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Every person plays a different role in the innovation process, including the funnel.
This is one of the real practical lessons I learned during my masters, we were part of MINATEC IDEAs Laboratory Xtreme prototyping back in 2010. A three day program that started with ideas generation, followed by prototyping, then feasibility analysis. The first day we came up with 300 ideas that were narrowed to 7, the second day specialized engineers came and build up the ideas literally, the final day business savvy professionals conducted their scalability research.
🦸🏻♂️ Different specialties are needed at different steps of the innovation process, we are not superheroes!
That was mind baffling to witness and experience, it was clear as day. We could only do so much as individuals, hence the collective is greater than the individual. But to take that a step further and have the ideas become Olympic torches passed on from one person to the next, that gave a whole new dimension to value creation.
Leave it to the experts, people know what they know and that’s where you need them. To be there and support when it is needed the most. Just like perspectives are crucial in the beginning, different expertise is required at the funnel stages. And that’s how innovation becomes a musical orchestrated by different instruments playing Beethoven’s 5th symphony in C minor.
🎷 The last condition is that everyone plays a different role, at a different time, in the innovation process and across the funnel.
Who could of know that 101 classical music class I took in my bachelor years would make me appreciate innovation more. More specifically, recognize the different sounds people make. And you know I would bump that sick vibes full blast any given day.
😉 Here’s the video to that extreme prototyping program so you can see it for yourself: https://youtu.be/BJy0Ttt0o5o