*care·ful | kerf(ə)l | adjective
done with or showing thought and attention
Built on real life experiences from…
Strategies—
Careful Innovation is true to the original meaning of disruptive innovation as coined by Clay Christensen. Here is a growing repository of strategies that anyone working with innovation can use in their daily work.
Ethics as a Strategy
Unearth ethical business opportunities before your competitors do.
What’s ethical today gets regulated tomorrow.
Ethics is usually either an afterthought or a burden for many businesses and industries. But it can be turned into a competitive advantage, if used properly. By anticipating the upcoming shifts in societal values and regulations, companies can be proactive in creating trust instead of reacting to requirements. Break down the values of your company so that you uncover ethical themes. Identify which areas you need to be ahead of the curve in you industry or area of expertise. Turn ethical problems and dilemmas of your industry into unique opportunities. Try to anticipate how your organization can be on the right side of history.
Problems over Solutions
Pivot around amazing problems. Not solutions.
Problems are long term but solutions are short term
Falling in love with solutions will take away lot of energy from you and your team. Instead: Understand the main problems of your users by observing their behaviors in their natural environment. Understand the main problems of your business together with the priorities of your executives. Understand the main problems your sector might be creating for people or planet. Seek focused problem definitions that can lead to solutions for all of the above. Pivot around the problem with different solutions.
Reframed Outcomes
Change human behavior for better impact on people & planet.
Better business needs positive change
Outcome is usually defined as a change in human behavior that leads to business impact. Rethink this definition by replacing "business impact" with positive impact to people and planet. Create metrics where you acknowledge any resources you might take from the earth or as labor force. Adjust and adapt your OKRs with the new outcome in mind.
Needs over Wants
Don't only talk to your customers, observe them to find their needs.
Wants create short bursts but needs create a solid foundation
The endless wants of human beings is virtually insatiable. Even though a lot of companies have reached financial success by focusing primarily on wants (tobacco, gambling, sugar drinks, social media...) longevity of these industries are always in jeopardy against regulations, social movements and widespread education. If you are an innovator that can steer resources, it is wiser to focus on products and services that deliver towards people's needs than wants. Needs emanate from problems or innate qualities of being a human. The further down your offering is on the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the more longevity and stability you can expect from your initiative of business. This also applies to smaller decision points... Talking to your customers will unearth their wants but observing them will unearth their needs.
Eliminate Idea Ownership
Empower ideators to build on each other instead of against each other.
Ideas grow easier when owned by many
When an idea "belongs" to someone or a group, they will equate their own success with the success of the idea itself. To avoid this: Make sure your team understands ideas are dime a dozen ownership does not matter. Try to give the ownership of long-term problems to people or groups. Avoid reminding people with phrases like "this was your idea". This might increase stress rather than be heard as a praise.
Long Term Thinking
Encourage focusing on future outcomes rather than the next quarter
Solutions are short term but problems are long term
Next quarter is sure important but in the long run, the fuel runs out fast when only having a constant sense of urgency. Have your full beams on. Try to anticipate the cumulative impact of your continuous actions over time. Encourage teams to follow up on the current impact of their decisions made in the past.
Culture of Feedback
Nurture an atmosphere where diverse voices can be heard.
Culture is build by what gets encouraged and what gets discouraged over time.
Allow and encourage people who see risks to speak up easier. Get people to spend energy on separating themselves from their ideas. Seek outside feedback from diverse groups of people even if they are not your customers.
Complement Competitors
Unhealthy competition is not good for anyone.
There are enough customers for everyone.
Instead of "crushing" or disrupting our competition, it is so much more productive for the world to find areas that your competition or the market is not yet covering. Use methodologies like Playing to Win to determine your competitive niche. Find synergies with your competition where you can create a total industry offering. Seek cohorts who are underserved and can open new markets.
Don't Start with Tech
Look for old problems that can be solved with emerging tech.
Solutions looking for problems is what makes problems larger.
Looking for problems a specific new tech can solve is rarely effective. Instead: Try to continuously scout new tech in your field and adjacent fields to fill gaps. Focus on old problems that are unsolved due to tech gaps. Encourage in-house tech innovation but incentivize the initiatives that have potential to solve inherent industry issues.
—Tools—
Impactful User Stories
Craft micro-strategies for teams who are working on innovation
Focus is the rarest of commodities
User stories can be very powerful when written right. They can even act as micro-strategies. Identify a cohort or target user group or archetype (not a persona) X Identify a valuable pain point for them Y Identify a measurable goal that indicates the elimination of the pain point Z Combine as: "As an X, I don't want to Y, so that Z" Tie this User Story back to your personal values, or a people/planet goal.
Escalator Principle
Build your solutions to work without ideal conditions.
An ideal use case is a fictitious use case
An escalator is still a set of stairs even when it fails. Create solutions that can work with worse support than ideal. Anticipate shortages in utilities. Treat edge cases as fantastic opportunities rather than threats. Design your systems to fail gracefully.
Leaps and Loops
Pinpoint the most likely path to finding meaningful opportunities.
Knowing the regular ebbs and flows of your business is key to utilizing them
A loop is when you see a clear repetitive pattern in your company or industry. Annual budget loops, quarters, tertials, sprints, seasons are all examples of typical loops, Identify the main loops that can help you make impact. Subdivide the loops for your team. Pinpoint critical moments in each loops. Set proactive actions that would propel you towards your goals on those moments.
Principles as Algorithms
Use you own moral compass to chart ethical paths.
Your personal values are the best filters for identifying right opportunities
What would you never ever do? What is the line you would personally draw ethically? Most of us think that we need to hang our personality and our own principles at the coat rack when we enter our offices. There is nothing wrong with having your personal values handy when you come to work. Companies are simply a collection of people. Write down things that you would never do. Scrutinize yourself when faced with dilemmas. Personal principles can act as algorithms of your moral compass.
Good Busy Bad Busy
Create your path before reactionary work takes you to places you don’t want.
Having a full calendar is nothing to brag about
List everything on your to do list. Group proactive items. Group reactive items. Group routine items. Group retroactive items. Try to minimize all items that are not proactively delivering towards your goals. You might also notice how dealing with promises you make bloat your to-do list. Keep promises and proactive wishes in separate lists.
Self-looping Cycles
Create positive feedback loops that self-reinforce over time.
Innovation is mostly about systems and feedback loops
Find cycles that can self-heal and create compound value with accumulation. Find the loops that will keep going without effort. Create incentives that will accelerate the cycles. Nurture relationships that empower and accelerate these cycles.
Funeral Exercise
Determine your own long-term values and goals.
Values are catalysts when used consciously
Seemingly morbid, imagining what you want to be remembered by can be invigorating for prioritization of tasks in front of you. Imagine your funeral 3 years from now. Write down 3 adjectives that you would like people to say about you. These are the values that are "meaningful" to you. Originally appears on 7 Habits of Highly Effective People book.
Optimize Downstream
Invest resources or money where a small change will make a difference for the people you serve.
There is always someone you are serving and someone that leads you
All teams essentially work towards improving the life of someone downstream. Maximize the value you deliver downstream by involving them into the development as much as possible. Start from something that other people might avoid touching. Clean that area from assumptions by asking powerful questions like: "What are we afraid of?" and "What is the cost of doing nothing?". Example: The login page to your intranet might be so painful that your workforce is losing incredible amount of compound time every day. Involve coworkers to the redesign of your authentication system.
Sow to Reap
Balance the wins of your company with the substrate it feeds on.
Nothing thrives in vacuum
Every institution depends on a context, a substrate to survive or thrive like an ecosystem service, a regulation and government subsidy, a labor force... Determine the parts of the planet and society that makes you or can break you. Embed measurements on how much return on investment your initiative will bring to the planet and society. Think about how your are replenishing your substrate and how much you are depleting it. Will the public end up with a positive gain? Or are you taking away more than you give? Think like a fisherman on a lagoon rather than a shopper at a supermarket.
Fifth Vital Metric
All businesses have five main metrics that they monitor.
Longevity is the golden metric for the careful innovator
Every executive cares about: Increasing revenue Decreasing costs Getting more customers More revenue per customer Longevity of business A careful innovator can focus on longevity of a business and avoid exploitation of existing customers. Honesty pays - especially long term.