Innovation

An Effective Tool for Problem Solving – Part 2

Published date: October 10, 2021 в 12:37 pm

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Category: Innovation,Methodology,Problem Solving

In Part 1 we described a method for laying out a chain of events that describes a problematic state of affairs, starting out from a problem statement. We call the resulting diagram a UDP chain, where UDP stands for Undesired Phenomena. I used an example from 6sigma.org to create the following map. If you are one of the few people on the globe who have not read Part 1 (you and the LinkedIn algorithm(:, I strongly recommend that you click here to do so, and 7 minutes later return to continue reading here. In this Part, I will continue with the same example to demonstrate a principle and a tool that can be used to “break the chain” and find solutions to the problem. The following was the UDP Chain based on the Root Cause analysis in the 6sig.org example:

Creating the UDP chain usually results in a first wave of ideas or at least directions for solutions. Simply laying out the problem in this way is conducive to fresh thinking, and to the discovery that some of your colleagues may even understand the problem totally differently from you. But this is only the first part of the exercise.

To test a UDP Chain, we recommend that you read it aloud, from bottom to top, as if you were telling a story. Any defects in the causal logic will immediately emerge as you listen to yourself. In this case the story could sound like this: I have a hole in my pocket, so I lost my wallet, so I was left without cash, so I didn’t buy gas, so my gas tank was left empty, so I couldn’t start my car, so I couldn’t drive to work, so I got to the office late, so I got in late (again) to a meeting with my boss, so it added to my boss’s list of complaints, so I needed to prove myself even more, so I needed to stay late in the office. Every instance of the word “so” represents one of the small causal arrows in the diagram, and if I say, for instance, that there was a hole in my pocket and therefore my wallet got lost, I am accepting the causality of: hole in pocket -> wallet lost. Or: I will get into the office late -> I will arrive late at the meeting. The general structure of the UDP chain is therefore this:

Link N exists and therefore Link N+1 will also come to be (and therefore Link N+2, N+3 and so on). In our approach to problem solving, we aim to break this seemingly necessary sequence of events, by first asking a challenging question:

A)   What if, DESPITE N, NOT N+1?, which we can phrase also as:

A*) Let’s accept that N will happen, and then see how we can make sure that in spite of this fact, still N+1 will not happen.

This question leads to a second wave of ideas (the first came through the creation of the UDP chain itself), each created through posing the question on a specific pair of links.

  • What if despite the fact that my car won’t start, I can drive to work? (take a cab, get a ride, rent a car, call an Uber etc.)
  • What if despite the fact that I can’t drive to work, I will get to the meeting on time? (Zoom?)
  • What if despite the fact the I lose my wallet, I will have cash (next time)? (payment app?)

As you may note, each of these questions brings up thoughts, some more mundane others more exciting, but what they all have in common, and this is the power of what we call the first Qualitative Change Question, is that you eschew the tyranny of the causal necessity. Think how often we automatically assume that one bad thing leads to another. The Qualitative Change question challenges this mindset. It is also wise in the way that the famous AA Serenity Prayer (which, I just learned through WP, was written by Reinhold Niebuhr) teaches us:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

courage to change the things I can,

and wisdom to know the difference.

With God’s role played in our case by the Spirit of Innovation, we can aim to replace the misguided search for the miraculous Root Cause which when extinguished will solve our problem, with an acceptance that some things we cannot change, don’t need to change, and, as we will see later, may even not wish to.

As I demonstrate in my article about the COVID World (click here to read) both individuals and corporations tend to make the automatic leap from, say, “there is strict social distancing” to “my restaurant/theater business is ruined” while others, who resist the urge, demonstrate that the option to break the chain exists. I am not espousing the New Age concept that just by dint of willing something you can achieve it, only pointing to a possibility to challenge the assumption that you necessarily won’t.

Asking this question provides you with two benefits:

1)    You can select a variety of entry points to tackle your problem;

2)    You gain flexibility of thought by reconsidering the causal relationship between links in the chain.

You are now ready to ask the Second Qualitative Question, which will challenge your thinking even further than the first:

Qualitative Change Question 2: Given a link N, what if not only will N+1 not come to pass, but

The more N increases, the less N+1 will obtain.

This question not only breaks the causal chain, but turns it on its head.

  • The more I lose my wallet the more cash I will have (maybe losing my wallet repeatedly will convince me finally to keep my cash elsewhere?)
  • The less cash I have the more I will be able to buy gas (I will finally download the payment app to my phone?)
  • The longer my boss’s list of complaints the less I will need to prove myself to her (I finally realize that I don’t want to work for a boss who constantly complains about me, and I finally make the move and leave the job?)

This is the classic “Qualitative Change” in SIT terminology: you train yourself to focus less on the phenomena that are bothering you and more on the relationships between them, and then to challenge the necessity of these relationships. This is pretty powerful when you manage to internalize the habit, and not only in work-related contexts:

  • We took the family to the beach and the more it rained the more fun we all had.
  • The more time I had to spend driving the girls to their activities around today, the more I advanced with the article I was supposed to write.

Note that if in the first example one could claim that it was just a matter of defining what I considered as “having fun”, in the second example there is an objective measure – the article’s deadline, and the task was indeed objectively achieved by running the article’s outline in my mind as I was driving or sitting around and waiting, or maybe even by discussing some of my premature ideas with the girls while in the car (a conversation such as the one that gave birth to one of my recent posts). Back to a business context and some real-life examples from the past year:

  • The less our customers can come to our bank branch, the stronger our relationship becomes (launch an initiative for calling our clients at home and offering support)
  • The lower the demand for our flagship product, the more profitable we will be (use the opportunity to focus on launching our higher-margin next generation for which we never managed to get proper management attention before).

You may have noticed that this flipped approach to assessing causal relations, although not identical, is a more generalized form of the well-known tactic of turning a problem into a solution. The UDP approach is wider, and it very rarely fails to deliver solutions, but even when it doesn’t, it invariably leads to fresh perspectives about your predicament.

In future installments we will analyze specific case studies to demonstrate in further detail how these tools can be used and converted into daily habits. Meanwhile, please try this at home!

[The tools described in this post have several progenitors. They are mainly based on the PhD work of Roni Horowitz, who in turn was strongly influenced by the work of both Genrich Altshuler and Karl Duncker, with contributions from Jacob Goldenberg and the SIT team as it used and refined the tools in 25 years of work. No one but me is to blame for the philosophical comments; they are my fault only.]

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.

 

An Effective Tool for Problem Solving – Part 1

Published date: October 3, 2021 в 12:26 pm

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Category: Innovation,Methodology,Problem Solving

If you come to a problem-solver and say: “I have problem X”, most chances are that they will tell you to search for the Root Cause (RC) – a basic rule of Problem Solving (PS). I want to propose that in most cases looking for the RC is not an effective nor an efficient way of going about PS. I will then present the basic principles of an alternative approach, which I believe can very often be more useful.

Here is a definition of RC from Wikipedia:

A root cause is an initiating cause of either a condition or a causal chain that leads to an outcome or effect of interest. The term denotes the earliest, most basic, ‘deepest’, cause for a given behavior; most often a fault.

And this one, from ASQ.org, refers specifically to the common usage of the term in the context of Quality:

A root cause is defined as a factor that caused a nonconformance and should be permanently eliminated through process improvement. The root cause is the core issue—the highest-level cause—that sets in motion the entire cause-and-effect reaction that ultimately leads to the problem(s).

All this speaks to a widespread intuition: that in order to solve a problem one must look beyond the symptoms, and dig deeper “to its roots”. In fact, since the term seems to have been in circulation at least since the late 19th century or beginning of the 20th, its existence may even have contributed to the strength of this common intuition. So, what’s not to like?

To demonstrate the limitations of searching for a RC, and to demonstrate an alternative, let us use an example that appears in 6Sigma.us, as an example of using a common tool for RC analysis, named “The 5 Why’s” and attributed to Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota.

The problem statement does not appear explicitly but presumably it is: “My car won’t start”.

  1. Q – Why won’t your car start? A – There’s no gas.
  2. Q – Why is there no gas? A – You didn’t buy any.
  3. Q – Why didn’t you buy any? A – You didn’t have any cash at the time.
  4. Q – Why didn’t you have the cash to buy gas? A – You lost your wallet.
  5. Q – Why did you lose your wallet? A – There’s a hole in your coat pocket.

The RC here is, obviously, the hole in the Problem Owner’s (PO) coat pocket, and obviously, it makes a lot of sense to fix this hole, if PO doesn’t want to be in the same predicament again or suffer even worse consequences. But let us look at a different approach, that starts out very similarly but then diverges dramatically from RC analysis.

We write the initial problem statement in the middle of the page, and, before we ask the Why questions, we ask, five times: “So what?”. Then, we add the 5 Why questions and their answers below, as in a RC analysis. The resulting chain could look like this:

 

This series of causes and effects, which we call a UDP Chain, where UDP stands for Undesired Phenomena, seems like just a longer version of the same list produced by the 5 Why’s, but conceptually, it is a total rebuttal of some crucial aspects in the RC approach, resulting in an approach that addresses the crucial faults of RC analysis:

1)   The Problem Statement is not “the problem”. It is the intuitive manifestation of the pain felt by the PO (problem owner) at a given moment. More often than not, we will discover, through building the UDP Chain, that what needs to be fixed is elsewhere, or in several “elsewheres”.

2)   The reason we start building upwards, rather than starting with the Why’s going downwards is twofold:

a.    It gives a measure of the importance or urgency of the problem, thus providing an evaluation of the prices one is willing to pay for a solution.

b.    You may discover that what you perceived as a problem isn’t in fact something you need to change. I personally find this the most useful part of the exercise, when I use it on my personal problems (my 2nd grader refuses to study math, so what?, so her teacher will be angry, so what? so she will fail her this year? so what? So she will have to work much harder next year, great – let that be a lesson for her, excellent, I don’t need to do anything about it now).

3)   The UDP chain opens up an entire range of entry points to solve the problem. In the Part 2 of this article, we will introduce an important tool for finding solutions based on the UDP chain analysis, but independently of which specific tools you will use, the UDP parses the problem situation in such a way that you have now at least 12 entry points or angles of attack to try to solve it. The worst you can do at this stage is to narrow the search to one specific link, whether root or other – there is absolutely no reason to deal with the hole in the pocket first!

4)   Even if you do want to focus your efforts on a single link, there may be very good reasons to focus on others, rather than the “root” link, depending on various factors, for instance:

a.    If you are there, with the car, at the side of the road, the state of your coat pocket is undoubtedly very low on your priorities. You may, instead, wish to get hold of some money, or some gasoline, or find someone to replace you at the meeting.

b.    The coat might have been lent to you by someone and you don’t intend to ever see it again, so why bother about the hole?

c.    Your problem is that you tend to lose your wallet constantly. Today it was through the hole, but other times because you just forgot it, or left it in the office or whatever. Fixing the whole wouldn’t really be very helpful then.

d.    In the same vein, you can easily imagine how to continue this series of scenarios in which the RC is low on the PO’s priorities. Why direct their thinking to it then?

5) What determines the level in which the problem should be tackled are two parameters:

a.    Define which is the lowest link that you are not willing to accept and make sure you break the chain somewhere below that point. Example: if the only thing I care about is not having to stay at the office late to impress my boss, then I can break the chain at any link below #12 – that means I can tackle any of the 12 links below! Even link 11, meaning that in principle I could still be stuck with the car, be late for the meeting, incur the boss’s rage, and just find a way to show that I am trying harder without having to stay late. But obviously, if I am not ready to live with the fact that his boss will be dissatisfied with him (#10), then the chain should be broken below that link. Hailing a cab there and then is a solution that comes to mind (lock the car well before you do that). But note that we are still very far from the RC, and it may very well be the case that we don’t have any reason to go that deep because we can find a better, faster solution, much easier to achieve and much closer to our pain point. If, for instance, you are hurrying to a wedding after work, you may decide that #5 is your lowest acceptable link – “no gas in the car’s tank” in which case, forget your meeting or boss, and make sure you somehow get gas into the tank and then get moving.

b.    Define what is the lowest link that is still within reasonable scope for intervention by the PO. You should break the chain anywhere from the link and upward. Are you a psychologist? Do you have the authority – ethically or organizationally speaking – of dealing with a certain phenomenon? Do you have the expertise? Make sure you work on a link or links that are within your scope in all these senses.

c.    The combination of this ceiling and floor give you the Solution Domain – this is the scope within which you are searching for solutions by breaking the chain.

6)   Chains of cause and effect tend very often to be cyclical rather than linear. Imagine that you ask another Why? (link #0) and come up with “He doesn’t have time to fix his coat”. In this case the top SoWhat (#11), which states that he needs to stay later in the office every day, is obviously the cause for #0, thus closing the loop and creating a (somewhat vicious) cycle.

 

 

In sum, although searching for a Root Cause can be useful at times, we recommend a method that both opens more possibilities and enables you to select the most effective and efficient course of action rather than necessarily tackling “the root”. In 25 years of experience using this approach we have found that very often just mapping the UDP Chain will usually either:

1)   Liberate you from the need of taking action (so what? Nothing);

2)   Emphasize the variety of ways that your team understands the problem state;

3)   Point to the real versus perceived pain points;

4)   Mark the scope of the problem and its potential solutions;

5)   Open a variety of angles of attack.

And – TEASER AHEAD – a UDP Chain sets the stage for finding a variety of solutions using Qualitative Change tools, to be described in Part 2.

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.

Four Steps for an Impactful Session

Published date: September 26, 2021 в 1:25 pm

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Category: Innovation,Innovation Facilitation

I am definitely not a charismatic speaker. My voice doesn’t project much, my physical presence is underwhelming and the energy that emanates from me is more soothing than exciting, as I’ve been told (they meant it in a nice way😊). Despite all the above-mentioned handicaps, I very often deliver what are considered very effective talks, courses or workshops. When I teach in universities, I am consistently rated very high in terms of student satisfaction (which doesn’t mean much, but helps me set up the argument for this post) and in the good old days I presented in conferences appearing to impact audiences. How is this possible?

Part of the explanation is the content, obviously. Easier to engage your audience when your topic is innovation. Yet, I believe that at least part of the explanation lies with the model I use, which is in no way rocket science-ish, but is based on common sense and plenty of experience. According to the model, in order to create a tangible impact on participants in a session, a speaker should take them through 4 STAGES. Note, by the way, that I refer to “participants”, rather than “listeners”. To achieve meaningful learning, participants should actively move between the following 4 stages, not just by listening.

Stage 1: Rock the Boat, Unsettle

The first station in the journey is often missing in talks or workshops, mainly because it can be a somewhat unpleasant experience for the audience. In this stage, you must create among your listeners a sense of dissatisfaction, or at least unease with their current status. For example, if your topic is innovation, and you believe, as we (in SIT) do, that a key message in this context is the importance of cognitive fixedness as a barrier to innovation, you will want to start by demonstrating to each and every person in the audience that he or she themselves suffer from some kind of fixedness. Just hitting them with, say, a mathematical puzzle won’t do the job, since most of the audience will just shrug it off as irrelevant (and rightly so). In a similar vein, jointly making fun of the mythological Patent Office director who is supposed to have claimed in the end of the 19th century that no more inventions were needed is merely a cheap way of pleasing your audience with the false feeling that some stupid bureaucrat in the 19th century had fixedness, and we can mock him from our superior vantage point. Instead, challenge them with something that will readily demonstrate: a) that each and every one of them suffers from fixedness, and b) that you are exactly in the same boat with them (admit it, your only advantage over them is that you came to the session prepared).

In this stage you are creating the cracks through which new information and – more important – novel beliefs and sensations will start penetrating the minds of your audience. Without it, the chances that they will open themselves to a real change are slim. With it, there is some possibility that this will happen, provided you can pull off the other three stages as well. But a caveat is in place. Making the audience uneasy is a risky move: some people can actually get up and leave (happened to me in a corporation in the US when I declared that I will not be using a PPT presentation in my session), others can mentally switch off or decide that they hate your guts. The goal, then, is that they feel disturbed by the content but not so perturbed that they disconnect or lose their trust in you.

Stage 2: True, it’s tough, but there is a horizon

After feeling a bit down in the first stage, your audience needs a boost. They need to feel hope. This is, therefore, the time to share positive and even uplifting examples. Whereby in the first stage you focused on a problem, now is the time to demonstrate solutions. In the example I used for Stage 1, you will move from demonstrating that you, me, everyone has fixedness (scary!) to exemplifying that fixedness can be overcome (phew!), for example by showing an elegant solution to an interesting puzzle you shared in the first stage. This needs to be handled with care as well, because you are showing that a solution can be found, but still haven’t described HOW.

Stage 3: Not only are there solutions, but there are tools to reach them

This is where the real work happens, and the official takeaway is supplied – you present the tools, which are often the reason why participants attended your session in the first place. This is considered, as if by definition, the most practical part of your session. In reality, though, the shock you delivered in Stage 1 is probably the biggest gift that a participant can receive. A tool without mindset change is often useless, while a realization of the limits of your current thinking can many times be an important first step for habit-changing. Still, it is better to bow to popular demand and supply tools, and indeed, if you do a good job, participants will then be able to apply them post-session. In our example from Stages 1 and 2, I would at this point demonstrate one of what we call our “Thinking Tools”, designed to break the fixedness to which we called attention at the outset. BUT, this post-session implementation will typically happen only provided that you deliver a proper Stage 4.

 Stage 4: Not only are there techniques and tools, but YOU yourself can leave here and use them

This stage is also often overlooked, or its importance underestimated. Paradoxically, the more charismatic the speaker and impressive the show, the lower the probability of implementation by the audience (yes, you say to yourself, here is the uncharismatic author of the article rationalizing his situation😊). “Yes, sure,” our participant says to herself or him, “All this is well and good for you, rock star, but what has it got to do with poor old un-innovative me?” This is the part in which the participant needs to be convinced that all this good stuff s/he has been hearing about can actually be useful in their reality with their abilities. The most effective way of achieving this objective is allowing the participants to experience your tools or technique there and then, allowing them to feel at least some measure of success. You can also tell them of others, similar in as many respects as you can to them, who have crossed the bridge. This is also often not sufficient, so the last part of Stage 4 is where you lead each of your participants to commit to a specific action that will allow them to bring to bear their learning in the near future on a real-life issue. In our fixedness example we would ask them to think of a specific topic or issue that they would approach using this tool, imagine a partner or partners with whom they would like to try this out, and – if possible – even send them a message right there, during the session, and set a time to talk.

These are the 4 Stages – they are not very easy to follow, but also not beyond the reach of any of our readers here. The catch is that if your main goal is to get a standing ovation (TED-style) or high grades on a feedback form, or just enjoy smiles all around, then the recipe presented here is probably not your best choice. But, if you wish your session to lead to a concrete impact on a large percentage of your audience, following these four stages greatly increases your probability to succeed.

There is also a bonus to adopting the 4 Stage model: with some adaptations, this model can also serve as a general blueprint for driving organizational change. You can find some hints in our articles on Errors of Exclusion: Two Blind Spots when Planning your Innovation Initiative; On Indicators and Measuring Innovation – Part 1; On Indicators and Measuring Innovation – Part 2 More on this topic in a future article.

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?

 

How Most Trainings Fail – Part 2 or How to Design an Effective (behavioral change) Innovation Training – Part 2

Published date: September 19, 2021 в 1:22 pm

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Category: Innovation,Innovation Facilitation,Organizational Innovation

In the first installment of this article (click here to read), I claimed that most trainings that purport to change participants’ behavior fail to do so. I then mentioned 6 points that are in our (SIT’s) view crucial to the success of a training course, while emphasizing that even the best of courses would probably fail to achieve its desired impact unless it is part of a wider, big(ger)-picture program. In this part – #2 – we present 6 additional observations, this time about how an excellently-designed course can be embedded into such a comprehensive program.

1)    Immediate action. In my first ten years as a facilitator, I used to pepper my workshops with plenty of jokes. Once, in the outskirts of Madrid, I even got into a simultaneous match against 15 ad professionals from the local BBDO agency, in which they would take turns to each tell a joke and challenge me to retort with a related one, which I did until their stock was exhausted. They asked me to reveal my secret for remembering so many jokes, and, as a bonus to you – loyal reader – I will share it with you now, as I then did with them. The trick is that every time I heard a joke, I immediately found an opportunity, if possible even two, to repeat it. The same rule applies to participants in a training in which they are taught the use of a tool. First, obviously, they need to apply the tool immediately during the course itself (we referred to that in Part 1). But although this is a necessary condition, it is far from sufficient. The more elusive rule, let’s call it Moore’s Law of Application, is: for every week in which the alumnus of a course does not use a tool she was taught, the probability that it will become a part of her toolbox decreases by 50%. OK, it’s not really that mathematical, but there is no doubt that the principle is valid, and the reason is not only the fading nature of memories. Just like jumping into the water from a diving board, the more you ponder the possibility, the more frightening the prospect of actually performing the action. Build into the very structure of the course an opportunity (or several) to apply the learnings immediately after it. Do not leave this to the initiative of the participants.

2)     Create a community. Continuing with the sporting metaphors: no need to elaborate on how much easier it is to stick to a training discipline when you are doing it within a group, rather than pulling yourself out of bed at 5:30 am to run in the snow by yourself. Creating a dynamic and active community of practitioners is a formidable challenge, to which we will dedicate an entire article (click here to be notified, meanwhile, 3 points to consider:

a)     The best time to start crystalizing a group of people into a community is during the course itself – it is too late if you put your mind to creating a community after the course ends. Try to give the participants as many opportunities as possible to get to know each other within the course, whether remote or in physical presence. This may feel like a waste of time, that could instead be spent on delivering more “content”, but in fact it is usually the best use of participants’ time, especially if it is integrated with practicing or discussing the content (see Part 1 for thoughts on the “how” vs. the “what” of a course).

b)    First steps for creating a sense of cohesion can and should be taken even before the group meets for the first time. Participants can be asked, for example, to prepare a visual presentation of themselves, or a short video that can be circulated a week before the first online session.

c)    A cool exercise we use from time to time is to randomly allocate pairs before the course and have them meet each other virtually before the session (and possibly present something jointly to the rest of the group). This combines points (b) and (c).

3)    Someone with official dedicated time should coordinate the follow-up, and monitor alumni’s progress and needs. This person can distribute materials, encourage communication, help share success stories, detect need for support, measure levels of activity and results, and more. Since most participants of an innovation training will not typically be dedicating their full time to the topic, it is important that, at least for one person, making sure that course learnings are implemented is defined as part of their day job.

4)    As part of the program, you should conduct an activity with the direct managers of all participants. Sending a trainee back to their job without preparing their boss is counter-productive. Our experience shows that the single most crucial factor in a trainee’s performance is the attitude of their direct manager. The good news is, that managers can be trained to exhibit behaviors that encourage a subordinate’s innovative activities, and avoid those that stifle them.

5)    Our experience shows that conducting a 2 or 3 day course as a stand-alone is hardly ever effective. That is why we recommend structures like 3+1+1+1 or 2+2+1 or 3+2+1 etc. The +1 or +2 days additional training sessions should be devoted both to learning additional tools and – more importantly – to share experiences in utilizing the methodology, success stories, and challenges. Trainers should help solve common problems, while the participants support and learn from each other.

6)    In addition to, in parallel, and integrated into the training, participants should be assigned (or take on themselves) specific implementable projects, receiving support to complete them utilizing the skills that are being taught in the training. This serves as proof to participants that what they are being taught actually works, it also helps filter out trainers whose syllabus doesn’t really do the job, it gives trainees the opportunity to involve (and shine in front of) their colleagues and it offers the extremely valuable opportunity to put learnings into practice as soon as possible.

Adhering to these “Training Dozen” points (these 6 and the 6 in Part 1) may sound like a big headache, requiring what is often considered to be an excessive outlay and wasted time. But:

  1. Consider the true objectives of your training program. If it is intended mainly to “enrich” participants, you need not give these suggestions an additional thought. But, if your aim is to release back into the organization a group of alumni that will be active and generate impact, ignoring them is a grave risk.
  2. Although it seems as if this kind of program requires huge resources, they are actually pretty small in comparison with investments made in most companies on IT, machines, M&As, software and other areas. If you truly believe that “our people are our most important asset”, what is more important than maximizing this important asset’s yield?

Happily, in the past 3-4 years we are seeing a constant and steep rise in the number of companies that realize that innovation training programs should be substantial, with serious management backing and a comprehensive outlook. Apparently, experience is teaching the field that easy, inexpensive one-off training programs do not deliver the expected value. Luckily, there is also enough positive experience, both online and in person, to enable companies to run well designed successful programs.

Managers’ Love-Hate Relationship with Innovation and 3Es for Effective Innovation Leadership

Published date: September 15, 2021 в 5:30 pm

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Category: Innovation

When implementing any strategy in the company, you’ve got to have leadership support at the forefront. Innovation strategies are no different. And while companies are, one after another, placing innovation at the top of their values and agenda, managers often experience a conflict of interest rolling out this strategy. It appears they have good reason to feel this way.

On the one hand, leaders are expected to enable change and disruption, while on the other hand maintain operational excellence and continuity. They are required to design, plan and monitor the long-term without compromising deliverables in the short-term. They are encouraged to stimulate an exciting environment but at the same time retain stability. They are challenged to build teams characterized by flexibility and improvisation but simultaneously operate under well-defined roles and processes. They need to be clear and assertive about their way of leading, while adapting to the specific characteristics of their team.

This is the paradox involved in leading innovation – injecting the “new” while keeping (or making it the new) routine. It’s invigorating for management to be given the innovation mandate, but understandable for them to approach with caution given all the demands made on them. What we’ve found has helped leaders overcome this paradox, is to utilize the 3E model by Nadler and Tushman with a focus on innovation: Envision, Enable, and Empower. As a leader, sketch out the model and answer the following questions based on your particular role; the characteristics of your team and its place in your organization’s structure; and your innovation goals (whether set by you or higher up).

 

Envision: Your Innovation Dream

Envision the future: Imagine and clearly describe the destination. What is the vision for your team/unit/department? Describe your “team of the future”. First, be the change you want to see in the world – Get in touch with your inner Ghandi and be the change you want to see in the company. What are your strengths, drive, and sources of authority? How can you serve as an innovation role model?

Transformational Moments – Leverage opportunities that arise in day-to-day work as an engagement tool for inspiration. How can you take advantage of routine events to create strong connections to the future vision and make it feel attainable even today?

 

Enable: Your Innovation Framework

Failures and successes as opportunities for growth: Humans (and corporations) are inherently risk-averse and innovation is often risky. How can you encourage yourself and your team to take risks? How do you assess risk? How can you build tolerance to ambiguity into your team and develop methods to mitigate risks?

Cultivate an innovation environment: Part of leading innovation is creating the right climate that enables it. How do you build the right teams and motivate them? What assurances need to be put into place that will encourage reciprocal trust? How can you instill courage to try new approaches (and that it’s ok to sometimes fail)? What mechanisms need to be established to ensure transparent and sincere communication (downwards and upwards), active listening, and openness?

Resistance to change: People say they love change. Most don’t. Innovation demands change, and so, will inevitably generate resistance. Being sensitive to resistance (whether it comes from colleagues or other stakeholders) is crucial to enabling innovation to happen. What types of resistance do you expect to encounter and from whom? Which types can be nipped in the bud and how? Who do you expect will need ongoing reassurance and how do you plan to win them over?

The Lab: Life is all about experimenting. Labs are also for non-scientists, and experiments are not conducted only in R&D. How and where can you create a space where your team can switch from talking to doing? What would be your parameters, guidelines, and budgeting for experimentation, rapid-prototyping, and creating MVPs?

Collaboration across units/collaborative inquiry: Although investing efforts in one’s unit is key, creating collaborations and partnerships with others is also very important for driving innovation, especially in a corporate setting. Understanding the underlying assumptions of existing practices will enable leaders to both adopt appropriate collaboration models and create (or adapt) new ones, overcoming NIH (“not invented here”) syndromes. What is the company culture on collaboration? Who would be your natural partners? Is there a less intuitive partner you could bring to the pool? How do you create mutual benefit for all parties involved?

 

 

Models for sustainable innovation: Each unit is different in terms of culture, goals, people, etc., yet there some universal ingredients required to sustain innovation in any team. What mechanisms do you need to put into place to ensure that innovation continues to thrive over time? What people and roles need to be identified? Which additional skills do you need to provide to your team through training?

Empower: Put your team on the path for personal success

Nurture your team’s creative spark: Build on your team members’ passions and strengths to get them to contribute to your project or encourage them to lead one of their own. What incentives will motivate your team? How can you influence them team to act in novel ways? What individual and collective strengths can you leverage?

Cultivate champions: Each team or organization has a few outstanding “champions” (talents) that add extra value. How do you identify these champions? How and what should you invest in them? What should their role/s be? Which conditions can maximize the potential and contribution of each champion?

Challenge assumptions: Review and challenge the status quo: Which methods, processes, behaviors and assumptions are deemed as “fixed”? Which may not be relevant today? How can you provoke them to promote change and imagine opportunities to do things differently?

Sketching this model out, and candidly answering the questions for each E, will produce the blueprint leaders need to effectively lead innovation and instill innovation in leadership. Constant examination of the blueprint will be the reality check to achieve the vision that is so desired, while not compromising on executional excellence.

Image of eyeglasses, touchpads and pen at workplace with group of businesspeople on the background

How Most Trainings Fail – Part 1

Published date: September 12, 2021 в 1:05 pm

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Category: Innovation,Innovation Facilitation,Organizational Innovation

(In honor of my favorite book on education: How Children Fail by John Holt, which merits an entire post by itself. Click here to be notified when it comes out)

Many training programs are probably successful. Still, my claim is that most trainings that are directed at modifying trainee’s behavior tend to fail, and the primary reason is that training sessions, by themselves, are not an effective means to create behavioral change. In addition, many training programs suffer from one or usually several defects.

Now that I have hopefully called attention to the gravity of the situation, we can restart the post on a much more positive and constructive tone.

How to Design an Effective Innovation Training – Part 1

(behavioral change training)

There are many outstanding training professionals out there. They can design and deliver interesting, engaging and enriching training sessions, and receive very high scores on trainee’s evaluation forms. Yet, if you visit trainees, say 6 months after the training session, you will rarely encounter profound and lasting behavioral change. In our view, there are several important conditions for this often sought-after but rarely-achieved result. I will mention a few of these principles below, focused on innovation training, but, in fact, relevant to any training that strives to change people’s behavior in a corporate or organizational context. We will address two levels:

I. The training sessions (or course, or webinar);

II. The training program as a whole.

This post – Part 1 – deals with training sessions themselves, in Part 2 you will find some thoughts on the bigger picture.

I. Training sessions

  1. Prioritize the HOW over the WHAT. As made famous by Michael Polanyi (philosopher and all-round Hungarian/errant-Jew intellectual) there is a crucial distinction between knowing that and knowing how. You can, say, be an expert on the mechanics of the operation of a bicycle and still fall every time you try to ride one, while, obviously, most kids who can zip by you easily on their bike do not have the faintest notion of how it operates. Their knowledge, argues Polanyi, is tacit rather than explicit. Behavioral change is based on tacit knowledge, which is why you should be careful not to define a training only by its “content”. What percentage of a bike learning course for your kids would you want to be dedicated to explanations? If your goal is that they know how to ride a bike, the answer is probably “close to zero”. Review your next training session through this lens, by asking of each item in the syllabus: will it teach them how to do something? What?
  2. Limit your content. When we started to deliver training sessions, about 25 years ago, clients would demand that we teach all our 5 basic tools in each two- or three-day training. It seemed to make sense – they were paying what they considered to be a substantial sum of money, their people were kept away from their day jobs for 2 or 3 days, they wanted their money’s worth of training. If we tried to argue that it made more sense to teach only 4 of the 5, the feeling was that we were trying to keep some merchandise from them because we wanted to sell it to them later, at an additional cost. It took us several years and hundreds or thousands of trainees to accumulate sufficient confidence to insist on limiting the content. Today we rarely agree to teach more than 3 of these tools in a single training course. It is not only a question of having enough time – obviously the more time you waste on teaching additional content the less time you have for the crucial task of practicing how to use the content – experience shows that the more tools a beginner has in their toolbox, the harder it will be for them to select a tool in a specific situation and the less focused they will be in learning to master a specific tool. Optimal scenario: learn 2-3 tools max in one training, go out, apply, build your confidence while honing your skills on the go, and only then – come back to learn 1-2 additional tools.
  3. The magic number 16. This is simply a very effective number of participants to have in a training session – offline or on. Allows you to work in pairs, 4 teams of 4, two teams of 8, enough energy in room or zoom, even if 1-2 don’t make it to the session that day. As a provider – be firm, insist on capping the number, resist the temptation to agree on enlarging the team in exchange for charging extra for surplus participants. As client of the training – resist the urge to push 2,3 ,4 additional participants to supposedly “get more” for your budget. You end up getting way less (20 less-than-optimally-impacted participants is much less than 16-strongly-impacted alumni).
  4. Send tentacles into the future. Everyone (hopefully, by now) knows that what happens after the training is as important or more than what happens during. Build this future into the training itself by weaving into the activities what I call “tentacles into the future”, by which I mean tasks and experiences that directly affect what will happen to a participant post-event. Examples: send your future self a message, set meetings to complete specific tasks with a partner, write a message to a colleague who is not participating in the training to sell them on an idea you have just come up with, design a plan (including date and participants) for running a session based on what you learned, etc.
  5. Imagine the “Alumnus Journey”. It is nowadays common practice, when trying to sell, to imagine and craft a detailed “customer journey”. In sales, it can save you from “wishful selling”, which is sending out messages that somehow, hopefully will drive clients to purchase your wares even if you’re not exactly clear about how this is supposed to play out. The same goes for training: the fact that participant X successfully learned a specific tool or skill does not at all imply that they will actually use it. Spend time and thought on visualizing the precise path to implementation and make sure your course refers to all expected obstacles. Example: about 14 years ago we discovered that many alumni of our Innovation Coach courses felt very comfortable using some of the tools we taught them when they found themselves in the right situation, but still very few of them did. The barrier, it turned out, was that they didn’t know how to even arrive at the right situation. To help get them over this hurdle, we created a module named “From Story to Session” that trained them in the gentle art of converting a proverbial water cooler conversation (what’s Zoomish for water-cooler, I wonder?) into a structured session in which they could apply their newly acquired tools. (More on the specifics of training Innovation Coaches, in an upcoming post. Click here to receive a notification)
  6. The Full Monty. Most important: remember that the training session(s) are only part of a wider training effort. Careful! It is relatively easy to plan, say, a 2-day training course and agree that “there will be preparations and follow-up”. But when you do that, you miss the point, as you are still treating the training as a course with a before and after that support it. You are therefore only paying lip service to the notion that what comes after the course is at least as important as the course itself and thus must be built into the course from the outset. In our next post, Part 2 of How Most Trainings Fail, we will discuss training from the point of view of the bigger picture.

The History Corner: How Sliced Bread Became the Benchmark for Future Inventions

Published date: September 8, 2021 в 1:38 pm

Written by:

Category: Innovation,New Product Development

Over the past century or so, innovation is gradually becoming a more dominant factor in our world. However, despite the increasing presence and influence innovations have on our everyday lives, none of them made it into our language – save one: sliced bread. We often hear statements like “it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread!” But have you ever stopped to ask yourself how this seemingly simple innovation managed to become the benchmark for future inventions? A closer look at the history of sliced bread may shed some light on this question.

 

 

In the early years of the 20th century, Otto Frederick Rohwedder had a revolutionary idea: why not sell bread that is already sliced?! A Jeweler by profession, Rohwedder had little to do with the baking industry, but living in a small town in Iowa, right in the middle of the bread basket of America, he was no stranger to it.

In 1912, he decided to implement his vision and started to develop a machine that would automatically slice bread. As his project advanced, he soon realized that slicing bread created a new problem – the multiple surfaces of the sliced bread made it hard to keep it from going stale. It was 16 years later that he completed developing a bread slicer that not only sliced the bread, but also wrapped it in wax paper to keep it fresh.

 Source: http://dailymail.co.uk

Overcoming doubts

Although many bakers had their doubts about this strange machine, the first Rohwedder Bread Slicer was sold after 16 years in 1928. And by July that same year, the first loaf of pre-sliced bread went on shelves in Chillicothe, Missouri. Soon after, in 1930, a company called Wonder Bread started marketing sliced bread nationwide.

Sliced bread saved time and effort for consumers and made it easier to reach for a second and third slice, increasing comfort and consumption. It also gave a boost to pop-up toasters, which had been languishing on the shelves since 1926, as well as to spreads such as peanut butter and jam.

Source:http://priceonomics.com

Slice a piece

So, what is it about this invention that earned it its unique place? Was it the unveiling of such a dominant need that was latent for so many years? Was it the fact that even one of the oldest, most basic products in the world can could be reinvented? Was it the immense success of an idea that is so simple it seems almost obvious in hindsight? Or was it the fact that even such an iconic invention still took almost two decades to develop and implement?

Whatever the historic answer may be, there is much to learn from the story of sliced bread. It is a story of a man and an idea – a story that turns out to be far more complicated than you might expect. It paved the path for future inventions. It involved insight, challenge, creativity and perseverance – much like the story of any successful innovation.

So whatever you spread on your bread – peanut butter & jelly, cream cheese or humus – tell us what you think made this innovation resonate so loudly in our collective minds.

We would love to hear what you think.

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