Get Some Perspective

  Communications Management   Innovation   ProjectsAtWork  

The way we frame our project issues can limit our ability to solve them. But innovative thinking is not just about creativity. It’s about harnessing good ideas that solve specific problems for a specific opportunity. Here are three strategies to make innovation a more repeatable, predictable process on your projects.

Do you ever find yourself trapped inside the same project issues over and over again? Maybe it's because you're looking at them through the same lens. The way we frame problems can limit our ability to solve them.

“If you are working on an aerospace engineering challenge, and you have a 100 engineers, adding another engineer to make it 101 won't increase your likelihood of solving the problem, says Stephen Shapiro, a consultant in the areas of innovation and collaboration. “But if you add a biologist, a musician, a nanotechnologist or someone from the movie business, you might find some different solutions."

The secret, Shapiro says, is to get a different perspective.

Shapiro tells the story of an engineer who was trying to figure out a better way to plug leaks in the Alaskan pipeline, where it's sub-zero and repair guys aren't just down the block. One day the engineer got a paper cut. As he looked at his finger he realized, “My finger has the same problem that a gas pipeline has, but I don't have to go…

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.