One of the basic challenges of building software is the lack of knowledge. We never know it all. Creating a new innovative product is hard to plan for, as we do not know where to look. Likewise, a perfectly rational decision is impossible as we will never know everything needed to make one. Even worse – at project start we often know next to nothing!
Innovation does not come from planning. Many discoveries and inventions over time were results of random accidents while tinkering with something completely else. Chance plays a big role.
So why not plan for chance? You can either take a passive role and wait for chance to happen – and even create the space for new ideas – but without aggressively chasing the unexpected chance, you are most likely in for a long wait.
Here’s a list of tips, tricks, and tools you can utilize to make chance go your way:
- Be open to surprises! This is actually not as easy as it sounds. It’s about changing your mindset. Expect to find answers in unusual places – then the chance of innovation is far more likely to happen. Keep a buglist! Make a habit out of evaluating how things can be better. Could check-in be easier in the airport or could you help your local grocer selling more goods? Force yourself to think about it constantly. Always have a block of paper and a pen ready to scribble down your thoughts!
- Seek out new sources of inspiration. Put yourself in unusual positions. Get away from everyday life and the settings are comfortable in. Staying in your comfort zone will make you do work as you have always done work and look at things the way you have always looked at things. Put yourself in physically different positions than what you are used to. Socialize with people whom you would not normally socialize with. Browse magazines and books you are not used to browsing – and spend time surfing on the net! The further afield, the better.
- Broaden your field of expertise. Tear down the wall. Learn different approaches to what you are doing. Learn about processes in other industries – and about their methods and techniques. Cross-train your staff and do not only focus on your competition, but also on how non-competitive industries have solved similar problems.
- Allow for alternate interpretations. Cultural probes can help you come up with new ideas while trying to make meaning of the works of others. A cultural probe could be you sending out a disposable cameras to to somebody in your target segment. Let them reply to 15-20 questions you made up, by taking pictures. When the camera returns and the film is developed, intrepid their pictures in find the new ideas blossom. The key is that the pictures are open for interpretation. You might interpret something else than what they meant – but that doesn’t really matter: the new ideas matter.
- Hire outsiders. Hire people that are slightly off the center and that is not afraid to speak their mind. Is formal education always the most important thing?
- Change hats. Try to walk in the shoes of your users. Construct archetypical personas and write narrative scenarios concerning the problem from the personas’ point of view.
- Seek feedback. Put up photos, sketches, mockups, or posters up on your wall describing what you are working on in order to let people passing by giving feedback. Hold open houses and go-home meetings showcasing your work. Either throw one for the other departments, or invite external people from the industry.
