How many times have we heard, listened to or even advised these two characters?
The product manager:
“This CEO still believes in Santa Claus. He hopes to release this new product in 4 months, and without additional budget... I'm not going to have a night to myself anymore.”
The CEO:
“What a crazy life, all these trips and all these obligations... I would like a freer, simpler life, to take the time...”
What can you do with stresses, obligations or limits?
How to clear innovation opportunities based on constraints?
Interrogate the person who is applying the constraint.
Why does it exist?
What is the context?
How could it be reformulated?
A constraint is expressed in binary mode. You have to be able to answer it with a yes or no answer.
For example:
If you can't formulate it in binary mode, it's probably not a binary one.
It may be a evaluation criterion, useful for arbitrating between several ideas.
For example: higher turnover, better impact on brand image.
Is the ambition of the project reasonably achievable?
If yes: GO.
If no: NÉGO.
In improvisational theater, the constraints given to actors are in reality a service that is rendered to them.
Use the Chinese accent.
Play a movie trailer.
Start each sentence with A, then B, then C.
The constraints are structuring. They offer a framework.
In an innovation process, it's the same. Adapting to constraints is a powerful source of innovation.
The problem:
How do you provide additional income to women?
Constraints:
Innovation:
In 2 or 3 villages, almost all women embroider Taqiyah, headgear sold at the market and worn at the mosque.
The equipment, thread and needles, is supplied by a local contractor.
Once a week, he collects the production and pays the women.
A simple innovation, integrated into daily life.
The problem:
How can rural families be offered additional income?
Constraint:
No resources to invest in equipment.
The solution:
A local contractor installs a pendulum mill and a vat to cook and form dough.
Families turn their rice into Rice pasta, valuing production by 40%.
Two hours a day is enough. As a family. In a good mood.
These innovations under constraints are Natural social business.
Helping those you love to free themselves from their constraints is already a powerful mission.
In individual mobility, innovations such asCar sharing, the hybrid car or Uber free up constraints of time and use.
Here we are a step further.
THEOpen innovation consists in transferring innovation efforts to external R&D. It allows you to get rid of internal constraints, budget, deadlines, return on investment.
It also promotescollaborative innovation.
But let's ask ourselves a few questions:
One day, someone recruited me saying:
“I expect you to be a scratch dog.”
How lucky.
Performance under constraints is a feat. It makes individuals and organizations more robust and resilient.
This is why the lifting of a constraint can cause a burst of innovation.
Blind people learn to see differently by developing their other senses.
A nearsighted person who puts on his first glasses suddenly sees more clearly than you.
Athletes who train at altitude find the effort easier when they go back down to the plain.
In business, it's the same.
In a factory under strong constraints, producing 5 tons per square meter, there is valuable know-how. Invest, let them have their say.
In all businesses, some have a voice and others are less listened to. Often unframed and present for a long time. Go and meet them. They may surprise you.
Now, list the constraints around you.
Ask yourself what maturity level they are at.
And what a big thing you can do with it.
A selection of articles to extend the reflection, discover other points of view and make your ideas grow.
