Engineers And Innovation: A Few Lessons
Two weeks ago, I raised the question whether engineers are that good for innovation. Not surprisingly, this attracted a lot of interesting comments that focused on topics such as:
• Know the difference between invention and innovation. Jackie Hutter wrote that “the post (and the referenced comment) highlights a common misconception. This engineer, as well as most engineering-types, think that inventiveness which clearly is part of a good engineer’s toolbox–necessarily equates with innovation. In fact, invention often has very little to do with innovation. Innovation is at its core “profitable invention.”
I agree. We constantly need to be reminded of this very important difference of two related terms.
• Be aware of the pitfalls of stereotyping others. Sergei Dovgodko raised the question whether there is a benefit in stereotyping others. At times, it can be relevant to use stereotyping to make a point and start a discussion as I intended to do with my original post. However, Sergei is of course right to warn us on this. Stereotyping does not bring many benefits as it hinders us in observing the nuances and different angles of a situation.
In relation to my blog post, I had this in mind as I know that engineers come in many different flavors and – as I wrote – most engineers actually are good for innovation.
• Keep the balance. Michele Davies mentioned that “decades of working with engineers from numerous disciplines in mining, forestry and technology has also heightened my awareness of the need to balance the systems thinking with different perspectives.”
True. We need different kind of people with different kind of backgrounds to make innovation happen – and to get invention to become innovation.
Jan Bosch from Intuit also added this comment.
“Last Tuesday, I listened to the CEO of Mint (recently acquired by Intuit) and he talked about the basic model for VCs to value start-ups here in the Valley. Every engineer adds 500K$ to the valuation and every business or business development person *reduces* the valuation with 250K$.
I guess that provides one perspective of the value of engineers versus other roles in innovation.”
My initial thought is that the VC must believe it is much easier to attach business people to a project rather than finding engineers with novel and original technology. I would agree to this. What do you think?
Well, it was a great discussion. Check it out for yourself on this link: Are Engineers Really That Good For Innovation?
If "invention" means "creating or implementing new and different process or method to fill in an unmet current or future need", innovation is "creating perception of value for internal or external enviroment using new and different methods and processes".
Thus invention is the core around which innovation will shape. Engineer's (scientists) job is to conceptualize, construct and operate a new product or process. So engineering is almost always at the heart of invention. Growing invention into innovation requires host of other skills and most of the time engineers are not good at them (I'm an engineer). Invention is mostly a "thoghtful accident" while innovation is mostly "structured and planned process".
I'd put it simple: no engineers, no applied science or technology. Our message at Flanders DC for future-oriented businesses is to 'get innovation out of the lab'. Only relying on science and technology makes your company, start-up or established, so much poorer (unless you want to market a patent portfolio to a big big company). Remember how many technologies were not or only very slowly adopted. Sliced bread, microwave, light bulb etc.
Cross-functional/disciplinary perspectives often spark innovation. When I hear some engineers, they see themselves as the all encompassing function, defining functionalities, specs etc. For designers, everything originates and is managed by 'design thinking' or 'design management'. In the end, we are all our own little centre of the universe, isn't it?
I really don't care how people want to name their innovation process, but i do think you need both right brain and left brain thinkers.
Successful innovation goes like Seth Godin said: start with a great idea, do a lot of trashing and discussing at the beginning and then focus on the greatest execution possible within time and budget constraints.
One of our studies shows that in different stages of this gradual shift of focus – from idea generation and exploring to developing, implementation, launching innovation – a team/organisation needs different competencies. From that, we have developed a free online tool to evaluate/shape an existing/new innovation team, conveniently named 'TeamScan'. It takes different stages of the innovation project into account.
Here it is, for free: http://tinyurl.com/ycr6maz
Let me know what you think if you try it.
From my electronics experience, I feel that INNOVATION comes from BOTH engineers and product people.
Some Engineers say "Let's add this feature" or "We can save $s by …." and sometimes they need to be challenged by the Product People (top management, product, marketing, sales, qulaity, supply chain, etc.) to ask "Why CAN"T we do this?" or to offer some 'give and take' to the process.
I also love the saying "Stop engineering and start building" to consider another important facet of the "Innovation and Engineering Question'.
Let's keep the dialogue going!
I would like to support Koen's thoughts about the need for right and left brained thinkers.
At the front end of the innovation curve, the company needs somebody who understands and empathizes with the customer. Somebody who understands their need and translates it into a technical solution. I have seen this done by engineering types, but I have seen far more creative insights offered by ethnographers and system level business people.
At the point that the problem has been committed to paper, there is no challenge. The skills of the engineering types dominate. They do better at solving problems than any other group of which I am aware.
When the initial development is done, the ball shifts again. Sales and marcom come to the forefront. Their ability to make relationships and talk to people is largely unmatched by either engineers or product people.
For those of you who might believe in the "build it and they will come philosophy", spend time trying to recruit a cold call and get back to me.
Without the entire chain, its very difficult to convert an idea into a check.
One other note. It is an unfortunate truism that engineers value the quantitative and tend to denigrate qualitative talents. If asked, most are convinced that they could do advertising development and strategy development as well or better than the paid professionals. I have an engineering degree and have been in engineering development, marcom and strategy roles. Its a misperception. It is the rare individual who can be even nominally competent at cross disciple work.
FYI, I have been developing a methodology that enables analysis of future high technology markets. Some of the models cover these behavioral differences. You are welcome to visit http://www.mappingthewhitespaces.com if you are active in high tech markets.