GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton
Last night, I lied to a room full of MBA students. I showed them the Design Squiggle, and explained that innovation starts with (what feels like) chaos and ends with certainty.
The chaos part? Absolutely true.
The certainty part? A complete lie.
Nothing is Ever Certain (including death and taxes)
Last week I wrote about the different between risk and uncertainty. Uncertainty occurs when we cannot predict what will happen when acting or not acting. It can also be broken down into Unknown uncertainty (resolved with more data) and Unknowable uncertainty (which persists despite more data).
But no matter how we slice, dice, and define uncertainty, it never goes away.
It may be higher or lower at different times,
More importantly, it changes focus.
Four Dimensions of Uncertainty
Something new that creates value (i.e. an innovation) is multi-faceted and dynamic. Treating uncertainty as a single “thing” therefore clouds our understanding and ability to find and addresses root causes.
That’s why we need to look at different dimensions of uncertainty.
Thankfully, the ivory tower gives us a starting point.
WHAT: Content uncertainty relates to the outcome or goal of the innovation process. To minimize it, we must address what we want to make, what we want the results to be, and what our goals are for the endeavor.
WHO: Participation uncertainty relates to the people, partners, and relationships active at various points in the process. It requires constant re-assessment of expertise and capabilities required and the people who need to be involved.
HOW: Procedure uncertainty focuses on the process, methods, and tools required to make progress. Again, it requires constant re-assessment of how we progress towards our goals.
WHERE: Time-space uncertainty focuses on the fact that the work may need to occur in different locations and on different timelines, requiring us to figure out when to start and where to work.
It’s tempting to think each of these are resolved in an orderly fashion, by clear decisions made at the start of a project, but when has a decision made on Day 1 ever held to launch day?
Uncertainty in Pharmaceutical Development
Let’s take the case of NatureComp, a mid-sized company pharmaceutical company and the uncertainties they navigated while working to replicate, develop, and commercialize a natural substance to target and treat heart disease.
- What molecule should the biochemists research?
- How should the molecule be produced?
- Who has the expertise and capability to synthetically poduce the selected molecule because NatureComp doesn’t have the experience required internally?
- Where to produce that meets the synthesization criteria and could produce cost-effectively at low volume?
- What target disease specifically should the molecule target so that initial clincial trials can be developed and run?
- Who will finance the initial trials and, hopefully, become a commercialization partner?
- Where would the final commercial entity exist (e.g. stay in NatureComp, move to partner, stand-alone startup) and the molecule produced?
And those are just the highlights.
It’s all a bit squiggly
The knotty, scribbly mess at the start of the Design Squiggle is true. The line at the end is a lie because uncertainty never goes away. Instead, we learn and adapt until it feels manageable.
Next week, you’ll learn how.
Image credit: The Process of Design Squiggle by Damien Newman, thedesignsquiggle.com
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