Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Why Constraints Are Good for Innovation? - Coggle Diagram
Why Constraints Are Good for Innovation?
Recent surveys show that managers tend to consider compliance restrictions and a lack of resources
As the main obstacles to innovation individuals, teams, and organizations alike benefit from a healthy dose of constraints.
Consider GE Healthcare’s MAC 400 Electrocardiograph (ECG), which revolutionized rural access to medical care
The product was the outcome of a formidable set of constraints imposed on GE engineers
Develop an ECG device that boasts the latest technology,
Costs no more than $1 per scan, is ultra portable to reach rural communities
The engineers were given just 18 months and a budget of $500,000
Given that development of its predecessor cost $5.4 million.
Engineers were not successful despite these constraints, but because of them
When there are no constraints on the creative process
They go for the most intuitive idea that comes to mind rather than investing in the development of better ideas.
Managers can embrace and use a variety of constraints in their arsenal.
They can limit inputs
(Managers may intentionally cap resources in corporate entrepreneurship initiatives to motivate employees to be more resourceful)
They can enforce specific processes
(Procedures on seeking early market and technological feedback)
They can set specific output requirements such as product or service specifications
(Apple’s former Design Chief Jonathan Ive is known to have imposed use of scratch-resistant aluminosilicate glass during the design of iPhone 4.)
If the space within which creative ideas are generated becomes too narrow
It is harder to form novel connections the key for fostering creativity and innovation in your organization is to strike a balance by orchestrating different types of constraints
When designing an effective balance of constraints
We recommend that managers take characteristics of the innovation project into account
The more an innovation requires breakthrough thinking
The more it will benefit from relaxing input and output constraints, because such projects require atypical connections between disciplines, areas, and knowledge
Some constraints are simply a given, such as those imposed by government regulations or by nonegotiable budget caps or deadlines.