Working with many and varied innovation teams I find it interesting to ask what sort of project people think they are tackling; and even more interested in the gap between how people are tackling the project and the optimal way of tackling that project. Dr. Eddie Obeng has documented a model that makes a lot of sense to me and I have used it to help people understand their project more deeply.I have redrawn it and called it the 'Design Diamond'. It represents the need, on exploratory projects, to take a divergent approach and the need for defined projects to be more convergent. Of course all projects have divergent and convergent phases; the challenge of course is to judge how much of each and when!
Painting By Numbers
Uploaded by kunstler45; used under CC licence.
Painting By Numbers refers to projects where the goal is clear and the means to achieve them are known i. e. we Know What to do and Know How to do it so we can just get on with it; so putting in a new production line with the same layout and machines as the last one falls into this category. The top 3 skills needed for this sort of project are
1) Managing Stakeholders
2) Planning and Co-ordination
3) Working with and leading people
Making a Movie
Uploaded by HelderSilva; used under CC
Making a Movie refers to projects where we Know How to do it but we don't Know What to do.
The top 3 skills needed to successfully execute Making a Movie are:
1) Managing Stakeholders
2) Learning to Learn
3) Working with and Leading People
The Quest
So we know what we want to do but we have to figure out how we are going to do it. A great example of this is Pres. Kennedy's proposal to go to the moon. This is an extract from his speech to Congress May 25th, 1961
"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations--explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon--if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there."
So we have a clear goal but we are unclear how will achieve it... in other words we Know What we have to achieve but we Don't Know How we will achieve it. But just over a year later Pres. Kennedy's speech at Rice University Sep 12th,1962:
picture link
"But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold."
So the project is still a Quest but ideas, concepts and technologies are beginning to emerge and are being shaped to deliver the vision and become more like Making a Movie. Sometimes the vision can also evolve as the story of Flickr, reported in USA Today illustrates.
"Flickr of idea on a gaming project led to photo website
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Caterina Fake knew she was onto something when one of the engineers at her Vancouver, British Columbia-based online game start-up created a cool tool to share photos and save them to a Web page while playing.........."
The top 3 skills needed for a Quest are
1) Working with and Leading people
2) Planning and Co-ordination
3) Managing stakeholders
Fog
But the scariest and least visible of the project forms is being in a Fog, stumbling about with unclear goals and clueless how to deliver
Uploaded by Garrulus ; used with thanks under CC.
In these times of rapid change writing down a strategy and sticking to it can be a recipe for disaster. I wrote about delivering enabling technologies to a Daratech Summit in 2001. My suggestion was that two decades ago (1980's) we could decide on a strategy and look for technologies that could deliver. In the 1990's we had to spend time out of the office looking at demos of new stuff and this would interact with our strategic aims, slowing or speeding us to our goal. In the early decades of the 21st century we would need to spend time in the research labs of potential technology providers as things are changing so rapidly our strategy and solution inventions needed to dynamically interact so "Finding strategy" became our watchword... We Don't Know What we want to achieve and we Don't Know How to do it. Every now and then the mist might lift and give us clues about the interaction of trends that might yield some actionable insights.
The skills required are
1) Learning to learn
2) Working with and leading people
3) Managing stakeholders
It can be seen that the more innovative our project the more important learning and people skills become; as we begin to define and work to deliver the vision planning and co-ordination are important. Managing stakeholders is relevant to a greater or lesser extent in all projects. Innovation is a team sport with the additional theme of keeping the managers and investors happy.
Interesting reading... but I'm not sure how it's actionable... or how it helps with managing projects.
I may be mistaken but it just seems like these are matter-of-fact observations about projects... but don't necessarily lead to making any difference.
I'm sure I'm not completely understanding the holistic picture yet. How do you think this mindset/framework should affect our thinking. Can you use examples?
Posted by: Melvin Ram - Sacramento Web Design Guy | May 20, 2007 at 06:07 PM
Fair comment... I'll address the points you bring up in a further blog... I've facilitated the technique, successfully, on a dozen or so projects with many teams so it deserves a better explanation!
Posted by: JIm Rait | May 20, 2007 at 08:42 PM
Hello, i would like to read more information about this topic because i think that is very interesting
Posted by: Inversiones en oro | May 13, 2011 at 05:01 PM