Posts by Rick Boersma

Innovation Webinar Question #6

Q: How do we engage you?

A. Contact Juice inc. by phone 519-822-5479, email Kevin @ .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or Rick @ .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or visit www.juiceinc.com .

If you would like to view the Innovation in a Box webinar, click here.

Innovation Webinar Question #5

 Q: Can you provide ammunition to make the case to a manager?

A. Ask them to watch the Innovation video (http://www.juiceinc.com/programs/show/innovation-in-a-box) and/or Webinar (http://www.juiceinc.com/media/webinar/innovation-in-a-box-everyday-people-breakthrough-solutions). I would suggest getting together on a call where we can go through the content.

• To help prepare for that, we’d send you a briefing form, which would prepare both of us.
• Then we would walk through an overview presentation (similar to the Webinar) together.

Innovation Webinar Question #4

 Q: While these tools are valuable for generating creativity - how do you "train" leaders to support innovation / create a culture of innovation, i.e., be willing to accept a level of risk from their team?

A: Two parts to this answer:

1. The individual Leader

2. The organization

The leader’s need to "get or understand" innovation in the same way that everyone else does. So, some of the basic theory is important. There is a business case to be made for innovation, and then they need to understand what’s required for implementation.

From an organizational change perspective, the following needs to be true.

There are general best practices that reflect what leaders can do to support the development of innovation as part of a culture. These include:

• Get the right people on the bus, which is as true for leaders as anyone else in the organization.
• Clear, regular communication of support and expectations
• Modeling the desired thinking and behaviors - including using the tools
• Understanding of the knowledge skill and behavior that lead to innovation and investing in ensuring people have them
• Identification of opportunities - and encouragement for identifying opportunities
• Openness to ideas
• Ability to assess balance risk and create practice opportunities
• The ability to encourage innovation at the individual level through the understanding of abilities, style, values and motivation.

As each corporate culture is distinct, there are also ways leaders can support the development of a culture of innovation that must be tailored to the organization and the point in time. A process of discovery creates a strategic, targeted approach for leaders to take to ensure innovation settles in to the organization with the least resistance and greatest return possible.

The discovery categories include:

• Definitions and expectations of innovation within the organization: if innovation is being talked about - how?
• How innovation fits into and contributes to the strategy: how will innovation move the company forward, and how aligned are leaders and others on this part of strategy?
• The current value discipline (operational excellence, customer intimacy or product development) or the service delivery imperatives that are perceived to be in place: What do people think are the priorities when working - doing things efficiently? Creating deeper relationships with the customer? By adapting and making new offerings?
• Current employee engagement and feedback on the culture: what are the current benchmarks?
• Iconic success and failure examples: are there common "legends" about trying new things in the environment now?
• How are new things assimilated - practically, personally and collectively?

If you would like to view the Innovation in a Box webinar, click here.

Innovation Webinar Question #3

Q: When asked to come up with a new idea. What do you find is the best method to start, brainstorming, brain-mapping etc?

A: If I’m working with a new group, I am going to do some standard things right off the bat. Let’s assume that I have a day, and the goal is less about training and more about truly tackling a problem/opportunity. Let’s also assume that I’m working with an average group, i.e. a mix of folks in terms of preferences, experience, buy-in, etc. As we work together, and get to know one another, the agenda may well flex.

I will do some positioning:

a. Torrance Test

b. The importance of breakthrough thinking

c. Brain Poker - lead in to i5, and the process

I like to have spent some time upfront clarifying the problem/opportunity statement. This can save a lot of time in the session.

• This helps educate me in the subject
• Helps get them into the session, thinking about the issue and because the process we’re giving them is steering their thinking, it’s helping them open up
• Is a bit of a diagnostic

I would take them through a process of investigation and ideation…

Investigation:

If I’ve done the pre-work, then I can start with this. Since I’m a graphic facilitator (which in this context simply means that I like to draw things out BIG), I may have pre-drawn one of these tools - based on the input I’ve received from my client prior to the session.

1. Let’s understand why this is an issue? Therefore a Context Map and/or Mindmap (which I like more than a Fishbone, but I’m using it as an analytical tool).

2. Springboard off of the Mindmap, generating ideas, I’m leveraging the investigation tool to start brainstorming. This is nice because it’s what I would refer to as a related stimulus (a slight skewing of the term I admit), it’s building off of what they know.

Ideation

I really like 3-12-3 brainstorming as a way to jumpstart beyond traditional brainstorming. It takes traditional brainstorming, and adds some additional structure.

• Stimulus Response
• Prototyping, but only SOME types of prototyping

If you would like to view the Innovation in a Box webinar, click here.

Innovation Webinar Question #2

Q: How do you go through the innovation process as a group when you have people in the different quadrants?

A: Ideas:

To paraphrase Jim Collins, your best bet is to have the right people on the bus, what IDEO calls "t-shaped individuals". The issue isn’t so much quadrants, as OPENness, i.e. we can think differently, but we need to be capable of dialogue.

However, in most cases cherry-picking a dream team isn’t an option. Even when it is, I start with the assumption that you are going to have people in different quadrants, which is okay, and that you’re going to have people who are less than fully open, which is not really Ok.

So I’m going to answer two questions:

• The one you asked - four quadrants
• The one you didn’t ask - i.e. about Openness

Four Quadrants

• Assume that you’ll have folks from each quadrant
• Play a simulation that we use called Brain Poker (For more information, contact us) to make the point - talk about the implications
• Demonstrate the importance of each type of thinking.
  • "Ideally we would have the right people at the right time…" but if our group is responsible for all four stages, that’s okay, we just need to stay conscious of the implications.
• Each stage has a suite of tools, which tend to provide more or less structure. Most people will prefer more structure and we’ll start by using those. Think of it as climbing a ladder, the lower rungs are easier to wrap our heads around. As you move UP the ladder there is more ambiguity, which ties to Openness…

Openness

• Tie it to the Torrance Test (another simulation we use), and the need for Openness. Be frank, some people are more open than others. That’s just the way it is.
• Tie to the advantages of breakthroughs (i.e. Cooper), but breakthroughs are equal to higher risk.
• Facilitate to keep people open, which can be rapidly shut down by hijacking.
• By teaching folks about the importance of staying open.
• By using a deliberate approach that moves folks from left to right on the structure spectrum - also on the related-random stimulus spectrum.
  • e.g. Value Chain Analysis
  • By using "Openness" exercises to keep it fun and upfront. These are similar to icebreakers, although I prefer to refer to them as brainwarmers.

If you would like to view the Innovation in a Box webinar, click here.

Innovation Webinar Question #1

Following our Innovation in a Box webinar, we received a number of questions that I have followed up and answered. There were some great questions, so I thought it would be a good idea to post them for your knowledge and interest. 　

Q: How do you approach innovation when your infrastructure doesn't have the technology to implement your ideas?

A: Ideas:

This is almost an expectation, or let me re-frame that. Breakthrough innovation is almost by definition going to be "impossible", so if it’s not an infrastructure issue, it will be a money issue, or some other issue. In fact, use an Implementation Checklist to determine what the issues are. It’s almost a "let’s anticipate that it’s going to rain" approach.

More specifically to answer your question...Collaborate, i.e. who can you hire, partner with, borrow from, acquire, train to do the work, with you or for you?

e.g. Creating an assessment with an outside service provider. The downside is that this is going to cost, either in terms of fee for service, or shared ownership, but there is limited options. Developing the capacity in-house is going to be equivalent...

Apply the same tools to the new problem-statement (your question) that we applied to the original problem statement, i.e. which gave you the product idea to begin with.

e.g. Mindmap + Scamper (Innovation tools part of the Innovation in a Box training program. For more information, contact us.)

If you would like to view the Innovation in a Box webinar, click here.

The Torrance Test

The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking was developed by Ellis Paul Torrance, an American psychologist in 2003. This test uses benchmarking to measure creativity. The full test involves simple tests of divergent and lateral thinking and other problem solving skills. They were scored on four things: fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration.

In Chapter 1 of the Graphic Innovation Guide, I used one part of the Torrance Test to expand on these four scales. I asked participants to write down as many uses for a tin can that they could think of. When the Torrance test measures your creativity in terms of fluency, it is measuring the number of ideas you are able to think of in a given period of time. Flexibility measures the range of categories for the ideas you come up with. Originality measures the rarity of the idea, or if it is a new, original idea. Finally, elaboration was not mentioned in Chapter 1, however; it measures the amount of detail used in your responses.

This test and the scales that it measures can be very insightful. We have talked about why innovation is so important to the success of a business. Innovation allows you to come up with breakthrough solutions. So if your goal is innovation, then it is important to know that we should increase our focus on all of these four scales. We must brainstorm ideas that have fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration.  The Torrance Test is agreat way to do that.   If you would like more information on this, email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

The Fight or Flight Response

We all experience stress in our lives. They may be small, everyday stressors like getting stuck in traffic, missing a work deadline or getting into an argument. Or they may be larger stressful events like getting into a car accident and being laid off from your job. Whether experiencing a small or large stressor, we will have a physiological body response to the perceived threat or danger. The response occurs in a part of our brain called the hypothalamus. When we are stimulated, the hypothalamus activates two systems which produce the flight or fight response. You can read more about this process here.

The physical responses that result are intended to help protect you from the danger you are facing. Some of these include our respiratory rate increasing, awareness intensifying, pupils dilate, our sight sharpens, our impulses quicken, etc. They prepare you to either run from the threat (flight) or fight against it.  When we are faced with a problem or stressor and in this state of mind it is extremely difficult to think rationally. Out of fear, we are in a negative state of mind, our rational mind is disengaged, we are overwhelmed and only focused on short-term survival, resulting in being unable to make clear choices and recognize the consequences.

Being aware of this can be very beneficial in our work and personal lives. Everyday we are faced with different stresses and try to deal with it in the best way. Knowing this, it is helpful to avoid giving in to our automatic fight or flight response. Instead, we should do the opposite. Try to stop and take time to keep calm so that we can rationally respond to the threat - this is called the STOP model.  For more information, read Using the STOP Model blog post.

Writing Software for Webinar

As many of you know, Wed. July 13th I hosted a live Innovation in a Box webinar which was very successful. If you happened to miss it and are interested, you can still watch the recorded version by clicking or copying the following link into your browser: http://www.juiceinc.com/media/webinar/innovation-in-a-box-everyday-people-breakthrough-solutions

We received many inquiries as to what writing program I used for the webinar, so here is some more information!

The program I used for drawing on the screen is called Ultimate Pen, http://www.snowmintcs.com/products/ultimatepenmac/.

• I work on a Mac, and I'm not sure if there is a PC equivalent, although a little Google searching might turn something up.
• It's not a great app, but works okay. This is the first time I've used it for a webinar, so it was interesting.
• I had created the presentation in Keynote (the Apple PPT equivalent) and exported it as a PDF. I did this because Ultimate Pen didn't seem to like the objects/images inserted into my slides. Making the presentation a PDF made for a more stable "base".
• The actual drawing was done on a Wacom Cintiq monitor, which is a deluxe option that allows you to draw directly on the screen, which gives more control. A cheaper and definitely passable option is a standard Wacom USB tablet. Not quite as intuitive, but okay.

Finally - a bit of practice makes, well, if not exactly perfect, certainly all right.

Innovating: Think Inside the Box

I'm really excited about my Innovation article that was recently published in the Summer 2011 Canadian Manager magazine!

Click here to check it out: http://www.juiceinc.com/articles/show/canadian-manager-article

Fishbone Diagram Tool 3

This is the final version of the Fishbone tool. Enjoy!

Fishbone Diagram Tool 2

This is the next phase of the Fishbone Diagram!

Fishbone Diagram Tool

For those of you that don't know, I'm working on a Graphic Innovation Guide based on the Innovation in a Box training program. I'm currently working on the specific tools for the chapter on Investigation.  The tool is the Fishbone Diagram and here's how it's looking so far.

If you are interested in more information on the Graphic Innovation Guide, sign up to receive a chapter per month until the book is complete. In exchange, we seek your feedback to make the final product the best it can be.
Click here to read the Introduction.

Innovation Interview Part 3

How important is it that CEOs are bought in to innovation initiatives at a company?

When I was asked this question by an editor recently, this is my response...

Innovation can definitely happen at the grass-roots.  Innovation initiatives can be driven by individuals, project-teams and departments.  Individuals and managers can work within their own circles of influence and do incredibly innovative work almost regardless of the overall culture of innovation in the company.   But, if one looks at icons of corporate innovation: Apple, Google, P+G...Companies that really do have cultures of innovation ( cultures which allow them to reap a harvest in terms of innovative products and services)  then having the CEO on board is critical.

Innovation Interview Part 2

Is there a gap between how companies value enterprise innovation versus the resources they actually devote to it? What are the reasons behind this disparity?

When I was asked this question by an editor recently, this is my response...

There is absolutely a disparity between how companies say they value enterprise innovation (or innovation of any kind), and the resources they devote to it.  The proof of this is evident in an examination of the financial-results posted by different companies in any given sector.  Truly innovative companies in every sector out-perform their less innovative competitors by an order of magnitude.  Although lip-service is paid to “innovation”, relatively few companies follow through.

The principle reasons are 

1. A confusion about what innovation actually is, followed by 
2. Either a lack of understanding or commitment to doing what’s required to innovate.

Let’s look at each of these briefly.  

1. As mentioned above, innovation (which produces breakthroughs) is not the same as problem-solving (which produces incremental solutions). Most companies don’t distinguish between the two, and take the path of least resistance, which is incremental innovation.
2. Enterprise innovation, or the creation a culture of innovation, requires an OD or organizational-change approach.   This in turn requires a capital investment, but even more importantly, the investment of time + energy.  If leadership truly wants to create an innovative organization there are some best practices, which include:

• clear, regular communication of support and expectations
• modeling the desired thinking and behaviors 
• understanding of the knowledge skill and behavior that lead to innovation and investing in ensuring people have them
• identification of opportunities - and encouragement for identifying opportunities
• openness to ideas
• ability to assess balance risk and create practice opportunities 
• the ability to encourage innovation at the individual level through the understanding of abilities, style, values and motivation.
• As each corporate culture is distinct, there are also ways leaders can support the development of a culture of innovation that must be tailored to the organization and the point in time.  A process of discovery must be undertaken that creates a strategic, targeted approach for leaders to take to ensure innovation settles in to the organization with the least resistance and greatest return possible.  The discovery categories include:
• Definitions and expectations of innovation within the organization: if innovation is being talked about - how?
• How innovation fits into and contributes to the strategy: how will innovation move the company forward, and how aligned are leaders and others on this part of strategy?
• The current value discipline (operational excellence, customer intimacy or product development) or the service delivery imperatives that are perceived to be in place: what do people think are the priorities when working - doing things efficiently?  Creating deeper relationships with the customer? By adapting and making new offerings?
• Current employee engagement and feedback on the culture:  what are the current benchmarks?
• Iconic success and failure examples: are there common "legends" about trying new things in the environment now?

Innovation Interview Part 1

Do you think companies are more concerned with product innovation than enterprise innovation? Why? Does the economy have anything to do with it?

When I was asked this question by an editor recently, this is my response...

I’ll be provocative here and say that companies should be more interested in product innovation then enterprise innovation because of the numbers associated with breakthrough products. Truly superior new products have 4-5 times the success rate, market share and rated profit of “me too” new products.

Having said this, the reality is that few companies are willing to dedicate the resources necessary to ensure breakthrough innovation on either the product or enterprise side. Most innovation in most organizations is incremental.

Most enterprise innovation efforts are focused on the maintenance or mild improvement of the status quo. More often then not it’s focused on incremental cost-savings. In fact, it’s questionable whether it should even be called innovation - it’s really problem-solving.

Does the economy have anything to do with it? Absolutely. Under pressure companies are risk-adverse. Rather then making bold-bets they focus on maintenance. The irony of course is that while they do this, their competition may pass them by. The low-risk strategy in the short-term is high-risk in the long-term.

New Innovation Video - Innovation in a Box by Rick Boersma

Learn how a so-called "average" group using innovation tools can produce 500 percent more useful ideas than a "creative" group. Innovation in a Box™ unleashes the creative thinking that powers business success.

Innovation, Strengths, and Hedgehogs

There is a tension between being asked to “Think Outside of the Box” and the type of “strength-finding” research and recommendations of thinkers like Marcus Buckingham, Dan Pink and even Jim Collins.

We know that there are a series of Innovation stages, what we call “the i5”: identification, investigation, ideation, impact evaluation, and implementation.  These stages roughly correlate with different personality or thinking preferences.  When we ask someone to think outside of the box - we might very well be asking them to think “outside of their preferences” as well.   In turn, Buckingham, Pink and Collins might all say that we’re setting them up for failure:

- Buckingham: “Operate according to your strengths”, i.e. stay in your box.

- Pink: “Gain mastery”, i.e. stay in your box.

- Collins: “Focus on your hedgehog”, i.e. stay in your box.

And I largely agree with them - or I would if we lived in a perfect world. If you work in a context where you can enlist a collaborative “dream team” (what Collins would call getting the right people on the bus), then each member of that team will probably be able to spend time operating from strengths, gaining mastery,  doing what they do best.  Who wouldn’t want that?

However many of the clients we work with don’t have that luxury.  They are charged with innovation, but need to rally their existing teams to the cause, and although their teams may be wonderful, they’re not necessarily “dream” teams crafted specifically for innovation.  In fact if anything they’re probably crafted for execution and efficiency.  I’d argue that the biggest challenge of Innovation training is to give self-professed “normal” or “average” teams  tools that will help them comfortably and effectively approach opportunities in a new way.  

Einstein said that the definition of insanity is, “Doing the same thing you’ve always done, and expecting a different (innovative) result”.  I’d say our challenge is helping people bridge the gap between doing what they do best, and trying something new, without losing their engagement in the process.

As Collins says in Good to Great, Great companies act like hedgehogs.  I’d say in every company, and in every career, there are moments where you need to think like a fox.

The Making of the Innovation in a Box Test Video

One of the things I love about DVD's are the extras, and particularly the "Making of..." background documentaries on  the films themselves.  I remember watching the BBC's Planet Earth Series, and each episode had a background doc on making that episode, and they were often as interesting as the episode itself.

I won't claim our little test video, nor the "making of it" is in the same category as Planet Earth, but hopefully you will find it interesting.

The video started with the content.  I've been running Innovation in a Box programs for several years, and having been working on the Graphic Guide for over six months, so there was lots of content.  Also, the programs are highly visual, employing a lot of graphic facilitation.  Since the goal of this video was to provide an introduction to the world of Innovation in a Box,  we knew we wanted to animate it, i.e. live drawing.  So I pulled out some 11x17 paper and a pencil and started do a visual mindump.  The illustration below is the second version that I did.  It's admittedly very rough (and hard to read) but it will give you an idea of the process - and particularly how my mind works.  The globe in the video is in the upper left portion of the video.

This next illustration is a larger version of the globe.

We decided not to use whiteboards because...well, I wanted more control of the line, texture, and colour.  And because although I love whiteboards, I love drawing on paper more.  In order for that to work, our video team at Highrise Studios set up a glass table with lights underneath, and camera above.  Here is a picture of the set-up.    

The lighting rig: there's a light to my left, and another bounced up through the table.  The tripod is between me and the monitor in this shot with the camera mounted pointing down on the paper.  The positioning was a bit awkward, forcing me to draw from the side instead of head on.  The tape on the table was the frame I had to stay within.

I wrote and recorded the voice-over, and then we shot the video.  Both the voice-over and the video required three takes.  The video is a minute and 57 seconds long.  The actual shoot was closer to 20 minutes.  It was then sped up...a lot...to match the voiceover.

And a link to the actual video:

http://vimeo.com/18770235

A Test Video for Innovation in a Box - Yee ha!

This is a "test" video for introducing Innovation in a Box.  Ultimately we'll produce a series of videos to support the Innovation in a Box training and tools.  In other words, as well as the Graphic Guide and Participant's Toolbox, we'll have video support for each of the chapters, and each stage of the i5 Innovation Process.

This video clip is actually a portion of a longer Introduction video that we'll be shooting in February.  We were really just working out some of the technical kinks at this shoot - but liked the results enough to post it now.  We'll be tweaking the next shoot in terms of lighting, content, colour, and having clearer handwriting (and removing the price stickers from the pens).  We're really psyched about it.  In the meanwhile however we hope you enjoy it - and we'd love your feedback.

My next post will look at the "making of..." this video.

Test Animation Video - Draft 3 from Juice Inc. on Vimeo.