Processes are the means by which things get done. From the simplest thing like cleaning the coffee machine in the lunchroom, to launching a major new product, it happens by way of a series of activities culminating in the objective being achieved.
It makes sense to do the same thing the same way every time, assuming you get the desired outcome. Doing so delivers stability, reduced errors, and makes the processes transferrable between people.
Process stability is a fundamental foundation of being able to scale a business.
However, processes do not innovate. They can replicate the past with great productivity benefits, they do not take risks. They squeeze out creativity, as it is variation to the process, and therefore not allowed.
Let’s look more closely at innovation, which can be broken down into a series of repeatable steps, and thus becomes a process.
There are two types.
Incremental. This is where there is continual improvement, the adjustment of processes to deliver benefit. The preconditions of incremental innovation are twofold:
- First, you need stability to be able to execute on CI, and
- Second, you need the culture of experimentation, continuous A/B testing to prevail.
Break-through. This second category is, to me, real innovation. It can create new markets and demand, of the type Apple deployed with iPod, iTunes then the iPhone, and Henry Ford did with the Model T. You need to be able to see where there is new potential, new markets, new demand, and be prepared to throw the baby out.
The culture and processes that support these two types of innovation are very different, effectively mutually exclusive, so you must make a choice. Trying to do both inside the same corporate ‘shell’ rarely works.
The former requires alignment, stability, continuous improvement, and several other popular management cliches.
The latter will die under these constraining circumstances, it requires insulation, a ‘skunk-works’ of some sort to succeed, a culture that enables experimentation and the attendant risk, giving the efforts immunity from corporate ‘sameness’.
Scott Adams reflects this pardox beautifully in this 2012 cartoon used for the header.
