Innovation Resolution
“The level of abstraction determines a group’s ability to move between strategies and tactics. Too high, and the group becomes lost in the detail; too low, and the group is unable to effectively navigate.”
Stuart Morgan
Director of Industrial Design
Johnson & Johnson
My friend and former J&J colleague, Stuart Morgan, is one of those rare people who can flex between the highest level of abstraction and the smallest details of any particular problem. He is a whiz, and it is hard to keep up with him. For innovators and innovation managers, this is a skill worth developing and adding to your company’s innovation competency model. Here’s why.
To be most successful at applying an innovation method, a team needs to determine the right level of granularity over the problem. Selecting different levels of innovation resolution will yield completely different innovative opportunities. Changing the resolution could yield interesting new adjacent market spaces. The level you target will also affect how you use an innovation method like S.I.T..
Here is an example. Suppose you designed and manufactured commercial aircraft. The natural starting point would be to innovate an airplane. At this level of resolution, our initial component list might be:
- cockpit
- fuselage
- wings
- fuel tanks
- rudder
- elevator
- landing gear
- etc…