We’ve reached a point where startups can base their business model on the rapid testing of multiple prototypes. Scott Adams of Dilbert fame argues that this basically makes starting up a big psychology experiment. If we are in established firms, we need to build some skills to compete in this environment.
DK interviewed me for a podcast last week – this bit on how to use experimenting build your innovation culture is my favourite part from it.
We learn through trial and error. That’s how everyone figures out how to ride a bike. We need to use trial and error more in business – it is a core tool for building an innovation culture.
Experimenting is a core innovation skill. Scott Berkun’s book The Year Without Pants outlines the approach that Automattic uses to foster experiments at WordPress.com. It’s a great approach, which you can adapt to fit your organisation too.
Experiments are a critical innovation skill, and it’s one that you can use to build your Innovation Competence. A culture of experimentation is one of the elements that distinguishes highly innovative firms from those that arene’t quite as good at it. The best thing that I’ve run across recently on the importance of experimentation is […]
Note: This is part of a series of posts explaining the individual parts of The Innovation Matrix. See this post for a description of the full model and what can be done with it. I presented The Innovation Matrix at a conference last week. After the other three speakers in my session had given their […]
Experimenting is the key to innovation success. The new book Anything You Want by Derek Sivers is worth a read (there’s tons of information about the book, and some great videos here). The book tells lessons that Sivers learned while running his website CDBaby. My first thought in reading the experiences of one person is […]
I was talking to one of our PhD students this afternoon about his research design. He was trying to figure out how to structure his network survey to learn about how a firm that we’re working with innovates. He is particularly interested in learning about the role of trust in the evolution of innovation networks. […]
Uncertainty is one thing that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Unfortunately, in most business situations, uncertainty is a fact of life. Graham Hill made an interesting response to my post yesterday about simplistic, complex and simple models. He said: The real world is complex . Most businesses simplify the complexity to ‘manage’ it. Complex […]
I’ve talked before about the importance of experiments in the innovation process. Experiments are essential for two reasons. First, they allow us to be more confident that our ideas will work. If we run a successful small experiment, that gives us some idea of how the innovation might work as we try to scale it […]
