The Lean Innovation cycle

Lean complements Innovation complements Lean...

A great article published on Wharton University’s knowledge blog. It explores how lean and innovation can complement each other to make companies successful.

Article


In my personal experience in auto manufacturing, it was almost a given that the first months of production of a new product required the hiring of additional personnel to address inefficiencies that could not be eliminated prior to launch. Great products were brought to market on time but with a lot of waste (time and materials) that still needed to be eliminated.

The Lean cycle, after the innovation cycle ensured that no matter what the company brought to market it would quickly become not only a better product, but also a cheaper one to make.

In the course of the process innovation sometimes brings great inefficiencies with it, especially if being first to market makes a company rush the implementation of a product. In general there isn’t enough time to work out all the problems and inefficiencies in the design and related manufacturing processes. In order to win the innovation game you can’t afford infinite time to refine prior to implementation. Companies, in the post implementation phase, require a culture of continuous improvement and waste elimination… this culture is called Lean.


The Lean Innovation (LI) cycle is a good way to guarantee success since it does not require the innovation phase to deliver perfection and thus the innovators can focus on the next great invention.

Idea Management: How ideas crash.

Sometimes the greatest problem interfering with innovation is the negative mindset of the individuals who are involved in the discussion. This video, which I found on You-Tube, is not only funny, but portrays a sad fact concerning how great ideas can be lost in an organization when the focus is placed on the negative aspects of an idea.

Dr. DeBono’s “Six Thinking Hats” for brainstorming are a great approach for innovating, and of these six none is more important than the yellow one – representing Positivism.

Yes, all ideas, especially in their infancy, will have drawbacks and flaws. The differentiator between organizations which excel as innovators is how they work to smooth the flaws and mature the ideas

My personal recommendation, when engaging in the ideation process and the development of an idea, especially when using idea management software, is that a core requirement of collaborating require that for every flawed aspect of an idea that is pointed out, a positive one is too. The positive one can address a separate aspect of the idea, or perhaps propose a way of mitigating the identified flaw. This helps keep the balance equal or in favor of the positive aspects, but also opens the opportunity to constructively address the flaws.

The key to innovating is keeping the benefits of the idea always at the front of the discussion. The flaws are discussed in order to help identify positive ways to mitigate them. However, rest assured that if only the flaws are discussed the idea will crash faster than a blimp in a hurricane!