Crowd Innovation™

Video Demonstration of Function Modeling

In a previous blog, "What Customers Value", I discussed how customers don't value the thing; they value the functionality they get from the thing.  In this blog post I demonstrate how to build a function model of a product using Pretium's Guided Innovation Toolkit™ software.  The product I have chosen is a zipper seal plastic bag vintage 1970 (that is a zipper seal bag with no zipper slide).  In the video I show how to build the major logic path for the product and also how to incorporate harmful functions that limit the delivery of functionality.  Click here to watch the video (about 8 minutes).  Your comments are appreciated.

Making Innovation Work

I have had the opportunity to talk with many executives about innovation.  Most say innovation is critical to the future of their companies.  Many say it is one of their core values.  However, when pressed about how they innovate, many executives struggle to tell me exactly how they make innovation happen.

We can't just wish for innovation to happen.  We can't become innovative with rhetoric.  There are skills, knowledge and experience that people need to conceive innovative problem solutions.  Pretium offers such methods and other do as well.  It is not my point here to argue whether our methods are best (they are!). Rather, if you have provided your employees methods and tools for inventive problem solving, what next?

The inventive problem-solving process lies at the heart of an Innovation System.

 

 

Once the system has been established and employees have been trained, the characteristics of the Innovation System will determine the organization required for effective implementation.  Organizations require metrics and incentives. Metrics and incentives have a strong influence on employee behavior.  Metrics and incentives induce employee behavior.  Once proper alignment of the Innovation System, organization, and metrics/incentives have been achieved, employee behavior will enable the Innovation System resulting in a culture of innovation. Improper design or misalignment anyplace in this structure will result in employee behavior that disables the Innovation System and threatens the future of the organization.

Please comment and share experiences where proper alignment resulted in a self-reinforcing innovation system or experiences where innovation failed because all of these elements were not present or improperly aligned.

Six Sigma and DIminishing Returns

Many companies find that their returns on six sigma decline over time (see figure below).  Some speculate that this results from a loss of commitment, a Hawthorne effect or a structural failure of six sigma itself.

 

 

A more rational explanation can be found in the very nature of problems and solutions.  We can consider problems at one of five levels as shown in the figure below.

 

 

Level 1 problems are Inspection problems.  No innovation is required.  For example, if we remember the quadratic formula, we can find the roots of a quadratic equation.  Period. 

 

Level 2 problems are Engineering problems.  While the problems are more complex and more than one solution is possible, there is minimal innovation involved.  For example, if we are to design a system to pump 100 gallons of water per minute to the top of a building, there is some room for creativity, but the design alternatives are generally known. 

 

Level 3 problems are Improvement problems.  In this case, problem solution requires innovation but innovation within the current paradigm is sufficient.  For example, going from rotary dial telephones to touch tone dialing is innovation within the paradigm.  There is a technology difference, but we are still dialing a number. 

 

Level 4 problems are Invention problems.  Here, problem solution requires innovation outside the paradigm.  For example, the development of GSM phone systems is innovation outside the paradigm.  The technology is radically different (digital versus analog, satellite versus land line, and the application is extremely different (voice only versus text, video, internet access, in-phone cameras, mp3 players, etc). 

 

Finally, Level 5 problems are Discovery problems.  In this case, we have new to the world technologies and products.  For example, Albert Einstein discovered the principle of coherent light in 1905.  Charles Hard Townes, Nicolay Gennadiyevich Basov, Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering work in the 1950’s in the design of lasers.  Theodore Maiman built the first operating laser in 1960.  The first commercial application of lasers took place in the 1980’s.  While new to the world discoveries can radically change things, these discoveries often require decades to commercialize.

 

In the beginning of a six sigma initiative, high impact, level 3 and 4 problem solutions are relatively easy to find.  Once this low hanging fruit is picked, the solutions tend to be much more incremental.  It is precisely this situation where inventive problem solutions are needed.  Please share your experiences with six sigma initiatives as they mature.  Thanks.

What Customers Value

How do we know what features customers want in our products?  If it was a simple as asking them directly, then everyone would be developing innovative new products.  One key in identifying what customers will value in future product designs is recognition of functionality.  Customers don't value the "thing"; they value the functionality that the "thing" delivers.  When I was young I played music on a phonograph.  The primary function of the "thing" in this case is "Play Music".  Notice that the function is defined by the combination of a verb and a noun.  The phonograph delivers its functionality through a series of related functions as below.

When each of these functions is performed, there are harmful effects that also occur.  For example, when you "Rotate Vinyl Disk" you "Produce Vibrtion", when you "Vibrate Stylus" you "Wear Vinyl Disk", etc.  Some of these harmful functions are shown below.

 When people played music on phonographs, these harmful functions were accepted because "that's the way a phonograph is".  Some phonographs were better than others at minimizing the harmful effects, but they were there.  Now consider the evolution of devices that "Play Music".  From phonographs, we went to tape players, CD players and then iPods.  Each of these devices has the same primary function, "Play Music". These devices replaced their predecessors because they eliminated the harmful functions and resolved the contradictions that limited delivery of functionality in the previous generation.  The key to development of successful new generations of products is to identify amd resolve the underlying contradictions which inhibit delivery of functionality.

Do you have examples of where new generations of products have resolved limiting contradictions in the previous generation?