A Fictional Example of Innovation

Posted on May 21, 2013 by John Gabrick

Tara had just finished visiting with her largest customer, a network of 13 hospitals in her county.  She had met with many people that day, but one meeting in particular had stood out.  She had met with Dr. George Freeman, chief of surgery, who explained the problem they were having with their aging set of surgical instruments.   Dr. Freeman explained that they have the budget and are prepared to buy new sets, but they have one major reservation with the ones that Tara’s company makes.  They are uncomfortable for left-handed surgeons, and George happens to be left-handed.  He goes on to explain that without something different, the sale will go to Tara’s competitor.

Tara knows that this is a major problem.  This hospital system is a major customer and purchases millions of dollars of products from her company.  Letting her competitor get an advantage like this could be devastating.  Tara takes her problem to her supervisor.
Tara works in the marketing department and presents her issue to the group.  She explains Dr. Freeman’s problem, and how they’ll lose the sale without a change.  Tara champions a suggestion made by Dr. Freeman, which simply involved moving the finger clasp about 20 degrees off center.  Tara is familiar with her company’s manufacturing capabilities and realizes that although this is a significant change, they can (and have) made this accommodation in the past.  After they talk with a few others in marketing, they realize that this is their only chance to make the sale, and take their issue to the engineering department.

A few days later, a meeting is scheduled with engineering, and they make their presentation.  The engineering group has assembled their senior engineers, and they’re joined by the company’s controller and manufacturing VP.  Tara prepared slides outlining the issue, and she documents how sales will likely increase substantially as a result.  No one else has instruments with this capability.  Engineering spends a few days and designs a new set of instruments, noting that the clasp should only be moved 19 degrees off center.   Preliminary mock-ups prove the point, and the change to manufacturing is estimated at $850k (a fraction of what the potential sales will be).  Finance approves the money and the project is started.

Tara’s company is responsive, voice-of-the-customer oriented, and innovative.  They addressed the need of a major customer, secured new sales revenue, and improved their product.  But did they really do the best that they could?

Tara’s company has repeated the missteps of many organizations.  They answered the question for an important sale, but they really didn’t innovate.  Find out how using MindMatters’ processes and the Innovator™ software system can make supercharge your organization.  Click here to request a copy.

Posted in Best practices, Business Innovation, Collaboration, Customer-centric innovation, Employee Engagement, Innovation Culture, Innovation Process, Intellectual Property, Open Innovation | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Problem Based Learning and Innovation

Posted on April 24, 2013 by John Gabrick

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is fast becoming the preferred method of teaching students in medical-related fields, and I was struck by the similarity between PBL and innovation.  I had the opportunity to talk with Susan Hawkins (MSEd., PA-C) and Mark Hertweck (M.A., PA-C) of Chatham University about how their PBL program works and how it relates to innovation.

PBL was implemented in the late 1960s for use in the medical school program at McMaster University in Canada.  The approach was created to address the traditional medical school teaching methods which many perceived as being of little benefit in the practice of medicine.  Instead of teaching chapters from a book, and forcing lots of rote memorization, PBL was centered around “real-life” case studies in which a typical patient aliment was presented.  Students would work to solve the patient case–a more realistic scenario.

The consensus on PBL is that compared with traditional teaching methods, it’s more effective, and students are more likely to come away better prepared for the rigors of their profession.  The traditional learning method is very similar to the way innovation has been addressed for decades.  Groups would get together to brainstorm ideas around a wide topic, such as, “How to increase sales revenue.”  The ideas were vaguely directed at the goal, but were oftentimes so unrelated or outlandish that it was difficult to see the value to the organization.  Learning, like innovation, is much harder without a goal.

From an innovation perspective, the most interesting facet is that students in PBL start with a problem.  Specifically, a real world problem–exactly the kind of situation facing many organizations and their innovation programs.  Challenges, like PBL cases, are focused problem statements that are important to the organization.  A challenge should be important to the organization, and it should have real benefits to being solved.  This is similar to a PBL case in which the patient and his/her ailment are important (potentially life-threatening) with the benefit being a cure/treatment.

Problem-Based Learning is just another example of how the innovation challenge paradigm is being employed in other disciplines for similar improvements and value-add.  So, when you begin to think about organizational innovation, consider including some of the elements of both challenges and problem based learning, such as focusing on an important problem, encouraging collaboration, using a transparent evaluation process, and providing rewards–it really works!

Comparison of Innovation Challenges and Problem Based Learning:

Innovation Challenge PBL Case
Presentation Focused challenge that the organization is facing Patient with a complaint/ailment
Time Limit Set by Organization, typically 3-5 days Set by School, typically several weeks
Support Management/Executives Facilitator
Rewards Recognition, Promotion, Money Recognition, Good Grade
Evaluation According to analytics determined by organization, usually based on ROI According to specifics of patient presentation, usually based on correctly identifying and treating problem
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Managing the Costs and Customization of Collaboration Technologies

Posted on April 18, 2013 by John Gabrick

Check out a new article by Ann Augustine on Managing the Costs and Customization of Collaboration Technologies.  She has assembled a checklist of planning tools and benefits that can help your organization successfully manage for costs and customization in your software project.

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Learning Strategies

Posted on April 15, 2013 by John Gabrick

In a study  by Nandagopal and Ericsson trying to determine how and why high performing student succeed, the authors looked at the use of self-regulated learning strategies in a group of advanced undergraduate students.  They selected students/courses that indicated that the students were actively picking in-depth study in order to eliminate unmotivated students.  (They selected advanced bioscience students/courses as opposed to entry level students/courses).

They asked the students to keep daily study diaries, and then grouped the study strategies into  six main categories: self-regulating (self-assessing, goal-setting, and planning), organizing, seeking information, mnemonic usage, seeking social assistance (for instance, seeking assistance from peers, tutors, and professors), and reviewing(reviewing prior problems, notes, textbook, and such). They compared the diary entries between high, average, and low-achieving students (as indicated by their GPA).

While they found that high-achieving students tended to employ a larger number of learning strategies, the most important strategies for predicting final grades were:

  1. Seeking information,
  2. Reviewing the textbook, and
  3. Seeking assistance from peers during the midterm week.

Here is a summary of the learning strategies as adapted by Zimmerman, B. J., & Martinez-Pons, M. (1986). Development of a structured interview for assessing student use of self-regulated learning strategies. American Educational Research Journal, 23, 614–628:

1) Self-evaluating: Statements indicating student-initiated evaluations of the quality of progress of their work, i.e., I check over my work to make sure I did it right.

2) Organizing and transforming: Statements indicating student-initiated overt or covert rearrangement of instructional materials to improve on learning, e.g., I make an outline before I write my paper.

3) Goal setting and planning: Statements indicating students setting of educational goals or sub-goals and planning for sequencing, timing and completing activities related to those goals, e.g., First I start studying 2 weeks before exams, and I pace myself.

4) Seeking information: Statements indicating student-initiated efforts to secure further task information from nonsocial sources when undertaking an assignment, e.g., Before beginning to write the paper, I go to the library to get as much information as possible concerning the topic.

5) Keeping records and monitoring: Statements indicating student-initiated efforts to record events or results, e.g., I took notes of the class discussion. I kept a list of the words I got wrong.

6) Environment restructuring: Statements indicating student-initiated efforts to select or arrange the physical setting to make learning easier, e.g., I turned off the radio so I can concentrate on what I’m doing.

7) Self-consequences: Statements indicating arrangement or imagination of rewards or punishment for success or failure, e.g., If I do well on a test, I treat myself to a movie.

8) Rehearsing and memorizing: Statements indicating student-initiated efforts to memorize material by overt or covert practice, e.g., In preparing for a math test, I keep writing the formula down until I remember it.

9–11) Seeking social assistance: Statements indicating student-initiated efforts to solicit help from peers (9), teacher (10), and adults (11), e.g., If I have problems with the math assignments, I ask a friend to help.

12–14) Reviewing records: Statements indicating student-initiated efforts to re-read tests (12), notes (13), or textbook (14) to prepare for class or further testing, e.g., When preparing for a test, I review my notes.

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America Invents Act (AIA)

Posted on March 17, 2013 by John Gabrick

The America Invents Act (AIA) was signed into law on September 16, 2011, and was implemented in several phases.  The second phase was implemented on September 16, 2012, and included post-grant procedures, supplemental examination, changes to the oath or declaration requirement, and other various items.

The third phase of the AIA was implemented on March 16, 2013, marking the end of the United States’ first-to-invent process and beginning the first-to-file process.

The USPTO summarizes the changes that go into effect on March 16, 2013 as follows:

(1) Convert the U.S. patent system from a ‘‘first to invent’’ system to a ‘‘first inventor to file’’ system; (2) treat U.S. patents and U.S. patent application publications as prior art as of their earliest effective filing date, regardless of whether the earliest effective filing date is based upon an application filed in the United States or in another country; (3) eliminate the requirement that a prior public use or sale be ‘‘in this country’’ to be a prior art activity; and (4) treat commonly owned or joint research agreement patents and patent application publications as being by the same inventive entity for purposes of 35 U.S.C. 102, as well as 35 U.S.C. 103. These changes in section 3 of the AIA are effective on March 16, 2013, but apply only to certain applications filed on or after March 16, 2013.

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Managing the Creative Process

Posted on March 7, 2013 by John Gabrick

Managing the creative process is daunting.  When enveloped by an organization, the organization knowingly and unknowingly forces constraints upon the process.  They look at the financial, market and manufacturing feasibility of ideas and ignore the ones that don’t fit into the model.  On one hand this is necessary.  Management is tasked with building wealth and creating profits.  Ideas that don’t match those strategic goals have to be eliminated.

The problem arises because creativity and profitability are not related.  It’s impossible to design a business process that yields a high percentage of quality innovations because high quality innovation is a lower percentage reality.  Psychologist Dean Simonton said it best when he wrote, “Quality is a probabilistic function of quantity.”

You get a few high quality innovations because you create many, many innovations.  An example of this is highlighted by Keith Richards (I hope everyone knows he was in the Rolling Stones) in his memoir,  about the origins of the song “Brown Sugar”:

I watched Mick write the lyrics. . . . He wrote it down as fast as he could move his hand. I’d never seen anything like it. He had one of those yellow legal pads, and he’d write a verse a page, just write a verse and then turn the page, and when he had three pages filled, they started to cut it. It was amazing. It’s unbelievable how prolific he was.

Eventually, Richards came to understand that one of the hardest and most crucial parts of his job was to “turn the f**king tap off,” to rein in Mick Jagger’s incredible creative energy.
This same creative energy was witnessed before in the likes of Einstein, Bach, Edison and others.  From purely a percentage viewpoint, they all created more “junk” than they did “good ideas”, but compared to others, they created more higher quality innovations.  What this causes for the organization is lots of spurious stuff to look through.  Processes need to be designed to allow creativity to be unfettered.

One way of getting unfettered creativity and meeting the goals of the organization is to use Challenges.  Challenges focus innovation in the areas that are most interesting to the organization while allowing for creativity.  The Challenge is simply to address the issue with a solution, there is no constraint on the solution.  This is a midpoint in the creative process with each side getting a little of what they want and need.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/16/110516fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

Posted in Best practices, Breakthrough Innovation, Corporate Innovation, Disruptive Innovation, Idea Management, Innovation Culture, Open Innovation | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Best Practices for Patent Review Teams

Posted on February 19, 2013 by John Gabrick

Patent Review TeamsRead about how to get the most from your patent review process in this free white paper, Top Ten Best Practices for Patent Review Teams.

Written for managers, participants, and administrators of an organization’s patent review team, it provides a framework for establishing a highly efficient invention review process. Whether you already have a team in place or are considering starting a team, the paper offers suggestions ranging from rewards to team composition.

When patent programs are established, organizations naturally consider the process for collecting inventions, concepts, and ideas—all of the up front issues, yet only give cursory thought to the review and management process.  Few seldom consider what they’ll do with the large number of inventions that often get submitted, believing that having too many will be a good problem. And while it’s important to make sure that you have a good supply of inventions, the real value of an innovation program is actually finding the best to patent.

The free white paper is located at  http://www.mindmatters.net/Resources/WhitePapers/TopTenBestPracticesforPatentReviewTeams.aspx

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Best Learning Methods

Posted on January 30, 2013 by John Gabrick

learning methodsWhen I was younger, I used to learn by brute force.  I’d read and reread the chapters I had learned, in an attempt to pack as much information as I could into my head.  Although I was never much into highlighting, the technique was very popular among my friends who would reread chapters and underline everything in sight.

As I got older, I had less time to learn, and had to make the most of the time I had.  I found myself studying less, but learning more.  Instead of just reading the chapters, I would read just a few pages, or study a few figures before putting the book down.  I’d challenge myself by drawing a picture, or trying a few practice questions.  And now, with so many apps available on phones, I can use Quizlet (a flashcard game), e-books, or flash learning tools to spread out and vary my learning further.

It seems that my adaptation to learning is not unusual.  A study  by  Kent State University professor John Dunlosky, examined all of the different learning techniques and rated each according to its utility.  It seems that the way my learning style adapted was very similar to what his results have shown.

He found that there are several popular, but poor techniques, such as: Highlighting, Underlining, Rereading, and Summarizing.  The good news is that he found some very good learning techniques that were underutilized, but very effective.  According to this findings, the best techniques for learning and retaining information were:

  1. Distributed Practice:  spreading your learning into many smaller time periods, instead of one giant cramming session.  He found that the more studying sessions–over a longer period of time–increased your retention.  For example, studying fifteen minutes a day over two weeks is better than studying two hours a day for two days.
  2. Practice Testing:  either creating your own or using quizzes and tests supplied by the book publisher.  It’s the act of “retrieving” the information from your memory that strengthens the learning and helps keep it permanently stored.
  3. Flash Cards:  a combination of the two prior techniques in that you can practice recalling the information as well as spread your sessions out over time.

He also researched a number of other techniques, and found them to be neither good or bad.  They were: Mental Imagery, Asking yourself Why, Self-explanation, and Interleaved Practiced.

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People with Glass Houses Shouldn’t Throw Stones

Posted on January 17, 2013 by John Gabrick

The old adage that “people with glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” suggests that not everyone is perfect, and that before you criticize your neighbor for doing something foolish, you should think about whether you have acted similarly.

Did you ever go to a restaurant and watch parents try to manage a group of rowdy kids?  They’re making noise, throwing food, and causing a general raucous.  I know more than once I’ve rolled my eyes and thought how I would easily be able to control “those kids!”  But, unfortunately, I’ve been that parent trying to control my own children during a particularly rough day.  It’s easy–from a distance–to see the solution, “I’d just sit those kids right down and tell them that if they didn’t behave themselves, I’d….”  In many cases, you’d probably be right.  The farther we are from the problem/situation, the easier it becomes to find a solution.

A recent article by Psychologist Yaacov Trope posits that the further we move in distance from the issue we are trying to solve, the better our thinking/creativity and decision-making become.  And distance is not just physical.   It can be imagining yourself either at a future point or historical point in time, looking from a different dimension (up/down, left/right), the distance between two people in terms of social connections (my best friend versus an acquaintance), or even hypothetical, such as what might have happened.

The article suggests that the farther we move from the issue, the more general and abstract our perspective becomes and we are able to consider solutions from a wider angle.  Conversely, the closer we are to the problem, the more concrete and practical our thinking becomes.  Think about how easy it is to solve other people’s problems, and you’ll understand exactly what the article is getting at.

This is one of the principles of innovation as well.  People often think that they should only challenge engineers with technical problems, and only marketing people with sales problems.   Using these principles in the article, and based on many years of experience, I can tell you, that you should definitely open up your problems to a wider audience.  You’ll be drawing on different experience/knowledge bases, but you’ll also be creating distance–they key to problem solving.

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Morning People vs. Night People

Posted on December 27, 2012 by John Gabrick

Another interesting article about an individual’s most creative time of day.  It might seem logical that you’d be more creative during the time of day that you’re also most awake or at your best.  For “morning people”, this would be during the morning, and for “night people”, it would be in the late afternoon.  While researchers found that were are better at analytical tasks during our most awake times, we are better at creative tasks during the opposite time.  Here is the specific research:

What Dr. Wieth and her colleagues did was ask volunteers to fill out a questionnaire that assessed whether they were at their best in the morning or evening (this questionnaire, by the way, is highly predictive of people’s peak circadian arousal). She then invited the volunteers to the lab to solve both insight and analytic problems in either the morning (between 8:30 and 9:30 AM) or the afternoon (between 4:30 and 5:30 PM). While people did slightly better on the analytic problems during their optimal time of day, volunteers were much more likely to come up with a creative – and correct – answer to the insight problems at their self-professed non-optimal time.

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