Deconstructing the Innovator's DNA

Innovation plays a key role in transforming companies and markets. Engineers can contribute to this transformation by developing skills to innovate. The Innovator’s DNA discusses the five major innovation skills used by experts 1 . A better understanding of innovative skills of experts and what sequence they were used may inform the education of future engineering students to help improve the development of their own innovative skills. This study used content analysis on innovation case studies from three different literature sources. From these three books 53 case studies were identified and coded based on the expert participants responses. Overall 67% of the experts used observation when coming up with their innovative product of process. Questioning was at 43% as the second most frequently used skill. Experimenting was used at the final stages of innovation 91% of the time. The majority of experts started with observation leading into questioning and finished with experimenting. This suggests that engineering students may improve their ability to innovate if they develop their skills in observation, questioning, and experimenting. Introduction Engineering helps drive innovation through the development of products, processes, and entrepreneurship opportunities 2 . These products are usually found desirable by consumers and their sales help provide jobs and commerce. Many companies, such as Apple, General Electric, and Samsung, use innovation to transform and create markets that provide financial benefits both nationally, and globally. Consensus in the field of engineering has focused on developing and preparing future engineers with the proper knowledge, skills, and tools necessary for them to succeed. The five skills, embodied in The Innovator’s DNA include association, experimenting, networking, observing, and questioning 1 . In the paper “Defining and Measuring Innovative Thinking Among Engineering Under-graduates” Amelink discussed recent literature that covers innovative thinking skills that can be learned, such as observation of processes and questioning 3 . While, the Innovator’s DNA describes how these skills are used and contribute to innovative ideas, it does not explain which of these skills are more important or how these behaviors are linked. The purpose of this study is to develop a better understanding of the five innovative skills through a content analysis of expert innovators. More specifically we answered the following questions: a) Which of the five skills do innovators most frequently use first in their innovation process?; b) With which of the five skills do innovators most often conclude the innovation process?; c) Which sequence of skills do innovators most frequently use?; d) Which skills are central to innovation? P ge 24354.2 Research Framework Using the Innovator’s DNA as a framework, this study identifies the sequences of skills used by successful innovators. The skills in question are observation, questioning, experimenting, association, and networking. These skills are defined in The Innovator’s DNA as follows: 1. Associating is the ability to make connections with things from different areas of expertise, knowledge, or location. 2. Questioning is the ability to ask thought provoking questions on who, what, when, why, and push the questioning towards being a creative catalyst for the other skills. 3. Observing is seeing the world around them, the people living there, and noticing both what does and does not work in these situations. 4. Networking is the ability to link ideas and opportunities with others that work and play in the same or different areas of expertise then yours. 5. Experimenting is the act of trying out new ideas or processes in search of new data that may lead to an innovative opportunity. The Innovator’s DNA directs its focus at the five major innovation skills used by experts but does not explain which of these skills are more important and how these behaviors are linked to each other. We are looking to fill those gaps related to these five skills. The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding on innovative skills through a content analysis of experts and examine the possibilities of further study in applying it to teaching future engineering students. “One’s ability to generate innovative ideas is not merely a function of the mind, but also a function of behaviors. This is good news for us all because it means that if we change our behaviors, we can improve our creative impact” 1 . Methods We conducted a quantitative content analysis in order to identify the skills used most frequently during the innovation process 4 . Content analysis is empirically grounded approach used to analyze large amounts of text 5 . This research approach allowed us to explore an extensive amount of data from a variety of published sources. Thus we were able to efficiently compile a broad database of examples of the use of discovery skills during the innovation process that were sufficiently-detailed for this study. While, the analysis is limited to published text rather than interviews with experts, this approach allowed us to analyze of a larger number of innovators from all over the world, an approach that would have been too costly to do.