Mark Dodgson, David M. Gann, and Ammon Salter
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199290475
- eISBN:
- 9780191603495
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199290474.003.0002
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic Systems
This chapter explores the impact of innovation technologies such as simulation, modelling, and rapid prototyping on engineering practice. Innovation technologies help redefine the role of engineers ...
More
This chapter explores the impact of innovation technologies such as simulation, modelling, and rapid prototyping on engineering practice. Innovation technologies help redefine the role of engineers in the innovation process, creating a new division of innovative labour both with and across organizations. This chapter also explores the boundaries of experimentation and inertia within particular domains of problem-solving to create new opportunities and value.Less
This chapter explores the impact of innovation technologies such as simulation, modelling, and rapid prototyping on engineering practice. Innovation technologies help redefine the role of engineers in the innovation process, creating a new division of innovative labour both with and across organizations. This chapter also explores the boundaries of experimentation and inertia within particular domains of problem-solving to create new opportunities and value.
Luis Perez-Breva
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262035354
- eISBN:
- 9780262336680
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262035354.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Innovation
Society celebrates innovation after the fact. It is a revisionist exercise, and little is said about how to innovate. Aspiring innovators are told to get a big idea and a team and build a ...
More
Society celebrates innovation after the fact. It is a revisionist exercise, and little is said about how to innovate. Aspiring innovators are told to get a big idea and a team and build a show-and-tell for potential investors. But that conflates innovation, entrepreneurship, publicizing an idea, and fundraising; it does not clue aspiring innovators on how to begin. Innovating shows how actually to get started and innovate for impact and scale—a skill you can practice and master through learning. It is a doer’s approach for the explorers of our time, developed over a decade at MIT and internationally in workshops, classes, and companies. It shows innovating does not require an earth-shattering idea; indeed, no thing is new at the outset of what we only later celebrate as innovation. It takes only a hunch, and anyone can do it. By prototyping a problem and learning by being wrong, innovating can be scaled up to make an impact. The process is empirical, experimental, nonlinear, and incremental: give a hunch the structure of a problem; use anything as a part; accrue other people’s knowledge and skills in the course of innovating; systematize what is learned; advocate, communicate, scale up, manage innovating continuously, and document. Questions outlined in the book help innovators think in new ways. It is even possible to create a kit for innovating.Less
Society celebrates innovation after the fact. It is a revisionist exercise, and little is said about how to innovate. Aspiring innovators are told to get a big idea and a team and build a show-and-tell for potential investors. But that conflates innovation, entrepreneurship, publicizing an idea, and fundraising; it does not clue aspiring innovators on how to begin. Innovating shows how actually to get started and innovate for impact and scale—a skill you can practice and master through learning. It is a doer’s approach for the explorers of our time, developed over a decade at MIT and internationally in workshops, classes, and companies. It shows innovating does not require an earth-shattering idea; indeed, no thing is new at the outset of what we only later celebrate as innovation. It takes only a hunch, and anyone can do it. By prototyping a problem and learning by being wrong, innovating can be scaled up to make an impact. The process is empirical, experimental, nonlinear, and incremental: give a hunch the structure of a problem; use anything as a part; accrue other people’s knowledge and skills in the course of innovating; systematize what is learned; advocate, communicate, scale up, manage innovating continuously, and document. Questions outlined in the book help innovators think in new ways. It is even possible to create a kit for innovating.
Marc H. Meyer
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195180862
- eISBN:
- 9780199851270
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195180862.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Knowledge Management
Every company can point to a growth strategy. Far fewer, however, systematically implement them; instead, they spend their time on incremental innovations, or rely on acquisitions. Organic, internal ...
More
Every company can point to a growth strategy. Far fewer, however, systematically implement them; instead, they spend their time on incremental innovations, or rely on acquisitions. Organic, internal growth, accomplished through product line renewal and new service development, is essential to the long-term vitality of corporations across all industries. This book takes on the challenge large corporations have in generating internal innovation—developing new product lines that address new market applications and provide the corporation with new streams of revenue. It integrates the key disciplines—new product strategy, user research, concept development and prototyping, market testing, and business modeling—needed for enterprise growth. The book illustrates its framework with in-depth examples of companies that have leveraged their core technologies to new markets and new types of uses in order to generate impressive results, including IBM, Honda, and Mars. Many of these examples contain templates that readers can use in their own projects. The book ends by addressing the human side of new market applications, providing advice on what executives and innovation team leaders must do to execute the steps of the book's framework for new market applications development.Less
Every company can point to a growth strategy. Far fewer, however, systematically implement them; instead, they spend their time on incremental innovations, or rely on acquisitions. Organic, internal growth, accomplished through product line renewal and new service development, is essential to the long-term vitality of corporations across all industries. This book takes on the challenge large corporations have in generating internal innovation—developing new product lines that address new market applications and provide the corporation with new streams of revenue. It integrates the key disciplines—new product strategy, user research, concept development and prototyping, market testing, and business modeling—needed for enterprise growth. The book illustrates its framework with in-depth examples of companies that have leveraged their core technologies to new markets and new types of uses in order to generate impressive results, including IBM, Honda, and Mars. Many of these examples contain templates that readers can use in their own projects. The book ends by addressing the human side of new market applications, providing advice on what executives and innovation team leaders must do to execute the steps of the book's framework for new market applications development.
Mark Evans and Nina Terrey
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781447329367
- eISBN:
- 9781447329480
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447329367.003.0014
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
This chapter examines how design thinking, with its commitment to seeing challenges from the user perspective, prototyping and rapid learning, has begun to make head way in the policy world as a ...
More
This chapter examines how design thinking, with its commitment to seeing challenges from the user perspective, prototyping and rapid learning, has begun to make head way in the policy world as a technique to review service delivery practices. This chapter will review the thinking behind it, connecting design to various social sciences theories and showing applications of the technique.Less
This chapter examines how design thinking, with its commitment to seeing challenges from the user perspective, prototyping and rapid learning, has begun to make head way in the policy world as a technique to review service delivery practices. This chapter will review the thinking behind it, connecting design to various social sciences theories and showing applications of the technique.
Luis Perez-Breva and Nick Fuhrer
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262035354
- eISBN:
- 9780262336680
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262035354.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Innovation
You can give any hunch the structure of a problem and make that problem tangible. Innovations are not prescribed, but rather emerge from what you do in the process of trying to understand and tame a ...
More
You can give any hunch the structure of a problem and make that problem tangible. Innovations are not prescribed, but rather emerge from what you do in the process of trying to understand and tame a real-world problem—that is, prototyping a problem. Get ready to be wrong, because a good solution can emerge from being wrong a lot and you need only be approximately right once. This process of prototyping a problem as an approach to innovation has several advantages: progress is about how much you learn about the problem; there are multiple strategies for making your problem tangible and getting to specific questions; and there is a demonstration possible of any problem at a scale that matches your current resources.Less
You can give any hunch the structure of a problem and make that problem tangible. Innovations are not prescribed, but rather emerge from what you do in the process of trying to understand and tame a real-world problem—that is, prototyping a problem. Get ready to be wrong, because a good solution can emerge from being wrong a lot and you need only be approximately right once. This process of prototyping a problem as an approach to innovation has several advantages: progress is about how much you learn about the problem; there are multiple strategies for making your problem tangible and getting to specific questions; and there is a demonstration possible of any problem at a scale that matches your current resources.
Luis Perez-Breva and Nick Fuhrer
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262035354
- eISBN:
- 9780262336680
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262035354.003.0003
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Innovation
You can get started innovating right away: just assemble some parts you already have or can get easily; learn as you go; and use those parts to make your problem tangible. Anything can be a part: in ...
More
You can get started innovating right away: just assemble some parts you already have or can get easily; learn as you go; and use those parts to make your problem tangible. Anything can be a part: in a corporate setting, that includes anything you currently do, assemble, or procure; and for everything else—from physical parts to services to resources for acquiring knowledge—there’s the Web. You bring parts together you’ve chosen so you can make any aspect of your problem tangible—even a solution—and you ask questions, reasoning about your problem with your minds and your hands. Parts will tell you what you need to assume at your current scale, what you aren’t seeing, what you are missing, and whether the next scale is even possible.Less
You can get started innovating right away: just assemble some parts you already have or can get easily; learn as you go; and use those parts to make your problem tangible. Anything can be a part: in a corporate setting, that includes anything you currently do, assemble, or procure; and for everything else—from physical parts to services to resources for acquiring knowledge—there’s the Web. You bring parts together you’ve chosen so you can make any aspect of your problem tangible—even a solution—and you ask questions, reasoning about your problem with your minds and your hands. Parts will tell you what you need to assume at your current scale, what you aren’t seeing, what you are missing, and whether the next scale is even possible.
Luis Perez-Breva and Nick Fuhrer
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262035354
- eISBN:
- 9780262336680
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262035354.003.0006
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Innovation
You have a choice to set up a way for yourself or anyone else to start innovating right away. You just need something to empower exploration, and it ought to consist of things that already exist. If ...
More
You have a choice to set up a way for yourself or anyone else to start innovating right away. You just need something to empower exploration, and it ought to consist of things that already exist. If you accept that the trial and error reveals the innovations needed, and that you can at least simulate their impact using other parts, there is no point in trying to plan a “great innovation” or culling innovation ideas from the get-go. You can choose to focus on the problem and simply get started. So, create some tools of the trade and be a professional innovator. You can easily build an innovation prototyping kit, starting from anything—a product idea, a hunch about a problem, a development kit, a research paper, or a patent. Such a kit packages a hunch about a problem and helps you or others get started.Less
You have a choice to set up a way for yourself or anyone else to start innovating right away. You just need something to empower exploration, and it ought to consist of things that already exist. If you accept that the trial and error reveals the innovations needed, and that you can at least simulate their impact using other parts, there is no point in trying to plan a “great innovation” or culling innovation ideas from the get-go. You can choose to focus on the problem and simply get started. So, create some tools of the trade and be a professional innovator. You can easily build an innovation prototyping kit, starting from anything—a product idea, a hunch about a problem, a development kit, a research paper, or a patent. Such a kit packages a hunch about a problem and helps you or others get started.
Luis Perez-Breva and Nick Fuhrer
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262035354
- eISBN:
- 9780262336680
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262035354.003.0010
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Innovation
Organizations don’t just grown on their own. You build them, and you may end up building multiple organizations, each one atop the previous one. The scale-up logic is straightforward: You present ...
More
Organizations don’t just grown on their own. You build them, and you may end up building multiple organizations, each one atop the previous one. The scale-up logic is straightforward: You present what you did (the past) to motivate where you will go (the future), but what you work on is the middle (the present). Most emerging organizations fail because they build for the future having ignored the entire present. But you don’t have to worry about whether a decision is optimal for that rosy future—it just needs to work today. As you build the next organization, you’ll reuse parts from the old one and you’ll get to implement everything you’ve learned. Growth and scale-up work like problem solving: no one cares how you first came up with the solution. The organization that systematizes your current innovation prototype is your first big milestone.Less
Organizations don’t just grown on their own. You build them, and you may end up building multiple organizations, each one atop the previous one. The scale-up logic is straightforward: You present what you did (the past) to motivate where you will go (the future), but what you work on is the middle (the present). Most emerging organizations fail because they build for the future having ignored the entire present. But you don’t have to worry about whether a decision is optimal for that rosy future—it just needs to work today. As you build the next organization, you’ll reuse parts from the old one and you’ll get to implement everything you’ve learned. Growth and scale-up work like problem solving: no one cares how you first came up with the solution. The organization that systematizes your current innovation prototype is your first big milestone.
Benjamin C. Alamar
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231162920
- eISBN:
- 9780231535250
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231162920.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Sport and Leisure
This chapter focuses on the role of analysts in the development of an analytics program. Analysts need to realize that part of their role is to get new and valuable information into the ...
More
This chapter focuses on the role of analysts in the development of an analytics program. Analysts need to realize that part of their role is to get new and valuable information into the decision-making process, and that requires a lot more effort and planning than simply writing a memo suggesting an innovative data source or defines a new metric. Decision makers cannot be simply informed about new ideas; new ideas must be sold to them. Decision makers need to buy into new tools for the tools to be useful. Analytics as innovation can take many shapes, but a fairly straightforward and effective process is for the analyst to view the process in four stages: creative, prototyping, engagement, and build. If analysts understand these four stages and plan for the entire innovation cycle from the beginning, they will maximize the probability that their new concepts will be put into practice.Less
This chapter focuses on the role of analysts in the development of an analytics program. Analysts need to realize that part of their role is to get new and valuable information into the decision-making process, and that requires a lot more effort and planning than simply writing a memo suggesting an innovative data source or defines a new metric. Decision makers cannot be simply informed about new ideas; new ideas must be sold to them. Decision makers need to buy into new tools for the tools to be useful. Analytics as innovation can take many shapes, but a fairly straightforward and effective process is for the analyst to view the process in four stages: creative, prototyping, engagement, and build. If analysts understand these four stages and plan for the entire innovation cycle from the beginning, they will maximize the probability that their new concepts will be put into practice.
Eitan Y. Wilf
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226606835
- eISBN:
- 9780226607023
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226607023.003.0007
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter looks at the migration of norms and practices of business innovation outside the business world as a consequence of their rising prestige. It provides an in-depth analysis of ...
More
This chapter looks at the migration of norms and practices of business innovation outside the business world as a consequence of their rising prestige. It provides an in-depth analysis of “life-design,” a set of commercially successful strategies developed by Silicon Valley innovators to help individuals “innovate” their lives and thereby achieve happiness. The chapter argues that the same modern-Romantic notions of the self that provided consultants with a model of creative potentiality and the cultural conditions of possibility for developing design thinking strategies for innovating technologies are now ironically being transformed as a result of the fact that the self has become the subject of those strategies as if it were a technology in need of innovation. The chapter unpacks what reflexivity means for the self as technology, what constitutes a well-designed life, what prototyping potential future lives entails, how the ideals of speed and instantaneity that suffuse business innovation affect notions of self-transformation when one’s life is approached as an object of innovation, what the presentation of self in the quest for a well-designed life means when it is the object of brainstorming sessions, and what socioeconomic conditions of possibility enable such a method of “self-innovation,” to begin with.Less
This chapter looks at the migration of norms and practices of business innovation outside the business world as a consequence of their rising prestige. It provides an in-depth analysis of “life-design,” a set of commercially successful strategies developed by Silicon Valley innovators to help individuals “innovate” their lives and thereby achieve happiness. The chapter argues that the same modern-Romantic notions of the self that provided consultants with a model of creative potentiality and the cultural conditions of possibility for developing design thinking strategies for innovating technologies are now ironically being transformed as a result of the fact that the self has become the subject of those strategies as if it were a technology in need of innovation. The chapter unpacks what reflexivity means for the self as technology, what constitutes a well-designed life, what prototyping potential future lives entails, how the ideals of speed and instantaneity that suffuse business innovation affect notions of self-transformation when one’s life is approached as an object of innovation, what the presentation of self in the quest for a well-designed life means when it is the object of brainstorming sessions, and what socioeconomic conditions of possibility enable such a method of “self-innovation,” to begin with.
Alberto Gallace and Charles Spence
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199644469
- eISBN:
- 9780191760587
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199644469.003.0009
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology
Advances in technology have always played a crucial role in human evolution. They have also changed the way in which we process information from the external world. The sense of touch seems to be ...
More
Advances in technology have always played a crucial role in human evolution. They have also changed the way in which we process information from the external world. The sense of touch seems to be more heavily exploited in order to produce technologies that improve the quality of our life than ever before. For example, touch is used in robotic technologies where certain forms of surgical operations are needed. Touch also plays a major role in the success of a number of everyday devices from mobile phones to PC and tablets. This sensory modality is also sought after in the development of virtual reality environments, in order to increase the sense of presence of the user. Touch also provides important information to designers and engineers performing virtual 3D modeling. Finally, tactile sensations can be adopted in order to provide a valid source of help to those people affected by visual impairments.Less
Advances in technology have always played a crucial role in human evolution. They have also changed the way in which we process information from the external world. The sense of touch seems to be more heavily exploited in order to produce technologies that improve the quality of our life than ever before. For example, touch is used in robotic technologies where certain forms of surgical operations are needed. Touch also plays a major role in the success of a number of everyday devices from mobile phones to PC and tablets. This sensory modality is also sought after in the development of virtual reality environments, in order to increase the sense of presence of the user. Touch also provides important information to designers and engineers performing virtual 3D modeling. Finally, tactile sensations can be adopted in order to provide a valid source of help to those people affected by visual impairments.
Michael C. Medlock
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198794844
- eISBN:
- 9780191836336
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198794844.003.0013
- Subject:
- Mathematics, Logic / Computer Science / Mathematical Philosophy, Computational Mathematics / Optimization
This chapter begins with a discussion of the philosophy and then definition of the RITE method. It then delves into the benefits of this method and provides practical notes on running RITE tests ...
More
This chapter begins with a discussion of the philosophy and then definition of the RITE method. It then delves into the benefits of this method and provides practical notes on running RITE tests effectively. The chapter concludes with an overview of the original case study behind the 2002 article documenting this method.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of the philosophy and then definition of the RITE method. It then delves into the benefits of this method and provides practical notes on running RITE tests effectively. The chapter concludes with an overview of the original case study behind the 2002 article documenting this method.
Phanish Puranam
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- July 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199672363
- eISBN:
- 9780191864292
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199672363.003.0009
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
I review developments in theory and methodology that may allow us to begin creating innovative forms of organizing, rather than rest content with studying them after they have emerged. We now have ...
More
I review developments in theory and methodology that may allow us to begin creating innovative forms of organizing, rather than rest content with studying them after they have emerged. We now have the conceptual and technical apparatus to prototype organization designs at small scale, cheaply and fast. The process of organization re-design can be seen in terms of multiple stages. It begins with careful observation of phenomena. Qualitative or indeed quantitative induction (i.e. data mining) can play a critical role here. Once we have some understanding or at least conjectures about underlying mechanisms, we can use the behavioral lab or an agent-based model to run cheap experiments to adjust the design. Once we have formulated a new design, we may want to run a field experiment with randomization. If the results look satisfactory, we can scale up and implement.Less
I review developments in theory and methodology that may allow us to begin creating innovative forms of organizing, rather than rest content with studying them after they have emerged. We now have the conceptual and technical apparatus to prototype organization designs at small scale, cheaply and fast. The process of organization re-design can be seen in terms of multiple stages. It begins with careful observation of phenomena. Qualitative or indeed quantitative induction (i.e. data mining) can play a critical role here. Once we have some understanding or at least conjectures about underlying mechanisms, we can use the behavioral lab or an agent-based model to run cheap experiments to adjust the design. Once we have formulated a new design, we may want to run a field experiment with randomization. If the results look satisfactory, we can scale up and implement.
Ellen Spolsky
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780190232146
- eISBN:
- 9780190232177
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190232146.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory, World Literature
By recruiting our ability to toggle between concrete details (tokens, sense data) and generalizations (types, abstractions), lyrics allow our minds to make the most of our own experiences and of the ...
More
By recruiting our ability to toggle between concrete details (tokens, sense data) and generalizations (types, abstractions), lyrics allow our minds to make the most of our own experiences and of the experiences of others. Their openness to interpretation, however, would be overwhelming and debilitating if not bounded by culturally imposed frames. In a discussion of the Old English poem “The Wanderer,” this chapter surveys literary and cognitive studies of categorization, prototyping, exploration, and memory that contribute to the description of the back and forth movement of a mind trying to turn recalcitrant stuff (cold water, ruined buildings, jeweled cups) into ideas offering comfort.Less
By recruiting our ability to toggle between concrete details (tokens, sense data) and generalizations (types, abstractions), lyrics allow our minds to make the most of our own experiences and of the experiences of others. Their openness to interpretation, however, would be overwhelming and debilitating if not bounded by culturally imposed frames. In a discussion of the Old English poem “The Wanderer,” this chapter surveys literary and cognitive studies of categorization, prototyping, exploration, and memory that contribute to the description of the back and forth movement of a mind trying to turn recalcitrant stuff (cold water, ruined buildings, jeweled cups) into ideas offering comfort.