[MUSIC]. I'd like to revisit the process of innovation. Like how is it we lead the process of innovation. There's some interesting things here. And so basically, what I want to talk about is what it is that you need to attend to if you lead a team in an innovation project. Like what are the things I really need to think about as I'm taking them forward , through an innovation project. So first of all is to recognize that when people come to you and ask for your help. It may be that they're asking for help for you, from you as a manager, in your role as a manager, or they might be asking for your attention as a leader. Right, and they're different. So for one thing, from the managing perspective, you know, if you're explaining the plan, clarifying the goal, acquiring a resource, you know, developing strategy. That's what I call managing innovation. And so these are the logistics kinds of things, that people come to us because they need that. They need to have to be able to coordinate their behaviors with others, they need to be able to coordinate their behaviors, their insides with the outside world. They move information in and out. So that's the role of the manager to do that. But there's also this other role. This other role may be look slightly different. Right? Do they understand? People want to know is this thing we're working on. Is this truly meaningful? Like does this really matter actually? You know the people upstairs, do they care if we do this? Or it may be that the project is endless late nights and people working hard and you are getting setbacks. And people are going to say, how do I stay motivated? When they come to you in that situation, they don't want to know what the, what the schedule is. They don't want to know what the budget levels are, they want to know if it is worth for me to stay in this? How can you talk to me in a way that lets me know I am doing something that matters and I am doing something that is going to succeed in the end? And that's what we'd call leadership. And so, both of those things are necessary. Right? There's a kind of emotion, motivation and mission work. That's what we call leadership and leading in innovation. So, when people come to us, they don't really make a distinction between the two. And both of those things need to be accomplished. And so, how is that we can think about those things; managing and leading? In ways that move a project forward and actually make people better by having participated in that project. So, ma-, let's talk for a moment about managing the process of innovation. So, managing innovation is going to be really about the steps that have to occur, you have to do this, do this, do this. One of the steps that have to occur that go from you know, identifyng a problem all the way into implementing a solution. What are the steps that have to happen and how do we manage that step? Well, the first problem we have or the first issue to deal with is what I'm going to call the fuzzy front end. And that's a term that's being used a lot now but, really early stage when your trying where your going to go what your going to do. And this is the stage where I'd like to think about how not, not, not too long ago people thought to be innovative you needed to have beanbag chairs an oxygen bar. If you had those two things, you're good to go. Well maybe, they work, maybe they help, but, but maybe not. There's nothing that I've seen that would, would suggest that a beanbag chair in an of itself or an oxygen bar in an of itself, is going to help innovation happen. However, in this fuzzy font end, people really don't understand what it is they should be doing, most people. Right? They don't understand how the front end, like what is that I could be doing that would allow me to move forward. And what I think though is that we know when you, you should go earlier in a project, you should really be working hard. Because that's when investment's low and the cost of changes is low also. And so if I can really resource that part, that fuzzy front end, right? That really early part. If I can make people work really hard during that part, it has a huge payoff. Again because the investment's low and the cost of change is low. So, just to revisit something that we looked at before. We had this chart here that basically there's the one curve the curve that says basically, our ability to change. And so as we go through the project over time, so in the horizontal axis is time, as we go through the project. In the very beginning, we have lots of possibility of changing and we've spent very lots of ability of changing things, right. Ability to change. And over time we make decisions, and those decisions lock us in. We make some more decisions, and those decisions lock us in. Until we get to launch and utilization, then we really can't make changes. Because at that point, we're trying to launch this thing. Maybe we've trained people, maybe we've bought advertising space, and all those. And I talked about this at the group level, I'm just reviewing here for a moment. Then we have this red curve that starts out with very low invest, we have paid very little, we have put very much in there. And as we go, we actually begin to make more investment. That we put more money in, that we train people, that all these things are investments, right, that go. in this other, in, in terms of this red area here. And so, to go back to what I talked about. I talked about it in this blue phase, in this early phase you know, it's sort of in this latte phase where you know. It's, it's, we're not in a hurry and time is on our side. It looks okay. You know, we call that latte phase. Oh isn't that a fine latte let's meet next week we don't you know theirs no big hurry we can meet next week. What a fine latte that was, right? And then later we talk about the inferno phase where oh, oh my hair's on fire and people are running around like crazy. Because of things about the launch, and its not done yet and people aren't ready. And the irony that we pointed here, what I talked about was, you know, change is easier at the beginning. And less costly when performed early, but that's not when we're putting all the energy in. That's not when we're running around like crazy, when we realize the urgency of it. And so how is it that we push that stuff back? How do we, you know, basically enforce this kind of, you know, critical thinking and vigorous thinking and commitment and urgency up front, instead of later. You know, all things being equal, anyway, if a project's a dud then the sooner you know, the better. The sooner you can stop investing in it, the sooner you can start telling poeple, hey this is this new thing I'm going to be working on. Just kill it earlier. And so the problem with this fuzzy front end of whirl we're not sure often we're not sure what it is we should be doing at that front end. How it is that we should be acting. One thing I've seen, often with people is that there's a sort of confusion when things are uncertain or things are unpredictable. And generally if you can plan something go ahead and plan it I mean why not. I'll give you an example, oh okay. If you can plan something go ahead and plan it like why not? You know, certainly, by planning, you can keep the team focused on the stuff that matters, the stuff that can't be known in advance. It there's stuff you could know in advance, you should certainly know it, and you should certainly plan for it. I'll give you an example. I, I was talking to a person in an organization, a, a senior person. And I said, hey you should probably put together a product plan, you know? Because you, you, you're trying to increase production, you're trying to hit your target. You know basically hit your targets better try a product plan its all what's a product plan and so a product plan is these tells you know over time. Like you know what now were we working on in six months what you be working on twelve months what you be working on. And that will help you organize and sort of understand what your going to be working on. He looked at me like what are you, are you crazy? I, this is a fast moving industry and in six months I have no idea what I'm going to be working on. You know, if you want to know what I'm working on in six months ask me then. But you know, well there's some logic to that, to asking you in six months what is it you'll be working on then. However, there's some cost to not thinking about it ahead of time. So, no product plan? And this is why came to this organization I looked at, as I looked around in this organization with no product plan. they missing schedules, and they were having development delays . Because they unable to plan, because they couldn't save all these take as many as resources, this takes us many resources. If we do them at the same time, we don't have enough resources. Basic things like that. Then they turned into development delays. What is worse was, number of other outcomes. They lost legitimacy with the customers because they were late, because they missed schedules. They could not do strategic action, they were constantly in the sort of short term mode because they weren't thinking ahead. Because they hadn't planned things out, they were not able to achieve routine innovation. That is on day by day, by day, by day basis. They were not able to guarantee that they were going to come out with something new, they had low motivation. The low motivation was employees were getting burnt out, employees weren't sure if the project was going to go. So there'd be a number of projects, and it seemed to them, you know people being asked to do this stuff. Projects being pulled out at random to say, work on this one now, no no no, work on this one now. No, no, no, work on this one now. Because there was no plan, they had no sense of how these things fit together. They got burned out because there was no vacation. Because, you know, if you're constantly working on things, if you haven't planned them out. You're going to be burned out and, and, in the end we saw a lot of employee resentment. From, from the lack of having this plan. And so if there are things that you can plan, I mean of course no one can predict the future but there are things you may know. And so, for example, if there's going to be a big project every, you know, February, then basically, everyone has to take a vacation by the end of January. So that way, you'll know the people are rested, the people are ready, the people want to go. Because they're not thinking wow I could, I'm not sure when I'm allowed to take a vacation. You know you have retailers that need your product on the shelf every Christmas. Then, reserve manufacturing and shipping capacity for the month prior. You don't know exactly whats going to be in there you know its going to be a red thing or a blue thing or a white thing or a big thing. But you can reserve the capacity, you can say I know I'm going to be selling something because if I'm not selling something, this company is dead. And so I need to reserve the manufacturing and shipping capacity beforehand. And this is the kind of stuff we can plan for. And if you don't have a prior plan, if you don't think about your, seriously, the innovations that you're going to do one after another. You're going to run into problems or you don't, are unable to make these things happen. And you're running around possibly at the last minute, hair on fire as a way of life. And that is not a very good way of life for people in the organizations.
