Dyson on problem solving

time + freedom

Today I met with two guys from a company in Mexico where the developers have a hack day after every sprint. People can work on whatever they want that will be relevant for the company during this time. It's one day, eight hours more or less, of dedicated freedom.

What a great initiative. Dedicated freedom within a time frame is as close to serious play as it gets.

It's important to point out that this is not a huge company with tons of resources. They're small and they have a lot to accomplish. But they've started this practice from the beginning, as a way to foster an innovative culture.

Why doesn't everyone do this?

take a stand

Last week I was in Paris, and I was on the lookout for a certain kind of business: one in which the owner is visibly taking a stand. Businesses that exist because of love, passion, curiosity, the need to make the world better or to right a wrong.

The potentially wonderful thing about starting a bar or a bookshop is just that, you get to take a stand. These are not undertakings for people who just want to make money. If you just want to make money, working for someone else seems to make a lot more sense. (Which is not to say you can't take a stand in someone else's employ.)

Selling books or serving drinks is a platform for making a reality that you believe in very deeply. Everyone doesn't have to like it. You just need enough people, the ones Stendhal referred to as "the happy few."

How many people would be enough? I guess that's different for every business, but a rough number would be the number that allows you to keep taking your stand.

storytelling and collaboration

This is a compelling TED talk about the power of storytelling and engagement with visitors to museums and to the future installation at the former World Trade Center.

Between the horse designed by a committee and the monster of reason

I'm very happy to have a post by architect and guest blogger Iñigo Amézola:

Between the horse designed by a committee

and the monster of reason

                                             or

How to give power to the people without losing powder

Let’s start with a statement: Buildings are made for people, that is, for their users and the community that accepts them.

It seems easy to agree on that, but getting the job done is proving to be a slippery matter.

Architects begin their reflection by working with three sources of information:

·A client

·Land, a plot, or another building

·A brief

To which is important to add:

·The socio-economic and political context

·The technical means available

Not forgetting, and this is one of the main differences between construction and architecture:

·The cultural response that goes along with the act of building

In other words, the responsibility that the new “constructo” will take over in relation to its context (whether urban, industrial or rural), to Time (past, present and future) and to the codes of Architecture.

The fact that some of these variables are difficult to measure (Anything that can be measured can be improved, Peter Drucker, dixit) places Architecture closer to Art than to Science. But this condition shouldn’t be enough to forget the consideration of Architecture as service and the obligation of accountability.

Two extremes

A few decades ago, at the end of the 60’s, the man with the blue eyes was Christopher Alexander, the Austrian mathematician and architect who, from his post at Berkeley University, defended the idea of a “pattern language”, synthesis of architectural invariants, defined and purified by humans for centuries, and with which anyone could design anything, from a door handle to a city, giving back to people their decision making capacity and pushing aside professional architects, now turned into mere site supervisors.

It was a time, full of energy, when everything seemed to be possible for a little while and anyone could be a poet, a musician, an artist and, why not, an architect as well.

Unfortunately but not surprisingly, this approach to Architecture was not able to produce interesting buildings, those which raise matter to its espiritual condition.

And little by little, the public debate in democratic societies, a job market with an increasing tendency towards specialization and a political class reluctant to lose their reason for being, were leading to the consensus that it was neither practical nor efficient to oblige people to face problems of a certain technical complexity, even when they were directly concerned. (1)

At the other extreme, as a result of the less naive years passed between 1985 and 2005, we have the architect as the sorcerer of the tribe, the only one in contact with the will of the gods, the only one able to transmit their desires. The architect as a self-absorbed figure with a complete (and sometimes tyrannical) control of the project that has led, more than once, to a raising of a “monster of reason”, to use Goya’s words: “The dream of reason creates monsters”. (2)

It is very true that the lack of social controls during these two decades of excessive growth has brought wasteful spending, empty buildings, and  increase of carbon emissions. But it is also true that this period of time leaves a legacy of important achievements and findings and some pieces of excellent architecture.

What will the future bring?

The pendulum of cycles follows its path impassively and now is moving to the center again. But History never repeats itself in the same way, and it will be vital to understand that architecture appears as interaction among many different players. In this new scenario, architects will hardly be playing the leading role. We have to learn from our mistakes and humbly accept that any approach to the project will be limited, temporary and perfectible; well defined characteristics of the human condition.

It will be a safe guide to keep in mind that, at the end of the day, it is for people we are working. We are not the only ones with the skills to face complex problems in an uncertain world (everybody does it today on a daily basis, let alone experts on the subject, like physicists or financial analysts), and we shouldn’t be afraid to feel, if not passion, at least affection for the virtues of the camel: highly efficient machines for their function and not merely misshapen horses.

Notes

1.- In a very recent revival, it is useful to mention the fiasco (for the political establishment) of the popular consultation about the renovation of Diagonal (Barcelona main avenue) in 2010, when people voted massively against the official proposals.

2.- The “City of Culture” in Santiago de Compostela and “The City of Arts and Science”, in Valencia, are two good examples.

I forgot what was important for you

Hosting a design thinking crash course this morning,  I witnessed a nice moment. A participant was showing his partner a prototype and getting her feedback. Listening to her, he quickly realized that he had forgotten a really key element of her needs, and he said it out loud.

To me it was a great instance of making a relationship with (in this case) a user: acknowledging that something important for her had simply been left out. She agreed that the prototype would only be really interesting for her if the important element were added.

Why was it it left out in the first place? According to the prototyper, it was because he got caught up in making the the prototype, and part of the essence got lost. But this element was quickly restored to the conversation when she gave her feedback.

Unfortunately, this kind of forgetting happens all the time in relationships, and not just where product development is concerned. But as sometimes happens in relationships, the initial omission provides a potential aperture for even deeper understanding, and for realizing that the essence can't get lost in our excitement to create something really cool.

the feeling of making something really new

A lot of things get called "innovation" these days. This is problematic, because it blurs the meaning of making something really new. If you're doing something that's been done before, even if it's new for you, you have some examples. For better or worse, you have a kind of familiar landscape to work within.

When you really step out into the unknown, the feeling is different. Whether that feeling is one of danger, fear, excitement, calm, or even joy will depend on each person. For me personally, it's often a combination of things, but one that stands out is engagement, the feeling of being deeply focused.

Maybe if none of these feelings are present, you're not really doing something new...

passion and non-attachment in a scientific method

Passion and non-attachment both have their place in the pursuit of solutions to valuable problems. Passion drives the quest, but non-attachment is necessary to running real experiments. Without it, you run the risk of skewing your experiment or your interpretation of results to support your hypothesis.

Non-attachment is a term frequently used in zen. It's a useful term, in the sense that it tries to describe an attitude of openness and flow. Adopting this approach, you can conduct true experiments, in which you are open to the real results.

Passion comes up again in the form of persistence, not to prove your hypothesis, but to find a solution for your problem, or to find the real problem worth solving.

what's surprising about problem interviews

A problem interview is one in which you try to validate that people have the problem you're trying to solve. It's also an opportunity to discover new problems, or to find out that people's priorities are different from what you expected.

I'm currently in the problem discovery phase for an innovation event in Barcelona. My interviews are revealing that people's real problems are fairly different from what I expected. This is great, because if I hadn't done this exploration, I would have planned a program which would have been inappropriate for many of the attendees.

As I'm quite new in my role, I suspect that many of my more senior colleagues are able to plan their sessions without this kind of problem validation. They probably know the needs of the attendees very well. But I don't, and more importantly, I know I don't. In the words of poet Charles Wright, "you don't know what you don't know."

The wonderful thing is that every time I interview someone, they have ideas, needs and insights that I couldn't or wouldn't have thought of. In this way, we're co-creating the event, building on the ideas and needs of many. I don't know what the result will be, but my sense is that we've already come further, and along different paths, than I would have if I'd set out on my own.

listening to people takes time

Recently, some people I really love invited me to give them some feedback on a project. I was very happy to do it... What surprised me was we had about five minutes or less at the end of the meeting to talk!

When you ask people to help you, by letting you interview them, or by giving you feedback, it's important to allocate enough time to listen and understand. Understanding is not always instant; in fact, in gathering insight you're usually trying to discover what's behind first responses, asking why a lot, to ferret out people's feelings, motivations, and real behavior. This last point is important, because we often answer questions baed on who we'd like to be rather than on our actual habits.

It's wonderful when someone takes the time the really listen, and seek understanding. It's also a great way to learn what you could make that might delight them.

the Steve Jobs paradox

Sometimes people point out to me that Apple's development method under Steve Jobs was not a co-creation process with customers or potential customers.

Whenever someone says this, it reminds me of Seth Godin's nice observation that "Apple had one customer," meaning that Jobs was, in fact, at least one half of the co-creation process with Apple's designers.

What I want to suggest is that you could certainly innovate based on this model, if you had a strong and visionary enough internal customer/creator.

There are certainly businesses of all kinds which are characterized by this kind of approach, and many people have likened Jobs' Apple to a fashion house.

Whether your co-creating customer is internal or external, I would argue that the process will be fundamentally the same: prototype, get feedback, iterate. 

why problem interviews are so great

In his book, Running Lean, Ash Maurya recommends validating the problem you want to solve by interviewing potential users/consumers. His idea is that you can get a strong signal about whether the problem is really important, even from as few as 15 people who would be early adopters of your product or service.

In addition, what he calls the problem interview enables you to meet and recruit potential users, and get them to recommend others who might like to participate. This is great, of course, but a third advantage to problem interviews is that you can discover problems you hadn't thought of yet, or realized were important.

All of these outcomes of the problem interview are extremely useful in determining whether there could be value in developing a solution. Nonetheless, part of the art of problem interviewing is to ask questions which will allow you not only to validate your idea, but to get new insight. Also, it's important to be open to the possibility that the problem you've defined isn't worth solving based on the strong signal you've received. But if you took good notes, and paid attention not only to what people told you, but how they said it, you may be able to look back and find something really worth pursuing.

the beauty and challenge of trial and error

You may have come across this TED talk in your travels, but in case you haven't, here it is.

Tim Harford makes a very strong case for trial and error with a compelling story at the beginning. You may feel that the talk swerves a bit towards the end, when Harford branches off into the story of two Japanese mathematicians, but I would argue that the concept of "making mistakes in the right direction" is absolutely key to a scientific approach.

Obviously, Harford's indictment of the "god complex" is at the heart of the talk, and a salient point for all of us who've been encouraged to become (or try to seem to be) experts rather than people who discover. What would it be like to completely abandon our obsession with expertise in a subject, and become experts in "making mistakes in the right direction"?

I would be very interested in hearing your responses to this talk. Also, I'd like to thank everyone who visited yesterday. 

the one-day challenge

Do you like to work by yourself?

I used to. I found it peaceful and satisfying; I felt it gave me the chance to make something really nice, really complete, before sharing it with someone else.

It had a downside, though. For one thing, sometimes I was barking up the wrong tree. For another, I was missing the contributions that others could make. Probably the worst part was receiving negative or constructive feedback at the end, when I would generally be inclined to defend myself.

My husband is a big proponent of artistic collaboration, and it's been a struggle for me to learn to do it. In the context of innovation and experimentation, however, I can see how important it is.

So two months ago, I gave myself the one-day challenge: to never work on anything for more than one day without sharing it and getting feedback from someone else.

The results have been powerful so far. My projects have gone smoothly, and I've learned to take feedback as a key part of good creation, rather than any kind of criticism. I've felt accompanied in my work, and been able to share the results with others in a way that has brought us closer.

Now, it's hard to imagine working any other way.

gift minded

Why gift giving?

If you visit the d.school at Stanford, which I highly recommend, you can take part in their crash course in design thinking. One option for the course is to redesign the gift giving experience. You do this activity with a partner, in a rapid cycle of  interviewing (gaining empathy), prototyping and getting feedback on your solutions. It's truly excellent, so please give it a try!

I think they made an inspired choice of topic, because at the heart of innovation and problem solving is something akin to the desire to give. Certainly, part of the thrill in solving a problem is intellectual, but part of it is in offering the solution to another, and partaking in their pleasure.

Also, the gift giving experience is riddled with danger, in the sense that the giver often has an emotional investment in the gift being received well, with joy, surprise, delight, gratitude, etc. Have you ever given a gift that the other didn't seem to appreciate? It's a painful experience, and one that sometimes damages a relationship. The other might feel that you weren't paying attention, or weren't generous, or even that you saw him or her in a way that was fundamentally at odds with his or her vision of self.

It's basically the same when we make a product or service: we're showing our level of insight and compassion, and our vision of our users.  So the gift giving approach is one to keep in mind as we endeavor to amaze and delight.

problems worth solving

In The Art of the Start, Guy Kawasaki presents (insists on?) three reasons to start a business: to make people's lives better, to right a wrong, and to keep something good from disappearing. His opinion is that if your business idea doesn't have one of these motives at heart, it has a low chance of success.

These aren't bad jumping off points for innovation projects. One definition of innovation is solving valuable problems, sometimes problems that no one identified as such. I suppose the most famous inventors and entrepreneurs could be described as solving problems people didn't know they had, or didn't imagine could be solved.

The great news for us is that problems are everywhere, all the time! The art is in seeing them as launchpads for something interesting...

Eric Ries and Ash Maurya have both provided a very clear method for discovering and validating valuable problems. Essentially, whether the problem (read opportunity) is coming from your users or clients, or from you yourself, it's important to check that the problem really exists and is worth solving. In these first weeks of working with innovation, I perceive that problem validation is even more key than I'd realized....

Since most of us got into our jobs by cultivating expertise, there's something inherently off-putting about interviewing people before you start prototyping solutions. But jumping to solutions, and solution testing, can be a big mistake, especially if you test you solutions with people who may not have the problem. Here's an example: if you show me six designs for a diamond ring, I can certainly give you a strong opinion about which one is the best. But as I will probably never buy such a ring, how much will my opinion really be worth to you?

Problem validation allows you to make sure you have something worth solving, while identifying and potentially capturing early adopters for your product, service or process. And, to be honest, it's fun too, because in addition to confirming that you have an interesting idea, the people you interview might mention a few other juicy problems along the way!