Foreword
In today’s rapidly changing and evolving global marketplace, there are only three ways for organisations to achieve growth: organic growth through incremental change and optimization of existing systems, acquisitive growth targeting new products, services, capabilities and geographic reach, and non-linear, step-change innovation. Only the latter of these appears capable of delivering growth that is both long-term and sustainable. Innovation breakdown, myopic focus on existing business models, silo mentality attitudes, ignoring disruptive paradigm shifts, organisational flaws in design and governance, and the inability to manage risk and uncertainty are a few of the many reasons why companies fail to achieve meaningful and relevant business outcomes and growth objectives.
Increasingly, information technology is becoming a strategic enabler capable of transforming entire industries. Collaboration, adaptive infrastructure, service-oriented and software as a service models, predictive analytics and other information technologies are examples of technology-led paradigm shifts. Yet, the majority of investment within information technology is still devoted toward ‘keeping the lights on,’ maintaining and optimising existing, and, oftentimes, outdated heritage and legacy systems. Add in regulatory and compliance requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II, HIPAA, and other budget-absorbing legislation, and there is often little room left for development of new software innovations. To compound the situation, when there is budget left over for innovation, many companies struggle past incremental improvement of existing products and services, they devote inadequate resources, and they do not fully take into account future needs and potential changing circumstances, with the consequence that a disappointing majority ultimately find themselves solving the wrong problem. All of these, individually and collectively, are recipes for disaster at worst and disappointing results at best. All send the clear message to managers that innovation equals risk.
Until recently, there has not been a framework, methodology or systematic process for software engineers and software developers to identify and isolate potential new breakthrough innovations. For some within the software industry, innovation is thought of as an inherently random process.
The nucleus of Systematic Innovation is built around a theory of inventive problem solving, originated and developed by Russian engineer and researcher Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues during the period from 1946 to 1985. By effectively constructing a database of ‘best inventive practice’, the resulting method provided a foundation for overcoming the debilitating impact of psychological inertia by exposing the fact that the world does an awful lot of re-inventing the wheel. The method thus transformed the previously random act of invention into a series of reproducible patterns, linkages and correlations.
The method, however, was developed for primarily mechanical challenges at a time when software engineering was in its infancy. While there are strong analogies that tie the original research to software innovation, no one prior to the publication of this book been able to create a comprehensive bridge between the laws and principles associated with the innovation of mechanical systems and the systematic, step-change innovation of software.
The ability to consistently generate breakthrough software innovations is dependent on a few key elements:
1. Understanding what perfect and ideal means in the customers’ eyes, despite the fact that customers may not be able to define or know what perfect is. Striving to create perfection and being one step closer to perfect for the customer than your competitor(s).
2. Looking at situations from many lenses, suspending prior beliefs that can paralyse creativity, asking questions and constantly challenging assumptions. Opening the aperture to look at solutions to a problem from other domains and areas.
3. Maximizing the utilization of elements that are already in and around a system, and, wherever possible, avoiding adding or bolting on new things.
4. Considering the core elements, linkages, relationships and bridges that connect a problem to a solution, and being able to connect the dots.
5. Identifying non-linearities and solving the associated contradiction. This involves mapping and understanding the interactions and combinations of digital, technical and societal DNA, identifying perceptions, looking for conflicts, and prioritizing for importance.
6. Challenging and conquering contradictions. This is where the ‘rubber meet the road’ and is the primary catalyst of providing the leaps that drive innovation.
7. Analyzing where a system is at any given point in the cycle and applying the right innovation strategies to these circumstances.
These seven areas form the core foundation of Darrell’s book. They form the pillars of a method now built from the reverse engineered knowledge of several millions of patents and other breakthrough solutions. Uniquely, they have made possible the ability for IT professionals to systematically and repeatably do the software innovation job. Utilization and experience with the tools and techniques provides powerful and tremendous foresight into the next evolution of any software system. This in turn creates the possibility, for the first time, that IT-oriented organisations can contemplate the scientific management and control of the innovation process.
Bryan Maizlish
Vice President & Chief Innovation Officer
SRA International, Inc.
Co-author of the best-selling book, ‘IT Portfolio Management’
