was missing, apparently, were elements that can improve the thinking process, and through that, the depth, quality and uniqueness of the results.

Through this experimentation, during the past three years, we collected and evaluated dozens of tools and processes. The goal was to not only identify the best tools for the job, but also enable an accelerated but gentle learning curve. We aimed to create a kit that would be easy to use, containing tools and methods that complement each other.

At the end of 2019, in a discussion with one of our clients, an innovation manager for a division in a large international corporation, we conceived the idea of creating and trying out a new model, with the excellent men and women of her division as participants and experimenters. This client had worked with us closely in the prior 6~ years, on many projects and assignments around innovation and future-facing-dilemmas and served as my (best) partner-in-crime for configuring and experimenting this new model. In the three years preceding the project, we had worked together on similar topics, so we were also fortunate to be able to assess and compare results between the use of the new model and the outcomes from previous years.

 

We devised the framework for the program, and with the blessing of their management team, our program was launched. Note that this is unique: that a management team, with eyes on the future and open minds, embraced the program and gave us a green light to be the first (in the world, as far as we know!) to create, learn and apply a method for people to think with others effectively.

It was important for us that the model comply with the following criteria:

  1. Self-activation – a kit that allows the team to manage itself, without need of external guidance
  2. Very short learning curve – The learning process for using the kit must be short (2-3 hours max.) even for team members who do not have prior knowledge or previous experience.
  3. Use a combination of tested tools and methodologies whose efficacy has been proven over the years and are in the public domain.
  4. Efficiency – on the one hand, a variety of tools that meet most needs, and on the other hand, stay loyal to the less-is-more principle. It was easy and tempting to keep adding tools, but the decision was to stay lean and thin and adhere to the optimal and necessary minimum.
  5. Cross-Media – the model could be used in both the physical and the virtual worlds.

After identifying the problems that a Think Tank might encounter, and determining the design principles, we began clarifying needs and characterizing possible solutions.

Our main design principles for the Think Tank kit, which we dubbed the “Operating System” should were that it should:

  • Assist in the process of setting up the teams and in recruiting participants.
  • Train participants to use tools and methods that will have a positive effect on both performance and ways of thinking.
  • Address the diversity and variety of thinking tendencies and characteristics of team members.
  • Provide tools for reflection and meta-cognition.
  • Refer to the thought-process itself and methodologically create answers to open-ended questions.
  • Address operational and logistical aspects of the work process, such as time management and knowledge sharing, as well as supply various formats for collecting and producing results and outcomes.
  • Assist in collecting insights and improving the work with the model itself.

The results were impressive: 15(!) Think Tanks invested their time and brainpower to raise important questions regarding the foreseeable future, and, using thinking processes and design tools, presented their answers and ideas. Our starting point, in this specific case, was a bank of 80+ open questions; some of the questions were presented by the management team, and many others were submitted by employees, when asked to share questions that interest them as they contemplate the next 5-15 years. Once the Think Tanks started to work, they invested very little time to learn the tools and choose their path. Next, each team selected the questions from the ‘Question Bank’ that they wanted to work on.  To do that, we used a concept called ”Fertile Questions“ – a term coined by Prof. Yoram Harpaz, in his remarkable work on Communities of Thinking. Prof. Harpaz helped us formalize a simple process so that the teams were able to create meaningful questions and develop them into concepts and applications.

From an organizational perspective, using this “operating system” yielded the following:

  • Functional teams of experts conducted focused and effective discussions
  • New ideas, that venture beyond current thinking, were created
  • Reports, testimonials, and white papers with practical implications were produced
  • A culture of focused, effective, and efficient structured discussions was established

Yet another set of outcomes was on the individual level – from formal feedback, comments, and discussions, we learned that most participants had a strong and meaningful experience. More specifically, we collected these insights:

  • The work process was easy to understand and follow;
  • The ‘All Included’ kit saved time and efforts gathering tools and knowledge;
  • A strong sense of ownership and team accountability was generated;
  • Higher levels of depth and engagement in collecting, processing and converging data and concepts;
  • Less friction and more flowing team dynamics;
  • More alignment and pride in the teams’ results.

Personally, I am honored and grateful for the opportunity to share the Think Tanks’ story and modus operandi.

I think that this entitles us to announce that we have successfully developed the world’s first Think-Tanks Operating System.

 

How Innovative is a Startup?

Published date: January 5, 2022 в 4:24 pm

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Category: Organizational Innovation,Strategy

Leaders of startups will typically tell you, often with energetic arrogance, that they are perfectly happy with their team’s level of innovation. In most cases, they shouldn’t be. Why, then, are managers of startups, a mostly intelligent breed, so prone to overestimating their team’s innovative abilities?

  1. Although the title “startup” can refer, literally speaking, to any endeavor in its first stages, the term is very often used to denote an initiative led by a small number of tech-savvy founders and based around a novel idea with (hopefully) large business potential. So, almost by definition, a startup is based on innovation, or at least on the potential for innovation.
  2. A startup’s founders are very often considered brilliant by their environment, and very often they are indeed bright and creative.
  3. Successful founders often manage to raise money based on their ideas, which confirms their perception of their ability to invent stuff that others like.
  4. As startups raise funding, they tend to pay generously to founders and employees, which further feeds their sense of self-worth and their self-perception as great innovators.
  5. In the first stages of its lifecycle, a startup often focuses much of its effort and energy on R&D, creating the (misleading) equation: “we focus on R&D – therefore we are innovative”.

 

None of this is totally baseless: startups do indeed tend to be innovative to a certain extent and in certain domains, and their founders and early employees probably tend to be more creative than average. Still, in our combined 50+ years of experience, we have found that founders and members of startups suffer from fixedness just like members of any other type of organization. In fact, because of the phenomena mentioned above, they are often in danger of being even more blind to their innovation-deficiencies than most. Whether this is the reason for the dramatically high rate of failure among startups is debatable, but it is interesting to note that this dismal record is, for some strange reason, accepted as the norm. A closer look at the role of innovation in startups’ development could perhaps provide a clue to some possibilities of changing this currently accepted suboptimal performance.

The following questions can help throw light on several common blind spots, related to a startup’s innovation status. You are welcome to ask yourself these questions about the startup you have founded, work for or have invested in as a mini-diagnostic exercise.

  1. Granted, your founder is a mathematical genius, her algorithm is unique and powerful. While the team works on developing applications to the algorithm, is she thinking about the next step? Is she in love with her original invention or is she willing to pivot? Is she able to come up with the novel ideas needed for pivoting?
  2. Is all your startup’s innovation concentrated in the brain(s) of the founder(s)? Or are there additional innovative ideas being generated by others in the team?
  3. Do you have mechanisms for sharing thoughts among team members, so that ideas can be developed jointly in open and productive conversations? Or are thoughts exchanged only in improvised brainstorming sessions with members sitting around and throwing out ideas?
  4. Does anyone make sure that valuable thoughts, comments and ideas get documented?
  5. When you think of your startup as innovative, which aspects of its activity are you referring to? Only R&D? Have you fallen into the trap of thinking that innovation relates only to R&D?
  6. Have you had any innovative ideas lately about go-to-market strategy or tactics? Are you planning to offer your product only to the usual-suspect-segments? Or have you challenged yourself to think about totally different alternatives to your market promise and targets?
  7. Do you have a problem with hiring talent (probably, since most everybody has)? Have you treated this as a topic for innovation, or are you simply joining the herd by offering high salaries and other goodies to tempt promising prospects?
  8. Do you find the time to discuss less-probable future scenarios? To challenge your assumptions?
  9. As you grow, what is your strategy for maintaining the innovation level that created your startup in the first place? If you’re betting exclusively on the founders’ creativity plus recruiting creative talent, do you think it is enough?
  10. Is money constraining your ability to innovate?
  • Initially, when scarce, do you hold on desperately to what you have, afraid of “distractions” such as opening your strategy to candid assumption-breaking discussion?
  • Later, when abundant (hopefully), throwing money at your problems instead of finding innovative solutions, the hard way?

If the answers to none of these questions seem to warrant a change in your modus operandi, you are either misleading yourself or in excellent shape😊. If you do find that you may benefit from a more structured approach to your innovation strategy, here are three strong recommendations:

1) Make time to deliberately discuss how to be more, and more correctly innovative. Not by the way, not as part of your normal R&D activities, but dedicated, raising-your-head and breathing time.

2) Make sure to hold at least some of the discussion with the help of an external facilitator. They do not need to be experts in innovation, but they should know how to facilitate a tough discussion with hard-headed participants (yes, you and your team).

Once you’ve followed the first two recommendations, chances are that you are on the right track. To make sure you are, and to accelerate the change, you can follow recommendation number 3:

3)     Enlist the support of innovation experts, who follow a methodology and have accumulated plenty of experience with other companies (yes, true, we are such experts, but there are others out there as well).

You will be surprised at how much of a startup’s culture and practices down the road will be determined by taking these steps at the outset and how these steps can help prepare the team for the hurdles on the way to success.

How to Optimize both your Innovation Portfolio and your New Year’s Resolutions

Published date: December 29, 2021 в 12:30 pm

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Category: Innovation,Strategy

Trigger warning: this post is a bit silly. It is silly for two reasons, that I will explain in the sentence after the next. But before that, I want to claim that although silly, it may be worth your while reading the post for one single reason: the simple tool that I describe here is very useful. But, granted, it is silly, because:

  1. It uses as an example the tired cliché of New Year’s resolutions;
  2. Like so many other pieces of good advice, it is simply a piece of your grandmother’s common sense, neatly packaged for contemporary use.

An interesting aspect of the tool I present here, which we call NFS, aka Near-Far-Sweet, is that it was derived by us from a concept presented in the context of education by the Russian sociologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). The concept is called Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and it relates (apologies for the simplification) to the level of potential mental development of an individual (in the original context, a child).

Borrowing somewhat loosely from ZPD, observe the process of landing on the right New Year’s resolution when you wish, say, to get in better shape and hopefully shed some weight while you’re at it. These are two versions of an idea that you may come up with:

  1. Take the stairs up to your 3rd floor office every day;
  2. Go out for a 3-mile jog three times a week, and a 5-mile jog every weekend.

Common sense immediately indicates that option 1 is too weak, since climbing two flights of steps once a day or even twice doesn’t really keep you in shape (and even less so if you must first get into shape), while option 2 is very powerful and can probably lead to a dramatic change in your physical conditions. But, alas, the probability that you will stick to option 2 beyond the first two weeks of January are pretty slim, if you can even get yourself to launch the plan.

Ideas of the first type we call Near, the second, not surprisingly, Far, and those we are seeking, are labeled Sweet: What you need is a New Year’s resolution that is far enough from current practices to make a difference, but near enough that it can be viable to implement.

This is the Near-Far-Sweet (NFS) model we use to map out ideas. We often use this model when working with companies on creating their idea pipeline, following an ideation exercise. But, what should one do once ideas are mapped as N or F or S? How can this help in actually creating and implementing valuable ideas?

As part of his Zone of Proximal Development model, Vygotsky also introduced the concept of scaffolding. When we aim to lead a child to live up to their potential, how high should we set the bar? Too low, and we are not challenging them to go beyond the obvious. Too high, and they will probably end up frustrated and lose confidence. The Sweet Spot (mixing terminologies here) is a place in which – with the help of scaffolding – the child can reach the maximum level that their potential allows. In Vygotsky’s educational context, scaffolding very often takes the form of an older person, with the capabilities and motivations to accompany the child on her or his challenging journey to the higher reaches of their potential for development. In the context of product development, we propose that facilitation, with the proper structures, can do the scaffolding job.

Back to your New Year’s keep-in-shape resolution: perhaps not every single day but two or three times per week, and maybe 2 miles rather than 3 may be your Sweet Spot? Better figure it out before you make a commitment,  and even this Sweet resolution will be more attainable if you enlist a personal trainer, or convince a friend and neighbor to join you and thus become each other’s scaffolding.

The next step after mapping your ideas, whether for leisure or work, is to turn your attention to the Ns and the Fs. When working on a pipeline of existing products or services:

  1. Near ideas are often created as variants on existing offerings. They thus tend to be easy to imagine, implement and also communicate to potential customers. But, given their similarity to known offerings, they seldom justify for the customer the cost of switching from their current practices. The objective, therefore, is to push the idea outwards, further away from the current version, and into the Sweet Spot. This can be done by applying tools that break mental fixedness about the current product.
  2. Far ideas are typically exciting for their intended customers, but lacking in a clear path to implementation. Or sometimes, even though they can deliver a strong benefit for the customer, it is hard to communicate clearly what this promise is. In these cases, we utilize the Closed World principle, focusing on resources that are already at our disposal that can help concretize the idea, make it easier to implement or assist in communicating its value.

Much of this is pretty obvious – remember, I warned you – but surprisingly overlooked more often than not, resulting in the following common mistakes:

  • Coming out to market with unexciting ideas, and then lamenting that “80% of product launches fail”. Of course they fail, if what you offer is so more-of-the-same.
  • Giving up on ideas because they’re perceived as not exciting enough in focus groups or other VoC gathering techniques, before giving them a chance by pushing them further out towards Sweet.
  • Giving up on exciting ideas because they either seem to be impossible to realize, or fall by the wayside in the attempt, rather than insisting on making them viable.
  • Trying to launch Far ideas, technically feasible but still out of scope for the imagination of existing potential customers, rather than pulling them inwards to the Sweet Spot.
  • Settling for Near ideas out of fear or laziness, and then brainstorming wildly to produce Far ideas, to prove that you’re “innovating”. And a corollary:
  • Claiming that “we don’t have a problem with ideas, we’ve got plenty of good ideas”, without noticing that this “plenty” is made of Near and Far ideas, with none in the Sweet Spot.

So, if you insist on making New Year’s resolutions, against all odds😊, maybe try some version of applying the NFS principle on yourself, your kids, your pipeline?

Happy New Year!

Non-Tech Innovation – Three reasons why your company needs it to succeed

Published date: December 15, 2021 в 4:34 pm

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Category: Innovation,Strategy

Is technology stealing the limelight of innovation? Obviously, a lot of innovation is about technology, and technology can drive innovation in many ways. But beware the trap: sometimes organizations equate I = T and miss out on the huge opportunities of non-tech innovation.

Meet John, the owner of a global hotel chain in Singapore. John traveled a lot and used his travels to stay at competitors’ hotels to learn about their services, facilities, food and more.

On one of his trips, John came back to one of Bangkok’s famous hotels, about a year after his first visit. As he approached the front desk he was amazed as the receptionist smiled at him and said “Welcome back, sir. It’s so nice to see you again.”

Impressed as he was, John kept thinking about this welcome. “How did she know I was here before?” he wondered. “There is no way she remembered me, so what is it?” John came to the conclusion that the hotel must have some kind of facial recognition software that informed the receptionist whenever a past guest was returning to the hotel. Regardless of the technology behind it – John felt he definitely wanted to create the same experience for his returning guests.

Back at his office, John consulted with his management team and several specialists. After significant research and deliberation, they recommended installing cameras in each hotel and using a designated software that will alert the receptionist whenever a returning customer is checking in. The cost for the system was several millions of dollars!! Excited as he was about the heartwarming effect of the personal approach, John had to abandon the idea. It was just too much money. He put it behind him, but from time to time wondered if that hotel in Bangkok actually spent that much money on such a system.

The following year he revisited the same Bangkok hotel, and when he approached the receptionist he was again greeted warmly as a returning customer. “I must know,” he said to the receptionist, “I have indeed stayed in this beautiful hotel before, but you seem to know that without even entering my name into the computer… How do you do that?” The receptionist smiled at him warmly and explained:

“It’s actually very simple. We have agreements with all the taxi companies that service the airport. Whenever they drive a guest to our hotel they engage in conversation and ask, among other things, whether this is their first visit to the hotel. If it is the first visit the driver will put the suitcase on the guest’s left-hand side, and if it is a returning customer on the right. We pay the taxi companies $1 per customer, so everybody wins.”

We are willing to bet John never saw that one coming.

John is not the first to assume the tech route was taken. Technology is changing and shaping our lives at a radical speed. It seems that unless it negates the laws of physics, we can develop anything. And amazing things are being developed. But is it always necessary or is the tech hype pulling the wool over our eyes and making us overcomplicate things? As John’s story just proved, we need to remind ourselves that there is still room for other kinds of innovation. Here’s what you stand to gain:

  1. Agile and cheaper ideas and solutions – New technology can be costly, with lengthy development time. Non-tech ideas can often be rolled out directly by its inventors (as opposed to external developers) using resources that are more readily available. As we saw with John, facial recognition software would have offered a similar service. But there is something about the “suitcase solution” that makes it a more feasible option (especially in the short term) and somewhat more elegant.
  2. Getting the whole company involved – Viewing innovation as tech solutions only, limits who is able to take part. When you widen the definition, you encourage everyone in the organization to contribute. If your company is serious about creating a culture of innovation, promoting new ways for doing things: whether it’s marketing, sales, enhancing productivity, developing new services…celebrate those directions too. What people come up with will surprise you.
  3. Breaking fixedness – Sometimes the process of innovation is overly technological. Instead of improving a given situation through examining both intuitive and non-intuitive directions, technology gets thrown into the mix as the obvious way to evolve (or to at least give the illusion that you are advancing and improving), regardless if it’s really needed or not. Take the Path of Most Resistance and see what results when you challenge your thinking to new, lucrative directions.

Technology might be the way of the future, but non-T innovation is still a worthy player in its own right. Let it have a loud voice in your organization. You never know what the future will be, and you want to be sure you have enough channels proposing it.

Inventive Solutions: Problem Solving Techniques in the Healthcare Industry

Published date: November 3, 2021 в 5:50 pm

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Category: Innovation,Problem Solving,Strategy

In the years leading up to 2001, the statistics showed a consistent annual increase in both the prescription and use of antibiotics among children. Today, it is common knowledge that overuse of antibiotics is one of healthcare’s biggest concerns. Back then, only healthcare professionals were aware of the danger of the evolution of “supergerms” with resistance to antibiotics. This, together with the financial impact that heavy antibiotic consumption had on the insurers (i.e. HMO’s) who subsidize the drug’s purchase, incentivized the HMO to find a solution.

Prescribing for the wrong reasons

Funnily enough, the biggest contributors to the problem were the HMO’s own General Practitioners, who obviously knew better. It was found that they were over-prescribing antibiotics to their patients not because they felt that it was the correct treatment, but because the HMO was – in part – evaluating them according to customer (i.e., patient, or in this case, patient’s parents) satisfaction. Not surprisingly, parents with children who did not feel well had their own motivations to get an antibiotics prescription. Parents wanted to give their children some type of medication to feel they were contributing to end their child’s suffering and… they needed to get back to work ASAP.

No silver-bullet solution

SIT was invited by the HMO to help generate solutions to this problem. After applying the Systematic Inventive Thinking method during multiple sessions over several days, it became apparent that there wouldn’t be a silver-bullet solution, but a collection of inventive solutions addressing different aspects of the problem. However, at the forefront remained the paradox of the doctors’ dilemma: wanting to satisfy their patients while giving the most appropriate clinical solution. In other words, the HMO was looking to remove the connection between the patient’s request for antibiotics and the doctor’s decision regarding the right treatment.

One of the most inventive solutions generated was a result of SIT’s Multiplication tool: Add to the problem world something that is similar to what already exists there.

 

 

Two for one – Inventive Solutions!

The idea was that the doctor would give the parent two prescriptions. One was effective immediately, prescribing medications that reduce the severity of the symptoms – nose drops, lozenges, etc. The second, effective 48 hours later, was the prescription for antibiotics. It was anticipated that if the symptoms would be gone by then (as is the case with most viruses), the parent would simply not fill this second prescription. [Note that in 2001, the OTC market in Israel was close to non-existent. Therefore, even symptomatic medicines were dispensed only by a pharmacist, even though no prescription was needed.]

This solution, together with an ad campaign against antibiotic overuse, and other solutions involving education for parents and doctors, generated an impressive decrease of 33% in antibiotic consumption over the following two years!

A very healthy, virus-free and bacteria-free autumn and winter season to you all!

New Thought for Food

Published date: October 13, 2021 в 12:15 pm

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Category: Innovation,Methodology,New Product Development,Strategy

The meat analog market in the 1970s was in need of a facelift. At the time, meat analogs were divided into two types of products: soy based and wheat based. The problem was that while meat analog products looked like meat and tended to be healthy, their taste and texture were so unconvincing that eating soy dogs and soy burgers was often likened to chewing on tasteless cardboard. It was a niche market dedicated to “hard-core” vegetarians.

Meanwhile, a young Israeli food technologist, Michael Shemer, was methodically trying to invent “edible” meat analogs. He focused his efforts on three essential attributes: taste, texture, and nutritional value. He experimented for years with wheat and soy proteins and in the early 1980s had a breakthrough when he combined the two vegetable proteins. He quickly evolved his technology into a line of meat analog products and found a home for them at Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta’ot. Production began in 1985 under the name of Tivall, later to become part of the Nestlé Corp.

The new products met the growing demand from consumers who wanted nutritional, yet tasty meat substitutes suitable to their dynamic, on-the-run lifestyles. Today, Tivall is a world leader in the industry and renowned for its rapid product development and award winning, innovative products. Many of us may know, or may even be, a food technologist whose fate has followed a similar path. For Shemer, however, this was only the beginning of a life-long quest for a more structured approach to inventing new-to-the-world food technologies—a method he later adopted, called Systematic Inventive Thinking®.

Where Ideas Come From

Traditionally, there exist three sources for new product ideas: (1) surveying competitors, (2) identifying needs through market research, and (3) developing new technologies. Surveying competitors, often known as the “safe path,” cannot result in unique or differentiating products, as they largely offer consumers more of the same, just under a different brand name. Furthermore, research shows that these “me-too” products have an 80% chance of failure, which is the same as (or slightly higher than) “new-to-the-market” products. Catering to identified market needs, although crucial for keeping a company competitive in the market, rarely results in true innovations. Research conducted by Goldenberg and Mazursky (1999) validates that customers are a poor source of quality information when it comes to innovation, since most people find it difficult to imagine things that do not yet exist. Although consumers do have latent needs, they are not fully aware of, it is difficult for them to state them explicitly. Moreover, polling a consumer base that is equally available to all players in the market makes it difficult to identify unique needs and create exclusive products that the competition does not yet have in development. The authors concluded that “There is a clear need for an approach that can lead to exclusive discoveries that can take the marketplace by surprise. Such innovative ideas must be captured before the market submits strong signals to its needs, rendering market research methods (for eliciting ideas) less effective.”

Developing a new technology platform can be a strong source leading to proprietary innovations, but it thereby poses a twofold problem: First, it is not a process by which a company can plan its pipeline. When exactly a new technology will be ready for market is a fickle and unreliable phenomenon. Second, creating a completely new technology is often the more-expensive and high-risk option. The only source leading to true innovation—new technology development—must become a process that is more efficient.

New Technology Development

To many, creativity is synonymous with free thinking. It is believed that if only there were no constraints, people could think of the wild, breakthrough ideas for their industry. Yet, studies by Goldenberg et al. (1999) showed that constrained-thinking processes provided superior results to ideas generated by humans thinking without constraints. This idea superiority was apparent for both the creativity and originality evaluations of the ideas. The aura of free thinking for generating innovation nevertheless endures. This is because many constraints truly are stifling for creativity. Thus, it is not enough to say that constraints enhance creativity, rather the proper constraints—those that promote creativity—need to be identified.

 

One of these “creativity-facilitating constraints” is the Closed World principle. This principle posits that the only resources for innovating are those that already exist in the product’s immediate environment (Horowitz and Maimon, 1999). These include the essential elements in the product, including its physical components as well as its variables like color or size. The immediate environment of the product is also inventoried for its components and variables. These elements—and only these elements—lead to finding new ideas and solutions. No new types of resources or technologies are allowed to enter into the idea-generation process. Unknowingly, Shemer utilized the Closed World principle when inventing his product. As opposed to his unsuccessful attempts at using other plant-based materials, the secret to his success was manipulating elements within the two leading meat analog bases—soy and wheat proteins, resources already existing in the Closed World. One of the Closed World’s main benefits is that it relies solely on a company’s existing resources and knowledge base, providing a “leg-up” so that it needn’t start from scratch and can more readily assess the feasibility of the solution.

Shemer, as well as many other developers in parallel industries, realized in hindsight that he had been inventing by applying the Closed World principle all along. Had he realized what he was doing earlier, his development process would have cut down years of research, instead of happening by “accident,” during one of several dozen experiments. Once aware of the Closed World principle and the benefits it provides, Shemer learned a system to more proactively apply constraints to expedite product development processes.

Vegetable Dough Example

A prime example of this is Shemer’s leadership role in the development of Tivall’s latest award-winning product, a revolutionary vegetable dough (Figure 1). As Vice President of Strategic Innovation and R&D, he was assigned the task of innovating an existing Tivall product line: vegetable-filled pastries. Tivall’s core competency—its Closed World—is innovative uses of vegetable materials. With that in mind, Shemer’s rephrasing of his task was already half of the solution: To identify new ways to use vegetable elements in the pastries to generate an innovative food technology platform.

Utilizing his food technology knowledge, he was able to find a way to replace more than 85% of the flour in the product. The technology used to integrate the vegetables into the dough allowed for a completely new line of products consisting of puff pastry dough, yeast raised dough, and short dough, each of which can be made of different types of vegetables, including sweet potatoes, spinach, corn, and cauliflower. More benefits of this proprietary dough became apparent with the realization that it could also be marketed as a separate product for home cooking and baking. The vegetable dough was launched in 2005 and met with instant success. It won an award in the Savory Frozen Foods category at the 2006 Sial International Exhibition of Food Industry.

An Innovation Algorithm

While the Closed World principle identifies the resources that we are allowed to use (and those we are not), it does not dictate enough how to use these resources. This, another variety of constraint, needed to be formulated to guide the developer in a more systematic manner through the thinking process. The solution was found in a body of research begun by Genrich Altschuller, a naval engineer from the former Soviet Union, who studied thousands of patents and found that creative solutions share common patterns. Based on his research results, he developed a method that he called Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ). His students later evolved the method into what is today called Systematic Inventive Thinking and expanded Altschuller’s pattern recognition into the field of product development. It is evident that inventors unknowingly follow patterns when coming up with product ideas. In essence, they impose on themselves thinking constraints that result in innovative outputs. A novice inventor would expect there to be dozens, even hundreds, of patterns that lead to inventions. This makes SIT’s findings that more than 70% of successful new products can be categorized according to only five patterns even more surprising. In contrast, fewer than 20% of unsuccessful product launches could be classified according to these same patterns (Goldenberg and Mazursky, 2002). The following are the five patterns in this approach:

• Subtraction. This pattern instructs the inventor to look at the Closed World and, as opposed to the conventional approach to new product development, subtract an essential element rather than add one. This constraint is unintuitive in two senses: first, we are not adding or improving something to create a new offering in the market; second, the subtracted element cannot be one that was originally detrimental (e.g., fat), but one that was thought to be essential, with no logical reason for being subtracted.

Examples of this pattern are largely seen in the “instant” product category, such as soups or cakes from which the liquid or eggs was subtracted. Although understandable today, it is easy to imagine the resistance to the concept of removing the water (essentially, the soup) from the soup when the idea was first proposed.

• Multiplication. While it is clear how subtracting something essential from a resource-base would be a strong constraint, with the Multiplication pattern it is less obvious. This pattern allows the technologist to add elements that were previously not available. Nevertheless, what is allowed to be added is highly constrained. This pattern is about adding one or more copies of an existing component in the product or system, and then modifying the copy so that it is different according to one of its original component parameters.

Pizza Hut’s Stuffed Crust Pizza is a good example. When looking to innovate pizzas, the most common path is to simply add a different type of topping or to change the organoleptic properties of one of the primary ingredients (e.g., the dough or sauce). However, the stuffed crust was a true innovation and example of Multiplication, since it added more of an existing component (the cheese), but changed its location on the diameter of the pizza (placing it inside the crust). The consumer benefit was readily apparent: the pizza eating experience now facilitated more cheese in every bite, especially toward the edge of the pie, where cheese is not typically sprinkled on top. Not surprisingly, when it was launched in 1995, it became one of Pizza Hut’s more successful products.

• Division. This pattern dictates that all product components remain and none are added, but several are reorganized in time or space. Thus, the product gestalt is broken, degrees of freedom are added to the thinking process, and the Closed World remains confined. This pattern is noticeable in a wide range of solutions for products suffering from short shelf life. Products such as Yakult and Actimel, including functional ingredients like probiotics, are healthy for consumption but have shelf life challenges because their potency deteriorates in a liquid medium.

The Swedish company BioGaia provided an innovative solution to lengthen the shelf life: separating (dividing) the probiotic culture from the yogurt. Its LifeTop straw supplies the consumer with Lactobacillus reuteri in each sip (or through a bolus during the first draft) through the straw instead of being mixed in with the yogurt. The straw allows yogurt producers to keep the probiotic ingredients dry, separate from the yogurt, until the actual time of consumption. The VIZcap™ (www.vizdrink.com) offers a similar solution in the vitamin-enhanced sport drink segment. The supplements are kept separated from the liquid by being stored in a sealed chamber inside the bottle cap. They are only added to the drink just prior to consumption, dropping into the liquid when the consumer twists the cap to open it.

• Attribute Dependency. This pattern relates to the attributes or variables that exist in the Closed World of the product. It involves the creation of new relationships between the variables of a product or its immediate environment. Attributes of a product (Figure 2) can be internal, such as its texture, color, fat content, and temperature; or external, such as consumer attributes (e.g., gender, age) or consumption attributes (e.g., consumption location, eating occasion, accompanying foods).

When SIT Ltd. was invited to conduct a project with Nestlé Corp., the chosen topic was flavor solutions. Salad dressings were chosen as the Closed World starting point for generating ideas. The internal attributes were systematically paired with external attributes to identify interesting new relationships. When working with “texture” and “accompanying foods,” the developers posited that the product’s texture can be changed according to the food on which it is being used. A list of typical accompanying foods was hastily created (e.g., lettuce, tomatoes, sandwiches, chips, burgers, etc.) to make the process as systematic as possible.

An idea began to emerge as the developers imagined a thicker-textured dressing for sandwich usage. Marketing saw the emerging opportunity and suggested that it could be a spreadable dressing for sandwiches, similar in texture to mustard or ketchup. To that point, people had been observed pouring Nestlé’s existing Thousand Island dressing onto their sandwich bread to add flavor, trading sogginess for taste. The spreadable solution would solve this contradiction. As a result, Nestlé launched in Israel a line of sandwich spreads, including Thousand Island and Garlic flavors, positioned for sandwich consumption (Figure 3).

• Task Unification. In this pattern, an additional task is given to an existing resource. This tool helps to eliminate “functional fixedness,” in which each component is seen to perform only one task and additional tasks require the addition of more components. The essence of this pattern is to view all of a product’s existing components as potential resources that function in more than one role.

Unilever’s Cornetto was originally manufactured by an Italian ice cream manufacturer, Spica, who in 1959 was able to solve the problem of marketing frozen ice cream cones. Until then, it was difficult to market frozen ice cream cones because the ice cream caused the cone to dampen over time. Spica overcame the problem by inventing a process in which the inside of the waffle cone is coated with a mixture of oil, sugar, and chocolate, insulating it from the ice cream. Oil, sugar, and chocolate had always been available resources in the Closed World of ice cream but had their own tasks of promoting either texture or flavor. Utilizing these same components for the purpose of insulation was considered a breakthrough. Today, we can witness several examples of chocolate coating inside non-frozen cones to prevent ice cream leakage during consumption.

A Systematic Approach

Combining the Closed World principle with the five patterns results in a much more structured approach, the SIT method (Figure 4). Let’s examine this approach through the process of vegetable dough invention:

First, the developers defined the Closed World of the product. They broke the product down to its fundamental components and identified available resources. These included the various types of vegetables used for the fillings, as well as dough ingredients such as flour and other grains, salt, sugar, vitamins, and packaging.

Second, they applied the task unification tool. They systematically examined each component to see whether its function could be performed by the vegetables or some elements of them. Scoping out the list of components, they considered their options for manipulation. Seeing that the vegetables already dominated the inside of the pastry, they asked themselves whether the vegetables could also take over the outside.

Third, they defined the “virtual product.” The team envisioned creating pastry dough out of vegetables.

Fourth, they identified needs, benefits, and markets. The market value of such a product was clear—it could offer high nutritional value with low caloric value and almost no saturated fats. As for its innovative appeal, the developers felt that a product like that could be the basis of an entire platform of product lines.

Fifth, they checked feasibility and identified challenges. After the team unsuccessfully s subtracted all the flour, several adaptations led to a final product that had only 15% the normal amount of flour in it. The remaining 85% was replaced by vegetables by extracting the starches and other constituents of the vegetable and using them to replace the starches of the dough.

Of course, this thinking process does not replace market testing. It is at this stage that we look outside our company—to the market—for inputs. Thus, marketing research remains an integral part of the innovation process, but it simply moves to a later stage. Companies no longer need to depend on the market to raise ideas for them—there is a structured, internal process for that. The research is there to validate and “tweak” the ideas to make the technologies as marketable as possible.

A Recipe for Success

The SIT process leads developers to innovative technological concepts that can surprise and delight the market. But, because of the constraints, the process also relies heavily on the existing knowledge base of the company, as represented by its food technologists. In fact, this is the very reason that SIT ideas—and new technology ideas in general—lead to differentiated products in the market. Instead of depending on information streaming in from the market—a source available to everyone—the ideas arise as a product of the company’s unique intellectual property, proprietary knowledge, and current resources. Developing new technologies in an efficient, structured manner, leading to differentiated, innovative products on the market is what we’d call a recipe for success.

BY YONI STERN, ROBYN TARAGIN, AND SHAHAR LARRY

Originally published FOOD TECHNOLOGY 10.07

Lean Six Sigma + SIT = The Ultimate Duo?

Published date: October 6, 2021 в 12:55 pm

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Category: Innovation,Strategy

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Lean SIT Sigma: Combining Innovation with Lean Six Sigma boosts Performance Excellence

 

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) follows a highly coherent, systematic, logical and intuitive approach. But we know that ultimately high-impact productivity also requires the creation of innovative and disruptive opportunities and solutions that break through current organizational perceptions and work processes. This is something that Lean Six Sigma alone is not equipped to do but can be performed well with the addition of SIT (Systematic Inventive Thinking) into a triad of methodologies, we call Lean SIT Sigma.

LSS does well what it is designed to do well, which is help you analyze and map where improvement is needed.  LSS was never designed to help you find new solutions or new ways to do things. Performance Excellence, however, requires an organizational commitment find the best solution in any given situation that will deliver value right along the chain and that may require performance breakthroughs beyond the remit of Lean Six Sigma alone.

As one of our clients in Minnesota commented: “SIT combined with Lean Sigma is remarkable; our organizational culture requires data, measurement upfront. However, we also need the more innovative ideas that SIT brings to the process.

Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma Principles

 

Lean Six Sigma is powered by principles which are governed by continuous improvement. Change is achieved by a regular sharpening of the process and constant monitoring of how the process can be improved.  In our work with the Six Sigma Black Belts at the Bolivar Group, the application of SIT enabled a stunning ten-fold increase in time savings– compared to that previously achieved by Lean Six Sigma alone– in the turnaround time for an equipment leasing operation. Such an increase more than justifies the inclusion of such an approach to the productivity mechanism within organizations.

Whilst Lean Six Sigma has a proven track record in improving quality, reducing waste, improved capacity utilization, lowering costs and other aspects, the kind of disruptive leaps which push to performance excellence are often made possible by the addition of the innovation approach fostered in the Lean SIT Sigma format.

 

The DMAIC (Design Measure Analyze Improve Control) improvement cycle

 

The DMAIC (Design Measure Analyze Improve Control) improvement cycle is the core tool in many LSS programs. While SIT contributes to the Define & Measure to help identify the subtopics that can be worked on, Lean and SS tools help quantify the potential impact of those areas. The biggest contribution of SIT is around HOW the improvement can be made in ways not yet thought of, utilizing as few organizational resources as possible, and limiting additional investment (capital, labor, or otherwise) for the change. That very naturally leads to building experiments and pilots in the Analyze stage, the results of which will then lead to Improve adaptations.

The End to End Ripple Effect

 

SIT’s approach looks at the process through the lens of the entire Value Chain.  When too much focus is placed on strict adhesion to Design and Measure, it creates myopia, finding solutions in one area that influence efficiencies at other stages upstream or downstream the value chain.  We call this The End to End Ripple Effect.

A “Positive Ripple” is one that creates a positive productivity impact on an E2E level and should be encouraged. A “Negative Ripple”, however, is one that “throws the trash in someone else’s backyard” without calculating the cost of such a maneuver on an E2E level:

 

 

For example – decreasing interim-inventory might increase finished goods inventory.  While this may be a price the organization is willing to pay, it needs to be calculated and discussed in context with other alternatives and with those responsible for the affected areas of the value chain.

The worst ripple of this type is one that ends up negatively affecting the purchaser or end-user. Which points to the next area where SIT thinking contributes.  As one Lean Sigma Black Belt recently commented:

“We are not used to thinking about these issues from the customer perspective and SIT really complements Lean Sigma by adding value to the customer. LSS looks inside the business and with SIT we really looked at the customer and understood what goes on there.”

 

Lean SIT Sigma, 20+ Years Later…

 

Most will agree that the confluence of Lean and Six Sigma at the turn of the century into a practical working methodology has enhanced and complemented each, making Lean Six Sigma a highly structured, rational, and beneficial approach. Seventeen years on – the integration of SIT with LSS into a triad of methodologies, Lean SIT Sigma, will better deliver on the demands of achieving a sustainable approach to higher-impact performance excellence.

After all, Omne trium perfectum, the famous Latin saying that everything that comes in threes is perfect (or, every set of three is complete) has been long considered a universal truth.  Universal?  Probably not…but certainly true when it comes to helping companies retain high standards of quality while substantially increasing efficiency.

 

A Systematic Approach to Process Efficiency

Published date: September 29, 2021 в 6:08 pm

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Category: Innovation,Methodology,Strategy

There are quite a few methods to enhance productivity and increase process efficiency. Some notable examples are 6-Sigma, Kaizen and Lean. Most of these methods are highly effective at identifying waste and redundancy, and pointing out where you need to cut, focus, or streamline. This leads very often to substantial savings and gains in efficiency. Unfortunately, as much as these methods excel at identifying where to save, they are seldom helpful in prescribing how to do so. When it comes to leading their users to ideate about potential alternatives or solutions to current wasteful practices, practically all productivity methods resort to… Brainstorming.

But, as research and practice has repeatedly and consistently established, Brainstorming is not an effective means for generating truly novel yet viable solutions.

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In other posts [click here if you want to receive a copy] like “Busting the Brainstorming Myth” and “How Effective is DT as an Innovation Methodology?”, we have described some of the major faults of the BS method for ideation. Here, we will just briefly mention that BS tends to produce either unexciting ideas that are not new, or exciting ideas that are not viable. This is the point SIT – Systematic Inventive Thinking comes into play. As opposed to BrainStorming, SIT is a structured process calling for disciplined ideation within well-defined constraints. By changing the problem solver’s mindset, this process consistently leads to novel and effective approaches to problems and challenges.

Paradoxically, SIT requires that you focus on existing resources and capabilities (which is why the method is also referred to as “Innovating Inside the Box”), learning to use them in novel ways by breaking your so-called “Mental Fixednesses”. The method is therefore especially apt for constrained environments or systems defined by strict engineering requirements.

Here are some brief case studies that highlight how relatively small shifts in perspective, achieved through a structured process, can lead to substantially increased process efficiency.

HAVI –  Opening a Bottleneck with No Additional Resources

 

HAVI is one of Asia Pacific’s largest logistics companies. At their depots in China, HAVI faced a consistent problem: delivery truck arrival times were frustratingly unpredictable, causing a slew of issues. For example, sometimes multiple trucks would arrive at the same time. And, since Havi had a limited number of truck unloaders, truck drivers spent unnecessary time waiting for their trucks to be unloaded. To avoid this process bottleneck, HAVI needed to find a way to streamline the unloading process.

HAVI considered various solutions, but none were cost-effective. They considered, for example, extending the warehouse to add docking space for extra trucks, but realized this renovation project would be prohibitively expensive and not necessarily tackle the workforce aspect of the problem. They also considered hiring a temporary workforce during busy periods. However, since the busy periods were often unpredictable, it would be impossible to foresee when the workers would be needed.

The Right Incentive

Using SIT’s thinking tool, Task Unification, which assigns a new and additional task to an existing resource, HAVI came up with a creative idea to improve their warehouse’s process efficiency: truck drivers arriving to the warehouse were offered the option of unloading the trucks themselves. Initially, this idea seemed totally untenable, as the drivers, it was believed, would certainly refuse to take on an additional and arduous task. But, after giving the option some thought, the Problem Solving Team realized that, given the right framework, the drivers would actually be more than happy to comply. With less downtime on the job, additional pay for the extra task, and more control over their schedule, the drivers had everything to gain.

 

By incentivizing drivers to unload the trucks and paying them for the time they spent unloading, HAVI utilized its existing workforce to solve its problem. Since drivers no longer needed to wait for unloaders, they could unload their trucks immediately, resulting in reduced time and quick turnover. By using SIT’s structured thinking process, HAVI managed to save time and money, while eliminating a problematic bottleneck.

Teva Pharmaceuticals – Doubling Production Capacity – Now!

Teva, an Israeli pharmaceutical company, experienced a surge in demand for a specific drug, to which we will refer here as Drug A, when a rival company went bankrupt and could no longer deliver it to market. As new clients approached Teva for Drug A, the company realized that they had an incredible opportunity to grow their business quickly. However, to do so, and ensure retained interest from the new clients, Teva had to double capacity in two weeks’ time. The issue, however, was that the manufacturing line for Drug A was already working at full capacity. While prior attempts to increase capacity had resulted in a 15% production increase, Teva needed a more drastic change.

Drug Cocktail?

 

In order to double production quickly without significantly changing their process, Teva turned to SIT and its systematic methodology. Using SIT’s Closed World Principle, which states that solutions to a problem can be generated focusing on existing resources, the Problem Solving Team collectively listed all the elements within the production line and its vicinity (the production line’s “Closed World”).

Through a mapping process, the Teva team first identified that the greatest challenge in dramatically increasing production with the current production line (let’s call it PL-A) was one of the stages of the process, Stage 7. At the same time, the team also came to an initially counter-intuitive concept: that they could consider as part of the Closed World, another, adjacent line: PL-B, in which a different drug was being produced.

By analyzing each of these production lines and their processes, the Teva team arrived at a novel idea. It appeared that PL-B had a stage that was very similar to PL-A’s Stage 7 (the bottleneck). But, as opposed to the situation in PL-A, this stage in PL-B was actually working at only half its capacity! The ensuing solution was as simple as it was surprising: the team redesigned the PL-A process so that immediately after Stage 6, half of the ‘material’ on the Production Line was diverted to the neighboring PL-B, taking advantage of PL-B’s excess capacity in the relevant stage. After finishing Stage 7, the material was immediately rediverted back to PL-A to continue the regular Production Line A process to its conclusion (see diagram below). By using the adjacent Production Line’s (PL-B) capacity, Teva was able to double production with a minimal investment. This occurred almost immediately, giving Teva exactly what the company needed to match market demand for its drug.

 

Complement your Toolbox with a Counter-Intuitive Approach to Productivity and Process Efficiency

Most companies strive to improve process efficiency and enhance productivity. There is always some way to function faster, use fewer resources, or produce less waste. Traditional methods are effective in leading you to do so – but only to a certain extent. These methods usually point out where you need to act but fall short in helping you come up with novel ideas of how to do so. Using specific thinking tools and principles, SIT can do just that, helping you take full advantage of existing resources in surprising and innovative ways, ultimately leading to Productivity Through Innovation.

Incentivizing Innovation: How can you get your employees more actively engaged in innovation?

Published date: September 22, 2021 в 12:50 pm

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Category: Innovation,Organizational Innovation,Strategy

At the behest of one of our clients, SIT studied innovation rewards and recognition practices among 20 companies, from multinationals to SMEs, ranging in size from 200 to 200,000 employees and across sectors such as finance, healthcare, consumer goods, marketing, agriculture, food, hardware, etc.

Based on our research and findings, we’ve compiled a list of some of the best and worst practices for incentivizing innovation and for building your rewards and recognition programs.

Best Practices

#1. Innovate in your own skin

Design rewards that are consistent with your company’s culture, products, structure, and goals. Copy only if you think the model will work for your company, not because it worked wonders somewhere else.

 

#2. Involve authors in the implementation process

There is nothing more exciting than seeing your idea come to life. Seeing ideas through to their completion and implementation is often the greatest reward.

#3. Have something set aside for spot-rewards/awards

Not everything needs to be a huge production. Give managers some ideas as well as a budget to acknowledge or reward innovative behavior when they see it.

#4. Uniform method

Try to have some alignment throughout the company of what’s being done, which, at some level, involves everyone in the company. It can be exciting and surprising to see where ideas originate!

Worst practices:

#5. Short term-ism:

Rewards with a lasting impact can be powerful. Money can be spent and vouchers used, but a letter can be read over and over and plaques displayed proudly!

#6 A system that causes strife and division:

Make sure you reward in a fair and consistent way. For example, if you create a system based on managerial discretion, follow up on it to ensure all managers are indeed providing rewards. Or, provide guidelines that allow people to win more than once, if appropriate.

Innovating Innovation

#7 Incentivizing innovation takes a lot of attention and practice, but it’s crucial to the development of an innovative organization. The more engaged your team is, the better your results.

What rewards and recognition practices have worked best in your organization?

 

Closed World – Inventing Inside the Box

Published date: August 25, 2021 в 1:54 pm

Written by:

Category: Innovation,Methodology,Strategy

Legend has it that NASA invested millions of dollars in developing a “space pen” that would perform well in zero gravity conditions. At the same time Soviet cosmonauts simply used pencils.

Regardless of the fact that we now know this story to be a myth, it provides an important insight into the characteristics of inventive ideas and solutions. It is that most of us prefer simple inexpensive solutions over complicated costly ones. This is also true when we address new product development processes. Obviously, we favor ideas that are easy and inexpensive to implement over those that require the introduction of new technologies and heavy investment. All this may sound trivial. Yet the really interesting question is: why do we so often come up with needlessly complex ideas, and how do we get to the inventive, inexpensive solutions?

The Closed World condition – thinking under constraints

Dr. Roni Horowitz, one of the developers of the SIT methodology, indicated in his PhD thesis, that an inventive solution requires two sufficient conditions: the Qualitative Change condition and the Closed World condition.

The Closed World condition stipulates that in

the development of a new product or when

addressing a problem, one must utilize only

elements already existing in the product/problem

or their immediate environment.

This condition forces us to rely on resources

that are already at our disposal

instead of “importing” new external resources

for the solution.

 

The wetsuit

The wetsuit is a simple example of the Closed World condition. It functions in cold water environments, where body heat loss is a problem potentially causing hypothermia. Solutions that call for external resources, i.e. ones that are far from the Closed World, employ added elements such as external heaters embedded in the suit or thicker insulation layers. Indeed, when it comes to extreme diving situations, such as deep-water or ice-water diving, these types of solutions are in fact required. However, they are expensive, complicated and cumbersome. By contrast, the simple wetsuit utilizes a resource that is abundantly found in the scuba diver’s environment – water. The suit’s fabric absorbs water from its surroundings and envelops the diver’s body with a thin layer of water. The diver’s own body-heat warms the water in the suit, producing a layer of warm water insulating the diver’s body from the cold environment. The diver’s body is kept warm using resources from the Closed World of the problem, namely the diver’s own body heat and the water from his or her immediate environment. It is actually an especially elegant example of the condition, since the cold water, the original cause of the problem, is converted into a resource for its solution. This kind of reversal, in which the problem is transformed into a solution, is also an example of the Qualitative Change condition mentioned above.

The meaning of the “Immediate Environment”

The concept of the “Immediate environment” is relative, and depends very much on context. Nevertheless, there are several principles that help one identify elements from a product’s (or system’s) immediate environment:

First we look for resources that have physical proximity, i.e. are actually touching the product or problem system, or are close to them. Next we look for resources that have functional proximity, i.e. their function is similar to that of one of the resources found in the problem system or product. For example a pen and a pencil have similar roles and thus one can say that the pencil is functionally close to the pen. Last, we look for resources that have structural proximity, i.e. their structure is similar to that of resources found in the product or problem space. For instance, one could say that a cellular phone is structurally close to a calculator since they both have a key pad and a screen.

 

Inventing Inside the Box

The Closed World condition often provokes resistance as it runs counter to some of the most common intuitions about creative thinking, especially the ubiquitous notion of “thinking out of the box”. The essential claim of “thinking out of the box” is that in order to produce ideas that are new and different, you need to somehow move beyond normal thinking patterns, to a universe located outside the metaphorical box. The problem is that the imperative to “think out of the box” is not usually accompanied by clear instructions of how to actually do so. The Closed World condition, by contrast, forces the thinker to find a creative solution by heavily limiting his or hers space of possibilities. It forces one to wander down new thinking paths, with the constraint that these paths are found in the immediate environment of the problem, in its closed world. Since the scope of possibilities is artificially limited there is no choice but to reconsider the relations between elements found in the problem or product and pay closer attention to them: their arrangement in space and time; their assigned functions and their necessity. Thus, the Closed World condition sets us on a collision course with our fixedness, allowing us to arrive at solutions which are both innovative (different from the usual) and simple (since based on existing and known elements).

A Closed World brainteaser To round off this introduction to the Closed World condition, we’ll leave you with a problem to solve.

The problem – An engineer working at a metal processing factory encounters a problem. Hard metal pellets, used for processing metal sheets, are accelerated by an air jet in a bent pipe. The systems works continuously and the pellets abrade the pipe at the bend or “elbow”. As a result the bend must be replaced every four weeks. An attempt to install a tougher elbow did improve the situation but as the elbow had to be replaced every seven weeks, the solution was deemed unsatisfactory.

 

Your turn to use Closed World thinking!

Take a few minutes to try and solve the problem. Remember that in order to work within the Closed World of the problem, you must use only elements and resources found in the immediate environment of the problem space.

 

One Closed World solution – The engineer decided to create a cavity or pocket in the elbow (see diagram). Since the pocket is always full of pellets, the collision energy of the flowing pellets is absorbed. The result is that the elbow itself suffers little or no abrasion and is seldom replaced. This solution is an example of an inventive solution in the closed world since no new resources were employed, nor any new technical capabilities that were not easily accessible to the engineer.

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