Introducing contradictions in businesses - Is that a conscious strategy?

A car that is capable of reaching half the speed of a jet cruising at 30K ft... So, we have the world's first fastest production car, Aero costing over half a million dollar available in the Indian market. (My average speed of driving here is 14 kmh and on highway at 55kmph). This recent news here in India tempted me to check out some of the fatest car available and found not just this one, but this entire list.

What is intriguing me is the thinking behind a company manufacturing and the customers buying the fastest car; why would someone buy a car with a speed which normally can be driven only at the Nevada desert or in the Wind tunnel for a "function" (Speed @ 254 mph) they can't normally achieve on the public road other than the initial 0-60 seconds?

I can't force myself to think that any auto company for that matter could have ignored the fact about the road condition, speed limit (legal requirements anywhere in the world, except probably on the Autobahn in Europe), before commercializing. I agree that several of them are iconic brands, and are made to order, and there are customers ready to wait for 6 months after writing a check of this amount.

My question here is, are companies consciously introducing contradictions for some benefit? If yes, what are the benefits? How do company sustain by introducing a contradiction, not the solution?

To make my point little clear, here is a possible contradiction in this particular situation.

- A car that can run at 254mph Vs Road condition to accommodate that speed, legal requirements for driving at this speed

My interpretation on TRIZ terms

- Speed Vs Ease of operations/object affected harmful

What are your thoughts?

Laws of technology trends not necessorily always used for a need

Trends of any technology system is not random; any system we see around us can be mapped to the pattern of 9 technology trends defined by Altshuller. One such trend says that any system will evolve from the current rigid state to the more flexible state, or known as Dynamization trend. You cand find several examples of such trends around you, and the classic example is the keyboard as in the figure below.

The beauty of a trend like this is that we can predict the future of any system towards a flexible structure. Be it a mobile phone (remember the Morph concept from Nokia), a ruler, Television, and the list can go on..

So, here is a real application of this trend on a "pencil". I happened to see this with my nephew few days back. I don't know whether this is a great innovation, or a failed innovation. Looking at this example, and how difficult for him to write using this, I realize that we first identify every possibile ways a system can move to the next and identify "what makes sense" for providing value to the customer. (When I say value, I mean the functionality without any harm)

This pencil is really flexible and as you can see it can be rolled like plastic wire. However there is no way anyone could use this for the actual function of a pencil, writing. Look at the picture below how he is trying to use this pencil on my request.

12 Windows for a PM with 6 Faithful serving men

For the last couple of days, I was attending a workshop on Project Management (yes you heard it right). I wanted to brush up my PM knowledge after working as a “consultant” for few years, and also look at the new dimension of effective PM using systematic thinking methods, especially simple TRIZ tools. I set my expectation before attending this program that the Project Management Body of Knowledge would have embraced something different to say the PM BOK (Body of Knowledge) is evolving, and the session is going to teach me something new, such as using techniques for effective Project Planning. Unfortunately, it was nowhere close to my expectation.

In the last couple of years we have witnessed the increasing complexity of uncertainty in the existence of a business, collective social knowledge for a consumer to change the business decisions of a company within the span of a dusk and a dawn, and finally how has it impacted the people delivering innovative solution, questioning their own “existence” on a project in the helm of these external developments. Naturally, these super-system developments have the undulate effect in a Project Management activity, and without doing something new, I think Project Management will still be the most challenging activity with a success ratio ticking to the top of % charts.

Considering this “evolution gap” in the PM BoK viz-a-viz the external business scenario, I was trying to conceive the concepts to make a Project Manager's life simple during the workshop. Major part of the “PM thinking” has been involved in planning and monitoring; in the true sense of today, Planning and Firefighting. Despite a good Project Plan, PM’s are in the firefighting mode in at least 80% of the projects being executed today.

Let’s look at the planning; when and where do we start planning a project is highly dependent on the context. The context of the services offered by your company, the context of your customer business needs, the context of your people involved in, and most factually, after the contract signing. I think we aren’t late to start a project plan after signing the contract, but what could have happened by then is the amount of relevant project information transacted before the contract signing is no longer within the reach of a PM, and even if they are, mostly ambiguous. As a PM you have a clean canvas and start from there. How effective the planning could then be?

Most often, the project planning concentrates on the execution model of “what I know I know” perspective. “What I know I don’t know” and “what I don’t know I don’t know (or have no clue about it” are the place holders in your assumptions and dependencies, and the success of your project may be decided by that.

Is there a way to identify “what we do not know well” for a PM during the planning stage? Apart from seeking inputs from your surroundings (people and artificats around you, if any), what should be your thinking model? I have often heard that a Good Project Manager is someone who knows that s/he can not predict the future. I think a good PM toady should not only assume that the future is unpredictable, but also identify the plane of unpredictability and direction of the evolution from today to the future. Unfortunately, we are too busy to think outside that “project” box and writing a project plan with what we know, and think about the operational activities and outcomes.



You can also download this as a PDF version (to read the questions inside the windows) from TRIZ Community discussion forum here

So, this is what I’m experimenting now, using a 1-2 (actually 12) Windows of thinking for Project Planning, a simple, systematic thinking technique to look at the plane of unpredictability of a project.
(You don’t necessarily need a “Window” for Project Planning, because in this stage (planning) of a project you don’t even have a “foundation” ready :).



So, you have noticed the above 12 windows have nothing but questions. May be, ’Q’ is the ‘P’- lanning, if you have questions, you have the answers, or someone, somewhere will or have the answers for your questions. Any problem related to any project is that there were only “Answers” before we started the project, and no Questions. Do you really need the above 12 windows to ask questions? Well, believe me, we need. As an adult, we don’t really like questions, and if at all we ask questions, we mostly ask questions for TODAY.

The above lists of questions are certainly nowhere close to the actual number of questions a PM should ask. If you have the context of your project in the “System-Present”, you have the right question for PAST, PRESENT, and indeed FUTRE. Do your thinking and let me know what window you as a PM would like to OPEN/CLOSE?

Solution for the last mile problem - Successful innovation ideas

The success and failure of innovation is overly discussed. Just do a google (or binging) around, and you will be directed to zillions of articles with advices and experiences listed out with "n" factors of success and failure of innovations. However, have you ever noticed the success of innovation some time is really dependent on solving the “last mile problem”?

Consider the innovations happening in the alternative fueled cars, especially Electric Vehicles. Have you really seen any successful implementation of this innovation benefiting to the mass consumer base? While there are new ideas being implemented to store electricity, light weight materials, high end technologies under-hood, the EV's are still not there on road even 0.5% of the gas guzzlers. Is that because we don't have enough success in making an EV? Perhaps not; every year, any famous car shows around the world, there are at least 3 new EV cars are being displayed, and the cost is really coming down. Yet the manufactures, Nissan of the world are perfecting their cars trying to provide higher mileage at one charge.

When Ford asked some help from Edward deBono to improve their market share, the idea he had was Ford buying parking lots around the country and allow only Ford car owners to park. I don't know whether Ford really implemented this idea. What if the EV manufacturers do some lateral implementation instead of trying to perfect their solution, and provide the "last mile solution"?

Here is a company in Israel doing the same, Better Place. Do visit their website, and learn what they are doing. This is really a simple business idea thinking at the super-system level (while the manufacturers are thinking at the sub-system level perfection) and providing solutions to the customer. Draw a simple 9-Windows on this, and here is my interpretation.



The future part of this 9-Windows is intentionally left blank. If Better Place can look at the last mile problems of making EV cars successful, the future, super-system thinking should help someone to create new business ideas.
What are your ideas?

Conumer trend and technology innovation

I have always wondered whether consumer trends push technology innovation or technology pushes consumer trends. Whatever I have learned so far from books/articles never proved neither of them. Last year, I had this opportunity to interact with a Professor from Indiana University, Pennsylvania, and a common ground was established to take this thought further. Professor shared his research details and also a survey he is planning for to verify the facts. Finally we have launched this survey and collecting inputs from people all over the world. Here is a link to this survey.

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/129861/jbmu4

I look forward from my readers to take this survey and help us complete this research. I will share the results as soon as we have them.

Innovation by "taking out"

This is a blog entry that was in the draft mode for more than 2 years!. I wanted to write about new innovations by not adding something new, but "taking out" what is already there, sighting the iPhone as the example . Today, this article from CNBC, Why The Best Ideas Have Something Missing triggered me to complete this post

Below is my earlier verbatim
Innovation in future technology products seem to have interesting pattern. A new product, or revolutionary technology is being developed by applying the "taking out" principle, principle # 2. When Apple introduced iPhone, what struck me was the new design, missing a very important element of basic cell phone we have seen since beginning, the key pad!!

In this article, highlighting successful innovation with "doing less" (I would still emphasize "taking out) with examples from companies around the world, and also shares the cognitive aspects of human being to get in to this thinking. While I couldn't find an immediate connection with the examples and the rest of the article quoted from Matthew E. May, author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing blog, what is striking here is the "break through thinking" by really "breaking" the things.

PIA - 25 Ideas

In the early days of our class we discussed about generating wild, creative ideas without wearing the judgment cap, naturally letting the wild ideas flow within a short period of time (exactly speaking about 3 mts). Here goes mine.. :)

- Self organizing household items. Including sofa, tables, chairs, book shelf, clothes

- Color changing car body paint - Driving down in snow, changes to black, depends on mood.
- A pedaled cycle below your table to exercise while you are at work, and also power my laptop
- What if we all could have have a replica sitting at the university premises and attending this course. Can I outsource my learning to someone?
- Tasting tablet. Eat any bland food with the taste tablet. So, take your pad thai tablet and bland noodles..
- A stock market for people to invest in their & other's emotions. So, everybody is happy...
- TV that follows you wherever you go.. How about TV with tyres fit, steering wheels. If I go to kitchen, the TV follows me, so that I don't miss that Cricket match..
- Perception filter. Filter the people perception about a situation
- Open top in the plane at 34K feet. Real star gazing is possible there
- Unlearning tool. How about an unlearning tool, so that I don't burden my mind with new knowledge
- Outsource my fat burning to some people in Ethiopia (Well, assume I have lot of fat..) Blessing in disguise..
- Creativity drug - Take a small dose of this, and there flows your creative juices
- Vegetable shops selling not vegetables, but help you grow the same at your house
- Open patents - Anybody can use it and make money
- Social networking for your pets
- Vertical travel. Don't take a flight to Hong Kong from NY. Go all the way up above the earth's gravitational force and stay there, and since earth is rotating, Hong Kong will be below after sometime, and you land there
- Computer that emits pure oxygen for your breath. You don't need an Oxygen parlor
- Freezing horn - To teach a lesson to the jay walkers in this part of the world.
- I stay still, wherever I'm supposed to go comes to me - Office, holiday spot, pub, restaurant...
- Bank that keeps your ideas. And they pay you interest for your ideas
- Selectively listening gadgets. You want to filter unwanted things and listen only what is interesting to you
- Fast forward meetings
- 1200 Sqft house on 5 foot. Build a tall pillar on the 5 foot, and construct house of top of that. Easy to say I can live right there on the Time square..Reality meltdown is ruled out..

PIA - Where do you feel most creative?

This is another discussion we have had during our course.

Environment plays a critical role in many people's creative thinking. Some of us get energized at the beach, while others prefer a comfy chair in a darkened room. To start our journey together, we would love to know what your ideal creative space looks like?

My answer

While I strongly agree the environment plays an important role in our creative thinking, it is a myth that creative thinking is a spark influenced by the environment. Having said that I get creative ideas when I think I need to be creative irrespective of the place, but I'm good at creative thinking while discussing with friends on the subject other than the business. I feel this is due to the nature of association I can make with my problem context and the discussion point which is completely irrelevant.

When I conduct the innovation workshop and facilitation, I like to keep the environment colorful by full of colored charts around, giving them gizmo to play, which intern makes things little creative.

Putting Ideas into Action - Attempt to define creativity

The first part of our class Putting Ideas into Actions, we started with some basic questions about the creativity and our definitions of creativity. The discussion forum is too big to summarize here, because the class was so fired up to give their perspectives. However, there are some interesting points I wanted to capture. Since I can not copy paste the discussion from others, I'm focusing on certain questions from them and my answers for that.

“If creativity is all about problem solving, then does the term "creative problem solving" not involve a redundancy in the sense that all problem solving is, by definition, creative?” What do you think?- A very interesting question that I really liked because I was reading about the cognitive journals few days before.

When I started a full time role to help people think creative, this is a dimension I tried to understand, and have read and researched little bit. Finally, the literature available out there slowly started to drift me in to another area of "Cognitive psychology".

It is said that our human brain is wired in such a way to look at problems as the "flight or fight". Even if the problem is so close to us that we need a solution, our conscious state of mind still want to fly away from there. In this dilemma, we generate solutions by putting least effort by pulling the mental model (a pattern of thinking) that is easily matching the criteria of "flight".These solutions are certainly not creative and can not be called as creative. However, the moment we start "fight" for solutions, we would start experimenting with different thinking patterns (mental models), involved exercising more neurons and generate creative solutions.

Summarizing, I think creative problem solving is a phase after we flush out our mind with the easily accessible solutions.

Putting Ideas to Action: Approach to "creative consciousness" in day to day life - Part 1

Creative consciousness - I don't know a phrase like this exists, and make any sense, but I found this to be catchy. :)

Ok, what I really want to talk about is, what are the creative ways we can tune our mind to have that consciousness for observing our surroundings; despite the fact that ~95% of our neuron activities (thinking) are related to the day to day problems, such as thinking about the report to be sent on a Friday evening, weekend plan to meet your friends, thinking about spending time on this creativity course etc?

My guess is that this course is really helping all of us to condition our mind to exercise the right part of our brain for creative solutions, problem identification, and asking questions etc. However, there are so many other aspects of our day to day life and thinking overrules the right brain thinking, and at times we may completely ignore something very important passing by us because we are not consciously thinking that "we need to observe", or "I need to ask a question".
I could probably carry a check list wherever I go and ask myself, "Look around you and identify 5 things you haven't seen before", or "Identify 10 customers purchasing what type of vegetables". This will work beautifully if you are doing an ethnography study, but not very well in your personal life taking your family out for a picnic, because this requires an effort in our mind, and we may not enjoy our picnic at all.

On the other hand, what if we have a "creative consciouseness" switch that I can simply turn it on before I go to that picnic, and then "somebody" else within me doing this job of asking the question, observing the surroundings? Since that somebody is my mind and as said above, requires effort to do that consciousness thinking, what can we do to make it effortless, more fun?