The Innovation Development Spiral: Mimicking the Inventors mindset.

When it comes to finding the right philosophy and working method to enhance our ability to create new ways to cover our still faster changing needs, then we have sources of inspiration: The inventors mindset, behaviour, and process, when adding value to the world.

Some of my patents were created in the old fashion way: I was the only inventor. My approach was:

• I noticed a need, and became ’’infected by the desire’’ to cover that need.
• ’’Incubation time’’ started – and thinking, studying and learning was ongoing.
• Then suddenly, The Idea was born.

Many years of experience and reflection has proven to me, that if I had worked in innovation teams on those cases, then better results would have been achieved faster. The reason is: There had been more ideas than The (one) Idea, and the finally selected idea had most probably been a better one. If the team would have applied several times of Thinking, Studying, Creating, Evaluating, then I am sure that the Learning process and the resulting patents had been stronger. And very importantly; the way to realization had been shorter.

These personal experiences are the reasons for stating and emphasizing The Innovation Development Spiral as the central element in our Innovation Pathway. Using the Development Spiral in practice means, that a realized Innovation is an idea, which has passed through many loops in the Development Spiral and with increasing detailing:

• Collection of information; data about the need and the stakeholders.
• Analysis; transforming information into useful insight. Preparing for creative use of “Action-Words” and “Value-Words”.
• Creation of ideas; proposing new logic and content in Strategy, Concepts, Products and Services.
• Evaluation of ideas; relating the proposed new logic to the purpose. Deciding for the next loop in the Development Spiral or realization.

The inventors mindset is now visualized and activated by the Innovation Development Spiral. It is operational and ready to be practiced in teamworks, going from the Management Team over the Innovation Team to the Realization Team. In this way the Development Spiral is the backbone of our Innovation Pathway. Every loop in the Development Spiral will be valuable.

If you and your team follow the Innovation Pathway, I am sure, you will realize our definition of Innovation:

“Innovation is
the beneficial utilization of knowledge and creativity,
in order to discover and realize
what does not yet exist”

Erik Keldmann