There’s the obvious chestnut about how rewards at work are rarely
lined up with risk taking. ‘Sorry boss,
I missed my targets but I did take a lot of risks’. Hmmm!
Most people have mortgages and mouths to feed – we need a much more
subtle concept of risk.
In my experience it’s far more effective to substitute the words
‘lets take more risks’ with a more positive line; ‘let's make it real now’. Asking your people (or asking yourself) to
accelerate an inkling of an idea into something that others can react to is a
cornerstone of innovation. ‘Can you draw
it…make a mock up…act it out?’
The trick to effective ‘realness’ is stealth. The cheaper and quicker you can make each mock
up or simulation then the more iterative the process will be. Over several quick fire rounds you’ll learn
more about your great idea and make better development decisions.
Quick and dirty experimentation can escape under the radar - no need
to waste time making a case and seeking approval. Most innovation starts like this - a few
people muttering in the corner and staying late to make something real – not
writing a proposal.
So let's replace the phrase ‘tolerate failure’ with an altogether
more wholesome and useful concept of ‘making it real’. Forcing an idea through multiple experiments
is scary as hell because not all experiments work out, in fact you need
failures as much as successes to learn from.
In the context of ‘making it real’ then failure becomes really valuable.
There are a couple of great
stories that underscore my point about making things real. Sir James Dyson’s account of developing the
dual cyclone vacuum cleaner in ‘Against the Odds: An Autobiography" (1997, Orion
Publishing) is brilliant. He developed
over 5000 prototypes and made loads of mistakes along the way. An experimental approach to solving problems has also been proven
to be more effective than a single burst of work. Researchers at Stanford
University asked 28 participants to work on a design to protect a raw egg in a
fall. Half the participants designed,
tested and iterated their egg protection ideas after 5, 10, 15 and 25 minutes.
The other participants spent all their time on one design and were not allowed
to test it until the end of the session.
All had similar resources (paper, string and other materials). The results showed that the iterators
significantly outperformed their non-iterating counterparts, achieving roughly
double the non-breaking drop height – in some cases at 15 feet. Definitely one to try at home with the
kids! For more read ‘Efficacy of
Prototyping Under Time Constraints’ – a paper by Steven P. Dow, Kate
Heddleston, Scott R. Klemmer. Stanford University HCI Group. Department
of Computer Science, October 26–30, 2009.
