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From Sticky Notes to Digital Transformation

How to Properly Leverage Kanban Boards

From Sticky Notes to Digital Transformation

GUEST POST from Dainora Jociute

Whether it’s a bunch of sticky notes on an office wall or a clever digital tool with color-coded boxes, most of us are familiar with the ingenious concept of a Kanban board.

Perhaps that’s not the name you use. Maybe for you and your team, it’s Trello or simply a whiteboard, yet at the very core of it all, hides a little neat Japanese invention that sparks joy – Kanban.

It is not exactly a new concept, however over the years Kanban remains largely unchanged and its popularity unwavering. In this article, I will try to take a deeper look at what it is and how to make it work for you.

A Short History of Kanban

The word Kanban translated from Japanese means sign or signboard. Back in the day, and I am talking way back – 17th century – that was exactly what Kanban was. It was a signboard signaling to passersby what services or products a business offered.

In a more recent chapter of history, in the wake of the Second World War, the Japanese automotive manufacturer Toyota was in a pickle. The company struggled to make any profit, and they realized that something must be done. This is where Taiichi Ohno, the so-called founding father of Kanban comes into the picture.

A budding industrial engineer, Ohno was sent to the US to scout and gather inspiration for improving manufacturing back at the Toyota plant. The revelation hit Ohno in the most inconspicuous place – a grocery store. He noticed that some supermarkets stocked their shelves based only on customer demand. Customers would pull products they need off a shelf, and the store would restock them only once it was gone, avoiding unnecessary overloading of the shelves with excess products in advance. This system ensured that the store only sold products with real demand.

This pull approach (on that a little later) clearly reduced waste: it saved the time wasted on restocking, resources spent on overproduction, produce thrown out, and much more. Aiming to eliminate waste without sacrificing production back at the Toyota plant, Ohno introduced the pull system in the shape of paper cards that he later named Kanban.

Each Kanban card contained a clear description of each step in the production line, be it the number of materials needed or a particular task of the production chain to be done. It controlled amounts of production ensuring that only what is needed will be created. These cards moved systematically along the whole manufacturing process and guided what must be done throughout the journey. It became a simple yet ingenious tool for managing the whole manufacturing process ensuring that no waste will be created along the way.

Later down the line, other brilliant minds realized that the same approach can be applied to other industries too, not just manufacturing.

One of the key figures responsible for this adaptation was David J. Anderson. He is known for adapting Kanban principles from their origins in manufacturing to knowledge work, particularly software development and project management.

Although there were other prominent advocates of Kanban in software development, Anderson’s 2010 book on Kanban gained significant popularity, leading him to gain widespread recognition as one of the main proponents of the Kanban we all know today.

What is Kanban?

With all that said, it is time to go into more detail about what Kanban actually is.

In the simplest words, Kanban is a visual tool, a signboard for mapping and tracking planned work, work in progress, and work done.

Kanban is a visual tool for mapping and tracking planned work, work in progress, and work done.

While Toyota mainly used the original Kanban system to track inventory in their manufacturing processes, today’s Kanban can be applied to a much broader range of work areas.

Today, Kanban is widely used in knowledge work to visualize and map the value stream. It helps teams and individuals self-organize and minimizes the need for constant supervision.

However, it takes a bit of time to reach that harmonious sync with your team and squeeze the full value from the board. There are key things in the process that should be known before kicking one off, so let’s break the Kanban down.

Kanban, the Pull System

Now, you read it in this article and most likely you heard it before: Kanban is based on the pull process. But what does that entail?

In Kanban, the concept of “pull” means that tasks or projects are pulled into the process based on the team’s skills, readiness, and capabilities. Similarly, to the pull that Ohno observed in American grocery stores, in Kanban, you take action when there is a need and capability. This approach ensures that tasks are not imposed on individuals who might not have the time but are instead taken up by those who are more likely to complete them.

This enhances efficiency and effectiveness, prevents bottlenecks, increases the completion rate, and prevents waste. In the end, by pulling tasks based on readiness, the team can maintain a sustainable workflow and deliver outcomes within the expected timeframe.

Elements of the Kanban Board

When it comes to Kanban, the true beauty hides in its simplicity, and here, less is truly more. All you need is just a few elements to have a working Kanban board:

  • Column: an element indicating the stage of the process (most commonly to be donedoing, and done.
  • Card: an element visually representing a work item. This is where you write what has to be done, when, how, and who is responsible for it.
  • Work-in-progress (WIP): a number indicating the number of tasks in the respective column. Having a WIP limit set for each “active” column helps with workload management.
  • Swimlane: horizontal lines that split the columns, used to indicate the team responsible for the tasks, urgency, or just differentiate other relevant categories. The swimlanes are particularly useful for larger projects that involve multiple departments.
  • Commitment point: a step in the process that signals when a task is ready to be taken to the next step of the development process. For example, when a team member selects a task from the backlog and moves it to the next column, the task crosses the commitment point. This means that the responsible person is committed to completing the task to the best of their knowledge.

Kanban Board

Kanban Board


In addition, it is worth knowing the following definitions:

  • Cycle time: This is the time need to complete a work item or progress a card from the backlog to the done column. Cycle time starts from the moment the work item crosses the very first commitment point and ends at the moment the work item is completed. It measures the actual time spent working on a task and is an essential metric for understanding how long it takes to complete individual items within the workflow.
  • Lead time: It is the total time taken for a work item to move through the entire workflow, starting from the moment it is requested or initiated until it is completed and delivered to the customer. It includes not only the time spent actively working on the task (cycle time) but also any waiting time or delays while the task is in progress or in queues.

Cycle time measures the actual time spent working on a task.

Lead time measures the whole time spent on a task, both active work time and inactive waiting time.

These elements, paired with a clear process policy are all you need for the Kanban process to work.

How to Make Your Kanban Work

So, while the elements of Kanban are simple and straightforward, the success of the Kanban process and results heavily depend on the implementation of policies and effective communication practices.

There are a few of those that should be set in place before you start your Kanban initiative:

  • Process policies. Essentially, this is a set of rules, guidelines, and agreements that will define how work needed to be done will be executed by the team. Having policies set before you start managing projects with Kanban will ensure that the team knows how to handle different types of tasks, and how to tackle possible issues along the way, it will assist in prioritization of work. Process policies act as the standard of your Kanban process.
  • Commitment. Tasks should not cross commitment points because a member was bored or had extra time on their hands. Goals and expectations for each task should be communicated clearly. Assigning a responsible department or team for certain tasks helps to keep track and ensure that tasks remain in competent hands.
  • Defined workflow. This refers to the specific stages (columns) through which work items move as they progress from initiation to completion. By defining your workflow in Kanban, you create a clear and visible representation of how work progresses through your process. This allows everyone to have a shared understanding of every step involved and the sequence of work.
  • Limited WIP. It is a crucial aspect in reducing the cycle time for each project. By placing a cap on the number of tasks in progress, teams can allocate their capabilities and resources more effectively, avoiding the inefficiencies of multitasking. Having a smaller number of WIPs enables rapid identification of bottlenecks and prevents overburdening the team.
  • Feedback. It helps to make iterative adjustments to optimize workflow, catalyzes learning, and promotes a culture of continuous improvement. Feedback in the Kanban process can be provided in many different ways, for example, daily stand-up meetings or code reviews done after the work item moves to a respective column (i.e. from doing to testing).

Benefits of Using the Kanban Method

Kanban is flexible, easy to use, and quick to master and there are plenty of benefits of using the method. To name a few: 

  • Workflow visualization. Visualization allows transparency, immediate feedback and real-time updates. And Kanban is an excellent way to visually represent and manage workflow, no matter how simple or complicated it is. By visually breaking down the process into small steps and putting it on a board, you can get a great view of who is working on which tasks and the overall progress of your project.
  • Improved communication and collaboration. The possibility to see everyone’s progress with each task and who is responsible for what fosters more transparent communication. Regular meetings and check-ins on the board allow teams to provide feedback and leave comments. Knowing who is responsible for certain tasks improves collaboration by making it easy to give feedback or suggestion.
  • Bottleneck identification. By leveraging the visual nature of Kanban, teams can proactively identify and address bottlenecks in the workflow. This helps optimize the flow of work, reduce delays, and increase efficiency and productivity.
  • Reduced waste and increased productivity. Kanban allows gathering information about the processes quickly and changes might be made on the spot eliminating time for rework needed. Visualizing work and identifying bottlenecks enable streamlined processes, while work-in-progress limits prevent overload, leading to faster task completion.
  • Continuous improvement. All the best aspects of Kanban culminate in Continuous Improvement. It is the most significant benefit of using Kanban in project management. With a clear and visual representation of the workflow, teams can easily identify areas in need of improvement and address issues quickly. By making incremental changes based on real-time feedback, teams can enhance their workflow, deliver higher-quality outputs, and be more responsive to customer needs.

    The transparency provided by Kanban fosters a culture of ongoing optimization, making it an amazing tool for driving continuous improvement.

From Sticky Notes to a Digital System

Some years back, I worked in a company where we used a real, physical Kanban board. And I don’t mean a whiteboard, I mean a full wall, covered from top to bottom in sticky notes (big organization, big team, and a huge process). And part of me loved it.

We all worked like busy bees, with our individual tasks, tied to a common goal. Kanban was the place where everything fell into place.

Every morning we would hover over that wall, with a cup of coffee in our hands, checking where those stickies are traveling. It was a whole story unfolding in front of our eyes.

People with Sticky Notes

However, everyone agreed that tracking each sticky note took a big bite of our mornings.

Was the task I worked on approved by legal and moved to the next stage, or was it sent back to be reworked?

That’s why I see the digitalization of Kanban as a blessing. It makes things easier to track and increases readability, which reduces waste.

Also, think about the analytics and reporting. Our manager used to take pictures of the wall and show them during the Monday team meetings. Zooming and deciphering individual handwriting… yeah, not the best. Luckily, digital tools save us from this burden.

Pros and Cons of Digital Kanban Board

There are some obvious benefits of a digital Kanban board:

  • Remote collaboration. Digital Kanban provides coherent communication and coordination among distributed teams. The team can access the Kanban board from anywhere, enabling real-time updates, tracking, and smooth communication. This fosters a sense of unity and efficiency, even when team members are geographically dispersed, ensuring that projects move forward cohesively and productively.
  • Security. Digital Kanban tools often provide encryption and secure data storage, protecting sensitive information from unauthorized access, and in case of unexpected issues, you can often rely on automatic data back-ups and easy data recovery. Finally, such tools eliminate the risks of post-it falling off, being removed without a trace or simply getting damaged. In addition, it allows you to keep all the possible sensitive data hidden away from the curious eyes of office visitors.
  • Automation. Most of the tools come with certain automation features. For example, notifications and email reminders ensure that Kanban stays active, deadlines are not forgotten, or finished tasks progress automatically. All relevant data is just a few clicks away, and integration with other relevant tools makes reporting and process improvement much easier.
  • Document management. Most digital tools provide one safe and easy-to-access place to gather information, supporting files, and leave comments and feedback by the team.
  • Customization. Most of the tools allow flexible customization, you can adapt the Kanban to your unique workflow, limit WIPs, add swimlanes, or add additional columns. As a secondary bonus, customization gives a chance to create a visually appealing board or a board that perfectly fits your brand.

However, as with most tools, there is no one right way. Digital Kanban tools has some disadvantages too:

  • Lack of communication. Digital tools allow us to check information when we want, from wherever it is comfortable for us, meaning that we can finish the whole process barely ever meeting our team.

    So, without a physical board, people might end up working in isolation. While it might sound like a dream for an introvert, in the grander scheme of things, lack of communication might cause an array of issues like misunderstandings, misalignment, delayed issue resolution, and others.
  • Unfiltered input. The digital board might open the gate to idea dumping. While shooting as many shots as possible can be a good thing in a brainstorming session, only planned and discussed tasks should end up on a Kanban board to ensure that planned projects are finished efficiently.
  • Dependency on third-party vendors. Using digital tools means relying on third-party vendors, and if the vendor faces issues or discontinues the product, it could disrupt the team’s workflow.

With that said, if you will look deeper into the pros and cons of digital vs physical, you might find a lot of contradicting information. Some articles might argue that digital tools can be time-consuming, requiring people to navigate additional applications, while others claim that physically going to a board might take extra time. 

Similarly, some articles highlight concerns about communication issues and working in silos, whereas others praise digital tools for facilitating communication, especially among remote teams. The contrasting viewpoints can lead to different interpretations and opinions on the impact of digital tools in the workplace.

So, physical, or digital? As predictable as my answer will sound – it all depends on your unique way of working.

Going Digital

There are a lot of tools that could be used as a digital Kanban board. From the good old Excel to a dedicated digital Kanban tool such as Kanbanize, you have plenty to choose from. However, such tools are not necessarily equal to one another. If you were to take the digital route, here are some points worth considering before committing: 

  • Integration: i.e.: does the tool work with systems and other tools you already use?
  • Visualization: i.e.: does the allow easy visualization of the workflow?
  • Customization: i.e.: can you change and add elements as columns, WIPs, etc?
  • Automation: i.e.: are you able to get reminders, or do finished tasks move automatically to the next column?
  • Analytics: i.e.: can you extract data on cycle time or lead time?
  • Ease of use: i.e.: how steep is the learning curve?
  • Price: i.e.: does additional features, like the number of users, or analytics cost extra?

Conclusion

Kanban has come a long way from its inception as a simple manufacturing process management tool to the project management tool that it is today. And while Kanban is often associated with development, software, Lean, Agile, and Scrum… do not get tricked. Kanban can be used to manage wide-ranging projects with multiple stakeholders and at the same time, it can be used to help with organizing and managing personal projects.

As discussed earlier, it is obvious that the simplicity, flexibility, ease of deployment, and effectiveness in visualizing workflows, promoting collaboration, and continuously improving processes make Kanban an attractive tool for a variety of industries. It brings a myriad of benefits such as the reduction of bottlenecks, enhanced productivity and efficiency, improved communication and so much more. So, it is a no-brainer when it comes to giving Kanban a shot.

As to why it remains mostly unchanged, the good old rule of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it applies here perfectly. From the 1940s to 2023, from automotive manufacturing to software development, Kanban has been and still is a simple tool that simply works.

Image credits: Viima, Unsplash

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A Guide to Effective Brainstorming

A Guide to Effective Brainstorming

GUEST POST from Diana Porumboiu

Brainstorming is one of those hyped terms that these days has a reputation of its own because of the controversy surrounding it. Is it just a shallow activity, organizations do when they are stuck in a rut? Or is there an efficient way to go about it without wasting time?

The debate still goes on, and both sides have valid arguments. The opposing sides of the debate are the experienced facilitators or managers who vouch for its value when done right, and the academic research that points out the flaws and the short-sightedness of the approach.

But we don’t live in a black and white world, and as is the case with most things, brainstorming is more nuanced than that. Since brainstorming first became a thing, in the ‘50s, the world has changed radically. In the past 70 years, we got the Internet, we went digital, and our working life looks completely different.

Even so, the basic rules of brainstorming haven’t really adapted to these new realities. So instead of asking ourselves if there is a point in brainstorming, and whether it’s good or bad, maybe we should update the old ways of brainstorming to make it more effective for modern organizations.

So, in this article, we’ll answer essential questions like what the value of brainstorming is, and provide practical steps and up-to-date rules of thumb that can lead to effective brainstorming sessions.

But without further ado, let’s get to it.

What is brainstorming and what’s the hype around it?

To set the scene, let’s recap what brainstorming is and how it became such a key concept in creative thinking.

In a nutshell, brainstorming refers to the group ideation technique where people get together for a session to generate and contribute ideas around a specific theme or problem.

Nowadays, brainstorming is the overarching term for a variety of methods, tools, and techniques that have been developed to facilitate creativity and encourage idea generation.

As a short background story for those who are not familiar with the source of brainstorming, Alex Osborn is considered the father of this method. A creative theorist, and businessman he imagined the technique in the 50s, and was actively using it in his agency, BBDO. Reportedly, every day they were running a brainstorming session, in a bright yellow room where up to 12 people would gather to bounce around ideas. After 401 sessions, they had a total of 34000 ideas, which in the end resulted in 2000 good ideas.

If we do the math this translates to 5 decent ideas per session. 70 years ago, this might have looked like a good use of time, but considering today’s technologies and methods, those results could be achieved with far less effort and way faster. Current tools allow easier and faster idea collection, which leaves more time for actual development and implementation work.

Brainstorming caught the attention of researchers in the academic world, which made this one of the most researched creative thinking methods. This is also how the technique became very controversial.

The first ones to show interest in brainstorming were researchers at Yale, whose studies led to an unexpected outcome: individual ideation led to more ideas than group ideation. As academic settings are different from corporate ones, understandably the results were not deemed reliable.

The Traditional Rules of Brainstorming and Their Benefits

Osborn came up with the brainstorming technique as a tool to generate a large number of ideas for a specific problem. Brainstorming, which he initially called thinking up was grounded in a few basic rules that would govern each session.

1. Quantity first: come up with as many ideas as possible and the winning ideas will eventually come.

Ideas are the main purpose of a brainstorming session, so we couldn’t agree more, you want as many as possible. However, when it comes to traditional brainstorming sessions, you drastically reduce the number of ideas that could be generated.

The traditional approach suggests getting together 10 to 12 people who can work together. There’s an obvious limitation to this approach, as we saw in Osborn’s results, they needed over 400 sessions to get to 2000 decent ideas.

Limiting access to only a select few, is diminishing opportunities and the number and diversity of ideas that could be generated. It might have worked well in a small agency and in the 50’s offices, but in today’s complex and global work environments, this approach is highly restrictive.

When people work remotely or from different corners of the world, it is highly inefficient to get them together for a brainstorming session. Let alone involve those who don’t happen to work in the figurative Ivory Tower at headquarters. Ideas should come from all employees in an organization, not just from top managers.

2. Encourage bold, crazy ideas

Don’t rule out any ideas because you never know where a spark can come from. The risk with this rule is that people have the tendency to focus more on pointing out problems than solutions. But this doesn’t mean that there is no value in that. Even if the solution isn’t right, you might uncover something that was not obvious up to that point that helps you solve the right problem down the road.

Opening the door to wild ideas can come with the challenge of keeping people focused on the goal, especially since the next rule makes it even harder to get participants back on track when they veer away from the purpose of the session.

3. No evaluation or criticism of ideas

Understandably, the role of this rule is to not discourage or cut people off from churning out a flow of ideas. As the best ideas often build on top of other people’s ideas, this is as an important rule.

However, it also leads to some issues. Even though fostering a safe environment is essential in creative thinking, a brainstorming workshop won’t do the trick. Building a safe environment comes from the overall organizational culture and can’t be suddenly created when brainstorming if it was nonexistent before.

Even though on paper this is a good rule to balance the flow of ideas and give voice to everyone, in practice you will always have the most extrovert, open person in the room speak more and drown out others. Someone more opinionated or with a stronger personality could easily discourage the more reserved, introverted people. And this can happen even when enforcing this rule. Some people will always feel more comfortable speaking up than others.

Also, if there is no instant reaction and no healthy debate, groupthink will settle in. The last rule of brainstorming is meant to combat this, but can it?

4. Combine and improve ideas

Osborn was not wrong to believe in the creative power of a group and in his circumstances, he made it work. When ideas are transparently shared, it’s easier for people to contribute, build upon those and get more creative together.

At the same time, the proponents of brainstorming tend to blame the critics of the method for being inexperienced, unskilled, or simply ignorant. Basically, they don’t see any flaws in the method.

There might be a grain of truth there, but it’s just one side of the story. Even skilled facilitators have a hard time choosing and using the right tools to reach their goals. Sometimes you can expose yourself to others’ ideas at your own pace, when you can digest the information, not when your boss asks you to be creative.

To harness these ideas and moments, organizations should enable the transparent flow of ideas in an asynchronous approach. This will enable them to leverage the creative and collaborative power of hundreds and even thousands of people.

Luckily, modern technology and the myriad of tools available today allow for simultaneous interaction between thousands of people who can transparently collaborate and build on top of each other’s knowledge a snd ideas.

It’s interesting to note that even though these ground rules were first introduced in the 50s, they are mostly valid, and can still be relevant in small agencies and working groups that need a fast fix to a specific issue.

When vouching for brainstorming, many supporters of the method bring up two important benefits:

  • Synergy, (which comes from the fourth rule of brainstorming) and
  • Social facilitation 

Synergy

In essence, synergy refers to the results produced by collaborative work. When people get together, the overall result is greater than the impact they would have had individually.

So, when it comes to brainstorming the ideas generated by some can inspire and motivate others to come up with more ideas. It generates a chain reaction that enables people to build on top of each other’s ideas.

However, organizations are highly complex these days and information is spread across teams, departments and functions.

There are also many other things at play when it comes to team dynamics and human behavior when we interact in person.

For example, the more cohesive a group, the greater the risk of groupthink, conformity, and the tendency to want to reach unanimity. There is also the risk shift issue, which is the tendency of a group to make riskier decisions than they would have made individually.

Then there is also the social loafing concept which refers to how people work less hard for ideas when in a group, rather than if they were doing it alone.

study on group performance also brought to discussion another phenomenon: downward norm-setting, where a group performs at the level of the weakest person.

Teamwork and cohesive groups are essential for the well-functioning of an organization, but there is always the flip side of the coin. While all these things are not bad per se, they do inhibit the possibility of great, diverse, out-of-the-box ideas. The vacuum in which  brainstorming tends to operate, can favor such behaviors which can become bottlenecks for the idea-generation process.

Social facilitation

Again, this is a vast topic, but the main idea here is that people tend to behave differently when in the presence of others. Some research states that people perform better certain tasks when they are with other people than when they are alone.

These theories are hard to prove or explain even for social scientists, so in the context of brainstorming, it’s even more controversial to state that mere collaboration with others can improve one’s performance. There are just too many factors at play.

One of the most obvious is that each brainstorming brings together different personality types. Not everyone will feel energized by the chaos that some brainstorming sessions can turn into. From the personal experience of the introvert writing this piece, brainstorming sessions can be energy-draining, exhausting exercises, and not the most inspiring, motivating types of work meetings.

Most leaders who decide to run a brainstorming workshop do it for one or more of these reasons:

  1. fun activity to energize and motivate the team (as mentioned, it hardly applies to everyone, since you will never have completely homogeneous teams, something you shouldn’t even strive for)
  2. Improve communication and get people on the same page (indeed, when you bring people in the same room it’s easier to communicate the same thing to everyone and bring clarity).
  3. They involve people in decision-making or at least give that illusion. In some cases, it can work, as people engage and feel motivated when they are listened to. But over time if their ideas are ignored, cynicism can creep in and people will stop believing and engaging in these workshops.

The main purpose of brainstorming, which is creative thinking and idea generation is mostly overlooked, but for these other benefits, it can still be a valuable exercise, especially in small teams and organizations.

That being said, for medium to large organizations who want to make the most of the basic idea of brainstorming, generate as many ideas as possible and get the best results, there are better ways to go about this. Some new, up to date rules, and tools, should be considered if you want to brainstorm in a 21st-century organization.

So, let’s see why and how you can revamp the traditional rules of brainstorming and bring them to modern working life.

The Improved Rules of Brainstorming

Before diving deeper into each of these rules, let’s start by setting the scene of brainstorming: when should you brainstorm, and what are the prerequisites that would make the effort worthwhile.

The most common criticism towards brainstorming is that it doesn’t build momentum and things come to a halt once the session has ended. The reasons could be:

  • There is no systematic process in place to manage ideas and to include ideation methods in these processes
  • The goals where not clearly defined before the brainstorming. Closely linked to the previous reason, there was no accountability for the outcome of the session and no one in charge of moving ideas further.

So, before jumping into a brainstorming session take a moment and reflect on the purpose. Are there other possibilities, tools, and solutions that might work better?

For example, in recent years a new concept has gained traction, painstorming. If we disregard the not so inspired choice of words, there’s actually something to it.

With painstorming the focus is shifted towards fixing customers’ pain points, so you work to uncover pain points and come up with better ideas around those. Of course, there is nothing new about it, but when you look at why you wanted to brainstorm in the first place, this might bring a new perspective, and with it, new methods and tools, like the Jobs To Be Done framework or How Might We statements.

Of course, these tools aren’t mutually exclusive or replace the need or role of brainstorming. So, if you decide that brainstorming is still something you want to do, you might as well do it right. Here are some amendments to the traditional rules of brainstorming.

1. Quantity: for more ideas, go virtual

As already mentioned, we stand by this rule: to get the best ideas you need a larger pool of ideas to choose from. And in the digital world we live in, you can’t rely just on pen and paper for that.

It’s simple: if you want more ideas, you need more input and more participants, which in an office setting is hard to achieve. We can’t imagine brainstorming with 30 people in the same space; how they would interact, take turns, suggest ideas, how long it would last, and what the outcome would be. Even finding a calendar slot that works for all 30 participants will likely take months. But we can imagine a hybrid workshop with 30 participants or even a completely virtual brainstorming session with hundreds of people.

There are even studies that show how virtual brainstorming sessions are more productive because the environment can provide a better experience for the group members, balancing introverts and extroverts, optimists, and pessimists.

2. Encourage bold, crazy ideas: create the right environment

The crazy ideas come in the most unexpected moments, so don’t miss the opportunity of capturing those. Ideas should not be tied to a place or a moment and because you rarely have the wildest ideas on the spot in a brainstorming session, it’s best to provide the tools and create the processes that allow for idea generation and collection anywhere, and at any time.

That’s also why going virtual is essential. The standard approach is to squeeze some juicy ideas during brainstorming, or to dump them in a collaboration tool as a DM or in a group, where it will probably get lost among the hundreds of messages and conversations.

An idea management tool gives you the freedom and flexibility to come up with ideas at any moment. Then you can discuss them, build upon them, and develop even better ones before, during, or after your brainstorming session.

3. No evaluation, or criticism of ideas: for healthy debates, nurture creative abrasion

Another big topic that goes far beyond brainstorming is the culture in which these sessions take place. The premise is not wrong: you don’t want people to feel intimidated, so you don’t criticize or put their ideas down.

The backbone of brainstorming is collaborative work, but to collaborate doesn’t mean to agree with others all the time. In fact, we get better ideas through debate and discourse.

While Steve Jobs is to this day labeled as a bad leader for his aggressive style and insensitive ways, we could see how his approach helped build a couple of the most innovative companies in the world. Between his style and today’s overly polite approach to conflicting ideas, there is a middle ground: creative abrasion, the ability to create a marketplace of ideas through debate and discourse.

Creative abrasion is not about creating conflict, and irritating group members. It’s about creating cultural, disciplinary, and thinking style diversity, encouraging diversity of ideas, and managing the resulting abrasion for maximum creativity.  

To have creative abrasion you need a work environment that provides psychological safety, where people feel safe to advocate for their point of view and disagree with their colleagues or even superiors. Ideas should be challenged, and so should people. If you are a facilitator, ask questions like “what happens if…”, “have you thought of…” or “how might we…”?

You can read more about the topic of psychological safety in our article on how to lead innovative teams.

4. Combine and improve ideas: turn the sessions into a process

A good rule that could also use some refinement to make it even better. In the traditional setting, once ideas are generated and collected, people are expected to react to the pool of ideas they have in front of them. Yet again, there is no such thing as a stroke of genius, the a-ha moment that comes spontaneously.

The key here is to give people the time to reflect on what they’ve learned, research and work on those ideas in order to come up with novel, updated versions of those ideas. In traditional brainstorming, all of that should happen in the same session.

However, this is not something you can do in one session. It’s not just the conclusion of Yale researchers. Jake Knapp, inventor of the design sprint method, and author of Sprint, was using brainstorming workshops at Google for years, until he realized the outcome was not the expected one. Individual ideas that were thought through, of people who took the time to think and analyze, were better and more valuable than those that came out of the brainstorming workshops.

So, what you can do instead is to turn brainstorming into a primarily asynchronous collaborative process that includes a few joint sessions where people can come together to discuss, debate, and find alignment.

If you want to rush brainstorming into a few hours session and expect great results from that, there might be no point in brainstorming at all. You might as well just ask some experts for their input on that specific issue or challenge. And you might still get better results than doing rushed brainstorming sessions.

With these new rules in place, let’s see how you can organize and run successful brainstorming sessions.

Virtual Brainstorming

How to Setup a Virtual or Hybrid Brainstorming Session

The most exciting part is always getting our hands dirty. Before getting started you need to decide on a shared collaboration tool that is easy to take into use, flexible, and intuitive for everyone to contribute. Ideally, you will choose a tool that doesn’t allow just idea collection, but can support multiple simultaneous idea management processes, can be easily customized, and allows evaluation, transparency, and participation from different kinds of stakeholders, both inside and outside the organization.

The right tool will enable you to run both virtual and hybrid brainstorming sessions where you have some teams remote and others in-person.

1. Set the stage

This first step takes us back to the last rule on the list. Start by defining the process(es) for the sessions you wish to organize.

What is the main goal and focus that will guide the session? It’s best to start your workshops, brainstorming or idea challenges by deciding on the process that best fits your situation.

2. Set up the environment for idea collection

At this stage, you should already know who will be responsible for monitoring the process, who will participate, and what channels of communication will be used. As an example, we used Viima’s brainstorming board template which has the right settings already in place.

This will allow you to communicate in advance the why, what, and how and invite people to participate. For easier monitoring and better organization, create different types of categories of ideas you are looking for. These can be around solutions, opportunities, challenges or problems you want to solve.

3. Generate, collect, and organize ideas

If you’re running a hybrid or an in-person brainstorming, make sure to send the agenda beforehand. This will give people time to prepare, think about the topic and make research if necessary. If your brainstorming is part of a longer process, like an idea challenge and you run it asynchronously, you should set a deadline for submitting ideas.

Ask participants to contribute in advance so that during the brainstorming session you can focus on discussing and refining those ideas.

It’s also good to define the development process of ideas through statuses that indicate where certain ideas are in the process.

For example, for the purpose of brainstorming you can have ideas collected before the sessions, and during the sessions. After the brainstorming and based on data you collected, ideas with potential can change status and move to the next phase. This could be, for example, a new session to discuss and work on the remaining ideas.

Encourage participants to build upon other ideas by commenting and providing their own insight and expertise.

4. Evaluate

An idea evaluation process to get the information that will allow you to make the best possible decision. When evaluating ideas you need a set of criteria, or metrics to consider the various aspects of an idea. When you combine these metrics you get a numeric rating, the score, which can provide an estimate for the potential of the idea.

A systematic set of criteria for evaluating ideas will help you take better and more consistent decisions. However, these criteria vary greatly depending on the industry, type of ideas, strategic objectives, etc.

What is the impact of the idea, how much effort it requires to implement it, and so on. Some of these metrics are best evaluated by managers or subject matter experts, while others can be evaluated by other participants in the brainstorming, based on their own knowledge and involvement in the process.

This is where many brainstorming sessions end. But in reality, this is just the beginning. Once you are done with the brainstorming, idea collection, and evaluation, you need to prioritize them and decide on the next steps. All these steps should be transparent, so people understand the reasons behind certain decisions, why some ideas might be left behind and why others are considered.

5. Prioritize and follow-up

This is the step where the magic of a good idea management tool comes in play. An idea management tool can help you prioritize and select the ideas that meet your criteria and get the highest score.

At this point, you can choose a few ideas to go forward with and prepare for the next session and invite people on an even more focused brainstorming around those ideas.

If you get to one idea with high potential, you can zoom in on that, move it to another session for validation, or maybe even create a new board to collect more ideas around the development and refinement of the “winning idea”.

Before you get to implementation, depending on the complexity of the ideas you’ll be working on, you can repeat the process.

Conclusions

As mentioned above, brainstorming should only be a starting point, a piece in the puzzle of the internal processes you’ve worked hard to develop.

To wrap up let’s recap some of the main points we believe you should take away from this.

  1. First, don’t put the cart before the horses by looking for ideas before defining a clear problem or issue you want to brainstorm around. Narrow down the objective to provide focus and increase the effectiveness of the session.
  2. Second, build the brainstorming and ideation process around specific questions. You can start with 15-20 questions that are tied to your business goals and will provide direction and inspire good ideas. Thought-provoking questions will help the session flow in the right direction. “how can we…?”, “if you had no constraints how would you…?”, “how can we put these pieced together in a new way?”, “what do these insights/ data reveal?” etc.
  3. And last, when it comes to setting expectations, consider the existing limitations you have to work with. As much as everyone wants to come up with “outside the box” ideas, the counterintuitive truth is that constraints and limits are what often lead to the most original ideas. Plus, they help you focus on what matters, and remain grounded in reality.

Image credits: Pexels, Unsplash

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The Triple Bottom Line Framework

The Triple Bottom Line Framework

GUEST POST from Dainora Jociute

Money, money, money. It wasn’t so long ago that it was always sunny in the rich man’s world. But today, things just aren’t that easy, and talking about money isn’t enough.

Businesses cannot thrive and survive in a competitive environment with only one bottom line – profit.

United Nations Global Compact report points out that such issues as poverty, an uneducated workforce, and resource scarcity will, and already is, causing issues for business growth. In addition, both investors and potential talents are looking deeper than just the company’s financial success before they commit. So, next to Profit, business’s effect on People and the Planet are just as crucial measurement indicators.

“Poverty, conflict, an uneducated workforce, and resource scarcity for example, are also strategic issues for business success and viability.”
– UN Global Compact

And what do you get once you combine all three? Planet, People, and Profit are often referred to as the three pillars of sustainability. However, for a business to define sustainability, to have clear and reachable goals, and in return to have a fitting strategy to reach those goals can be challenging.

This is where the need and benefits of the triple bottom line framework become most evident.

What is the Triple Bottom Line Framework?

The term triple bottom line (TBL) was coined by John Elkington, corporate environmentalist, and author back in 1994. It isn’t exactly a new concept and we had plenty of time to see it being tried on by different companies like Patagonia, Unilever, Novo Nordisk and so many more. It is evident that the triple bottom line approach works.

So, what exactly is TBL?

Many like to argue that it is just another accounting tool. Yet in Elkington’s own words, it is a sustainability framework that examines an organization’s social, environmental, and economic impact. It measures a business’s environmental efforts (“planet account”), social well-being (“people account”), and a fair economy. It can be implemented by a business, a non-profit organization, or a governmental institution. It is flexible and adaptable.

Decades before the triple bottom line, the dominant belief was that the only responsibility a business has is to generate profit. It was set in place by economist Milton Friedman and his shareholder theory. With TBL, Elkington challenged the status quo by proposing accountability to all stakeholders and not just shareholders.

In addition to helping with planning sustainable growth, the triple bottom line can act as a reporting tool, thus, it focuses on long-term results and not just one-off campaigns to gain some publicity – can an organization sustain a just economy, environmental resources, and human capital?

Once we shift our attention from quarterly reports to a span of multiple years,

sustainability is no longer just a “to-do” list, but an opportunity that will rejuvenate business in an economy that does not exploit natural resources and social systems.

Triple Bottom Line 3 Areas

The Three Pillars of Sustainability

The triple bottom line goes hand in hand with the 1987’s Brundtland Report and the three key areas of development established by it: environmental conservation (Planet), economic development (Profit), and social sustainability (People).

Yet the definition of sustainability is a little bit more complex than that.

It is natural, that once you think of sustainability, your mind might wander to emissions, deforestation, climate change, and other related issues. For the longest, environmental changes have been the most reported and the most talked about topic. And for a good reason. The environmental pillar or Planet is considered to be the most important component of sustainability as it contains the social and economic systems within it.

But just like there wouldn’t be people without a planet, there wouldn’t be a business without people, and there wouldn’t be prosperity without business. All three areas are tightly interconnected and initiatives to address one often overlap with the other area, and naturally, when everything is so tightly knit, trade-offs are inevitable.

Sometimes decisions must be made to accommodate people at the cost of the environment OR decisions must be made to solve one environmental issue at the cost of another. A good example here would be an effort to reduce the consumption of single-use plastic bags by offering paper bags instead. Paper bags are easier to recycle and even if they do end up in a landfill, the lifespan of paper is drastically shorter than plastics. However, paper bag production is resource-heavy, consuming “four times more energy than plastic bags”.

Trade-offs make it impossible to talk about sustainability without considering all the pillars equally. Implementing the triple bottom line helps a business to form a holistic view of it.

Sustainability strives for:

  • Viable environmental-economic impact: business is executed with the environment and resources in mind, when possible, looking for green solutions or giving back, i.e., reforestation work.
    Trade-off: green business solutions can be intrusive and negatively affect private property (i.e., wind turbines in neighboring lands).
  • Bearable socio-environmental impact: education and awareness allow people to make environmentally conscious decisions, curb consumption and develop healthy habits that directly impact the environment.
    Trade-off: minimal consumption and complete protection of the land stalls economic growth.
  • Equitable socio-economic impact: people have an opportunity to work and earn a fair wage, and business strives to increase the general welfare of the people and increase the standard of living. This generates economic opportunity for both businesses and individuals. Corporate taxes also play a crucial role here – it is thanks to taxes that an organization contributes to supporting various societal programs.
    Trade-off: new business ventures can create more jobs but increase consumption of nonrenewable materials.

Planet

Planet bottom line focuses on an organization’s environmental impact, both positive and negative. Sustainable innovation (or on the environmental scale – eco-innovation), helps an organization to place its focus on the environment, by improving its production, manufacturing, marketing, and also all the in-house functions.

Impact on the planet can be created by such efforts as choosing natural and/or locally sourced materials, upcycling waste, using recyclable components, reducing unnecessary travel time, or saving energy usage.

Positive environmental impact can seem grandiose and nearly impossible to achieve. Not every organization is equally equipped to take drastic measures and pursue such efforts as reforestation, ocean clean-up, or full refurbishment of manufacturing facilities. Thus, while many regulations and recommendations exist, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to sustainability. Reporting and measurement really depend on such variables as the organization’s industry, location, size, and financial capabilities.

In addition, pursuing this bottom line can put the business in limbo, forcing it to decide between faster or more sustainable goods delivery; lower-costing or ethically sourced materials, and so on. These and similar initiatives can seem costly and counterproductive to what a business should be doing – generating profit. Yet like with most things in life, sustainability is not just black or white and it would not be a prevailing topic if there wasn’t true profit to be gained.

Benefits of The Planet Bottom Line

Besides the obvious emotional benefits of saving the earth, just feeling good while doing good, and complying with regulations there are practical reasons why you should pursue Planet bottom line:

  1. Satisfying consumer demand: GreenPrint’s 2022 Business of Sustainability Index indicates that demand for sustainable services and products is growing with 69% of respondents saying that “a product’s environmental friendliness is important to their purchasing decision” and 78% agreeing that they are interested in buying from environmentally friendly businesses.
  2. New business opportunities: a shift towards net zero is creating demand for new green solutions. A recent report by McKinsey indicates that reaching net zero by 2050 requires “investments amount to $9.2 trillion per year, of which $6.5 trillion annually would go into low-emissions assets and enabling infrastructure”.
  3. Cost reduction: in another report McKinsey notes that environmentally focused initiatives can “improve operating profits by up to 60%”, by reducing unnecessary waste as well as the usage of water or raw materials, that due to growing scarcity, are becoming more and more expensive.
  4. Improved brand image: knowing that consumers are seeking environmentally friendly products and services, it makes sense to invest in and report on sustainability initiatives. It improves the brand’s image which can lead to increased sales. In addition, nowadays, stakeholders can easily hold an organization accountable for action or inaction, thanks to the speed at which information spreads on social media. Even the smallest misstep by a brand can be rapidly broadcast to millions, causing damage, and leading to lost revenue.
  5. Minimizing regulatory risks: Staying within safe lines of regulations keeps your organization from fines and penalties. Plus, it’s typically easier and less expensive to take such measures proactively, than it is to do so when your hand is forced.
  6. Competitive edge: by excelling at and advocating for an environmental cause, an organization can put pressure on its competitors and use the achievement as a competitive advantage.

Initiatives to Consider

As mentioned earlier, pursuing The Planet bottom line does not necessarily mean making big and drastic changes. Environmentally positive impact-creating initiatives that you can consider are:

  • Recycling opportunity in-house and limited use of materials (i.e., unnecessary printing).
  • Reducing travel, remote work opportunities, and/or public transportation benefits.
  • Partnerships with green businesses and buying locally manufactured goods.
  • Optimizing and reducing energy consumption.
  • Seasonal company-wide green initiatives (i.e., day to collect trash or volunteer).
  • Becoming an ambassador of an environmental cause and advocating for it.
  • Creating an option for customers and employees to donate instead of receiving material gifts.
  • Workshops and training to educate and bring awareness on environmental issues and how the organization can positively impact it.
  • Find innovative ways to be more effective or efficient in your operations by involving employees.

The bigger picture will always be comprised of smaller bits and pieces and while the above-mentioned initiatives might seem small, put together they can make an impact. That’s why giving your employees a voice and engaging the whole organization is so important. While it might sound like a big and complex feat, right tools, such as Viima can simplify the process allowing you to run idea challenges on sustainable innovation and development topics.

Reporting

Now, while environmental initiatives are important on many different levels, from a business point of view, they should contribute to profit generation. Thus, once your Planet bottom line initiatives are in place and running, it is crucial to report on them either on your website, or in your annual business or sustainability report.

The Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) came into effect back in 2018 requiring public interest companies with more than 500 employees to report on how they are dealing with sustainability matters. In 2024 we will see an additional directive on Corporate Sustainability Reporting which will apply to large companies that meet 2 of the following 3 criteria: more than 250 employees; more than €40 million net turnover; more than €20 million on the statement of financial position.

But reporting should be considered by small organizations too as talking about your achievements beyond the mandatory reporting will positively affect your brand image, it will increase transparency, and improve your reputation.

Reporting and measurement of positive impact can be quite difficult, especially if it is a voluntary initiative and is not based on any regulation-implied requirements. Below is a list of KPIs to consider:

  • Information on electricity consumption.
  • Information on fossil fuel consumption.
  • Information on waste management.
  • Change in land use/land cover.
  • Reduction in greenhouse gas emission.
  • Amount of waste generated and, when relevant – amount recycled.
  • Amount of ethically sourced materials.
  • Information on volunteering or charitable work done.
  • Information on new local, sustainable partnerships.

People and the Triple Bottom Line Pexels

People

People of the triple bottom line encompasses all the people included in or affected by a business.

It goes far beyond just the small circle of shareholders. This category includes (but is not limited to) employees, suppliers, wholesalers, customers, local or global communities within which the business operates, and future generations. Some people like to emphasize the future generations by separating it into the fourth sphere and adjusting the framework’s name to quadruple the bottom line. Yet in J. Elkington’s views, the future generations are simply an inseparable part of society, and it fits just perfectly in the People category.

There are certain aspects of this bottom line that might be regulated by local or regional governing bodies. For example, local labor law might indicate a specific number of working hours per week, how long lunch breaks your employees are eligible to take or what kind of health insurance the company must provide. However, as with all things sustainability, social responsibility extends beyond the bare minimum – it is a business’ voluntary and proactive way of recognizing its impacts on stakeholders.

The People aspect is an organization’s social impact or social responsibility. And as earlier cited UN Global Compact states, “social responsibility should be a critical part of any business because it affects the quality of a business relationship with stakeholders”.

Benefits of The People Bottom Line

Social initiatives might not be seen as profitable in the short run, but on a bigger scale, doing what is right and doing good positively affects the company’s standing amongst its competitors. For example, such initiatives can positively affect the following:

  1. Employee retention: Companies that invest in their employees’ satisfaction end up saving resources in the longer run. Time and money spent searching, hiring, and training employees can be invested in different opportunities. In addition, people that want to stick around in a company indicate good organizational health and improve brand image.
  2. Attraction of top talents: More and more routine work is being automated, and value is starting to be increasingly created by fewer people of higher talent creating systems, processes, and technology (=innovations) that drive value. Thus, attracting these top talents is increasingly important, but more and more of these people are these days motivated by factors such as the purpose and mission of the organization beyond just compensation, career growth, etc. more traditional factors.
  3. Customer loyalty: Companies willing to walk that extra mile, give to societies or contribute to positive impact will reap the benefits of a better brand image, and in line with their customers’ social values they will naturally have a chance to retain old and attract new customers.
  4. Raising capital: Socially responsible investing is constantly growing and the opportunity to attract investors depends on the organization’s sustainability achievements, the social aspect and how your organization treats people are always on the list of things to be evaluated.
  5. Avoiding risk: Strong commitment to social initiatives will eliminate work-disrupting and reputation-damaging risks. Any mistreatment of an employee or other community member can cause a severe backlash that will affect the organization’s profitability. In addition, the business’s focus on social responsibility in return creates supply chain security.
  6. Expanding the market: If most people can’t afford to buy your services, the size of your market dramatically increases if you are able to a) lower the prices of your products by decreasing costs, and/or b) by helping improve the income of said people. Combining both can be a powerful way to grow the business and create a more positive impact all around you.
  7. Source for innovation: As mentioned in our earlier article social issues need to be addressed and this in return can create business opportunities – “more than 80% of economic growth comes from innovation and application of new knowledge.” People-centric innovation (social innovation) enables the business to tap into that growth and reap benefits.

Initiatives to Consider

There are a lot of organizations that go far beyond the basic in-house social needs and are willing (and are financially capable) to give back to communities with charity work, donations, education grants, and various volunteering and community engagement initiatives.

However, not every company is capable of running such initiatives. Smaller-scale improvements like supporting your employees in setting up home offices with recycled or new equipment can be a great morale boost. In return, it creates comfort for people to work from home, reducing time spent commuting and/or using cars, leaning toward the Planet bottom line. With sustainability, every small effort counts.

  • Paid internships for students.
  • Organizing educational projects for externals (i.e., coding academy for students, job searching training).
  • Skill training and learning opportunities for employees.
  • Internal anti-racist training.
  • Employee surveys or feedback to keep everyone in the loop.
  • Salary transparency.
  • Employee stock plan.
  • Volunteering work within the nearest communities.

Reporting

Topics to report on and how your organization’s initiatives affected them can be:

  • Demographics of your employees and partners (i.e., working with small or minority-owned businesses).
  • Vacation days collected and used to see whether employees are rested and not overworked.
  • The average difference between wages and finances needed for minimum living standards in the area.
  • Average commuting time.
  • Average employee benefits.
  • Information on diversity of employees.
  • Job safety KPIs (i.e., reported incidents, corrective actions taken).
  • The number of new jobs created.
  • Hours spent on employee or external communities’ training.
  • Information on second-tier suppliers (i.e., where and how your first-tier suppliers are sourcing materials).

Dubai Skyline Unsplash

Profit

Profit by default seems to be the most analyzed and the best-understood segment of all the three covered in this article. By definition, profit means “money that is earned in trade or business after paying the costs of producing and selling goods and services”.

TBL is not meant to discount profit in any way – rather incorporate it into the other two legs of sustainability: investment in social initiatives or environmental projects relies directly on profit and a company that does not do well financially cannot contribute to the other areas – social and environmental impact.

Profit refers to the influence that the organization is creating on the whole environment within which it operates: ethical means to earn a profit; cooperating with and supporting ethical partners; fair wages and full taxes paid.

Profit as a component of TBL is pretty straightforward, yet there are certain aspects that might be confusing. And it seems to arise from a two-sided view of Profit: the philanthropic take with emphasis to give back to society as a charity, and pure profit to satisfy shareholders.

However, when talking about sustainability and the triple bottom line, these two sides are inseparable. The company can stay in business and drive value for the People and the Planet only if it makes a profit.

The triple bottom line’s Profit is a cycle: a business that makes a profit can then invest in innovation, creating a positive impact on the Planet and the People; can then pay taxes that in return will be used for social good; can then grow to create jobs for People and so on.

Key Points

Conclusion

The triple bottom line like other sustainability-oriented initiatives can seem quite idealistic in a world still strongly focused on profit.

But as McKinsey report over the past 5 years, investment into sustainable funds has been on a rise and even if current environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks are far from perfect, ESG considerations are becoming more important in companies decision making. In addition, investing in sustainable innovation does result in stronger economies, higher living standards, and more opportunities for individuals.

There are no better words, to sum up this article than John Elkington’s words:

“To truly shift the needle, however, we need a new wave of TBL innovation and deployment. None of these sustainability frameworks will be enough, as long as they lack the suitable pace and scale — the necessary radical intent — needed to stop us all overshooting our planetary boundaries.”

The challenge here is that businesses still must satisfy shareholders and to deliver the value they have to make tradeoffs. There’s no one golden rule on how to satisfy all three areas of TBL equally, it is a continuous, balancing act, and decision-making should be based on long-term goals. But the fact is, that decisions must be made, and it is the best time to go beyond planning and start implementing.

This article was previously published in Viima’s blog.

Image Credits: Unsplash, Viima, Pexels

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Get Social with Your Innovation

Get Social with Your InnovationIf your organization is struggling to sustain its innovation efforts, then I hope you will do the following things.

  • Find the purpose and passion that everyone can rally around.
  • Create the flexibility necessary to deal with the constant change that a focus on innovation requires for both customers and the organization.
  • Make innovation the social activity it truly must be for you to become successful.

If your organization has lost the courage to move innovation to its center and has gotten stuck in a project – focused, reactive innovation approach, then now is your chance to regain the higher ground and to refocus, not on having an innovation success but on building an innovation capability. Are you up to the challenge?

There is a great article “ Passion versus Obsession ” by John Hagel that explores the differences between passion and obsession. This is an important distinction to understand in order to make sure you are hiring people to power your innovation efforts who are passionate and not obsessive. Here are a few key quotes from the article:

“The first significant difference between passion and obsession is the role free will plays in each disposition: passionate people fight their way willingly to the edge to find places where they can pursue their passions more freely, while obsessive people (at best) passively drift there or (at worst) are exiled there.”

“It’s not an accident that we speak of an “object of obsession,” but the “subject of passion.” That’s because obsession tends towards highly specific focal points or goals, whereas passion is oriented toward networked, diversified spaces.”

More quotes from the John Hagel article:

“The subjects of passion invite and even demand connections with others who share the passion.”

“Because passionate people are driven to create as a way to grow and achieve their potential, they are constantly seeking out others who share their passion in a quest for collaboration, friction and inspiration . . . . The key difference between passion and obsession is fundamentally social: passion helps build relationships and obsession inhibits them.”

“It has been a long journey and it is far from over, but it has taught me that obsession confines while passion liberates.”

These quotes from John Hagel’s article are important because they reinforce the notion that innovation is a social activity. While many people give Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and the modern-day equivalent, Dean Kamen, credit for being lone inventors, the fact is that the lone inventor myth is just that — a myth, one which caused me to create The Nine Innovation Roles.

The fact is that all of these gentlemen had labs full of people who shared their passion for creative pursuits. Innovation requires collaboration, either publicly or privately, and is realized as an outcome of three social activities.

1. Social Inputs

From the very beginning when an organization is seeking to identify key insights to base an innovation strategy or project on, organizations often use ethnographic research, focus groups, or other very social methods to get at the insights. Great innovators also make connections to other industries and other disciplines to help create the great in sights that inspire great solutions.

2. Social Evolution

We usually have innovation teams in organizations, not sole inventors, and so the activity of transforming the seeds of useful invention into a solution valued above every existing alternative is very social. It takes a village of passionate villagers to transform an idea into an innovation in the marketplace. Great innovators make connections inside the organization to the people who can ask the right questions, uncover the most important weaknesses, help solve the most difficult challenges, and help break down internal barriers within the organization — all in support of creating a better solution.

3. Social Execution

The same customer group that you may have spent time with, seeking to understand, now requires education to show them that they really need the solution that all of their actions and behaviors indicated they needed at the beginning of the process. This social execution includes social outputs like trials, beta programs, trade show booths, and more. Great innovators have the patience to allow a new market space to mature, and they know how to grow the demand while also identifying the key shortcomings with customers who are holding the solution back from mass acceptance.

Conclusion

When it comes to insights, these three activities are not completely discrete. Insights do not expose themselves only in the social inputs phase, but can also expose themselves in other phases — if you’re paying attention.

Flickr famously started out as a company producing a video game in the social inputs phase, but was astute enough during the social execution phase to recognize that the most used feature was one that allowed people to share photos. Recognizing that there was an unmet market need amongst customers for easy sharing of photos, Flickr reoriented its market solution from video game to photo sharing site and reaped millions of dollars in the process when they ultimately sold their site to Yahoo!.

Ultimately, action is more important than intent, and so as an innovator you must always be listening and watching to see what people do and not just what they say. Build your solution on the wrong insight and nobody will be beating a path to your door.

NOTE: This article is an adaptation of some of the great content in my five-star book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire (available in many local libraries and fine booksellers everywhere).

Build a Common Language of Innovation

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Webinar – Winning the War for Innovation – September 12th

Webinar - Winning the War for InnovationTomorrow, September 12, 2012 at 11am EDT (GMT -5:00) I will be presenting a webinar in cooperation with Imaginatik, a leader in the idea management software category.

The webinar is titled ‘Winning the War for Innovation‘ and we’ll be helping you take a look at whether or not you’re ready to accept that innovation has become a top priority.

Innovation has become a key source of competitive advantage, and the companies that thrive are those that innovate on a consistent basis – like Amazon and General Electric. Failing to innovate will put you on a straight, but treacherous path to extinction.

I will explain why innovation is so crucial today, and investigate the importance of building a continuous innovation capacity.

  1. How product cycles have fundamentally changed
  2. How global competition affects innovation
  3. How to build an innovation vision
  4. How to ‘make time’ for innovation

The world’s leading companies commit to embedding innovation deeply into their organizations. It becomes part of their DNA. Developing a consistent ability to innovate distinguishes today’s winners from losers.

Which group do you want your company to be a part of?

So, join me for this exclusive webinar Tomorrow, Wednesday, September 12, 2012.

Click to Register for FREE

Register for the Winning the War for Innovation Webinar

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.






Webinar – Winning the War for Innovation

Webinar - Winning the War for InnovationOn September 12, 2012 I will be presenting a webinar in cooperation with Imaginatik, a leader in the idea management software category.

The webinar is titled ‘Winning the War for Innovation‘ and we’ll be helping you take a look at whether or not you’re ready to accept that innovation has become a top priority.

Innovation has become a key source of competitive advantage, and the companies that thrive are those that innovate on a consistent basis – like Amazon and General Electric. Failing to innovate will put you on a straight, but treacherous path to extinction.

I will explain why innovation is so crucial today, and investigate the importance of building a continuous innovation capacity.

  1. How product cycles have fundamentally changed
  2. How global competition affects innovation
  3. How to build an innovation vision
  4. How to ‘make time’ for innovation

The world’s leading companies commit to embedding innovation deeply into their organizations. It becomes part of their DNA. Developing a consistent ability to innovate distinguishes today’s winners from losers.

Which group do you want your company to be a part of?

So, join me for this exclusive webinar Wednesday, September 12, 2012.

Click to Register for FREE

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