Some recent developments and articles of interest:

• How do you organise for successful disruptive innovations? Chris Trimble advises that you cannot do it the way you do everything else. ”Here’s an uncomfortable truth about innovation: No matter how great your idea, you can’t deliver breakthrough innovation without breakthrough organizational design…. Breakthrough innovation is not just about ideas. It’s about getting unfamiliar work done, and unfamiliar work requires unfamiliar teams.”¹
• John Hagel III and John Seely Brown outline the steps for turning a big idea into reality – create a compelling shaping view, make the benefit mutual, demonstrate your commitment, create a platform, and gain critical mass.
• Different types of problems require different types of solutions. Tim Kastelle looks at one characterisation of different categories of problems – puzzles and mysteries. “The problems that lead to disruptive innovations are often mysteries. This means that we need a different toolkit to solve these problems than we use when we solve puzzles. Experimentation and design thinking are two excellent approaches to use when facing a mystery.”²
• Is the biggest barrier to innovation you? The authors of this piece argue that too many people are reliant on prediction reasoning alone, which is unsuited for the dealing with the uncertainties of innovation.
• Alex Goldmark writes about plans by Code For America to help small businesses with big ideas get into public service. “The lucky civic-minded geeks chosen will receive $25,000 to grow their business, along with the training and entree to Uncle Sam’s IT procurement experts. The hope is to build an enlarged ecosystem of smaller, more nimble startups to keep entrenched IT contractors on their toes, taxpayer money better spent, and democracy better served.” ³

As always, please feel free to identify any other recent developments or articles of interest in the comments below.