kHUB All Member Forum

Chad McAllister interviewed Katherine Redeka recently on his Everyday Innovator podcast about her new book "High Velocity Innovation".

It was interesting to hear about her concept of Rapid Learning Cycles as a catalyst for speeding up innovation. A key concept was one of identifying when decisions need to be made and proactively charging the team with gathering the knowledge to be able to make those decisions on time and with confidence. She also advises to delay decisions that do not yet need to be made yet, as new information may be learned in the interim that can improve decision making.

I thought it was something that is intuitively obvious once you hear it, but it's not something that I've heard built into an innovation framework before. Has anyone any thoughts on that, or of very deliberately identifying important decisions up front and planning them out?

You can listen to the podcast here. Karen's website, with more information on her work, can be found at High Velocity Innovation.

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Brian Martin
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Hello Brian,
Upon receiving notification of your post I was curious to review "High Velocity Innovation" Redeka (2019) with the available podcast, link, and comparing with Agile, Lean Startup concepts, among others. Another framework that came to mind was that of Discovery-Driven Planning (DDP) developed by Rita McGrath and Ian MacMillan (1995), with ideas known for influencing Lean Startup, rapid prototyping, and minimal viable product (MVP). The Stage-Gate new product development (NPD) flow (Cooper, 1986) also came to mind as has changed by adapting from linear focus to nonlinear thus becoming more iterative with feedback and signals at various stages supporting new learning and assessments required prior to advancing to next development phase; as well as Fourth Generation of Innovation Management (4G) contributing to new insights, principles and practices (Miller 2016; 2015). Also while maintaining continued relevance as strategic tool is the case with DDP, within the steps while innovating amidst uncertainty of the front end of NPD by assessing knowledge gaps, key assumptions identified, milestone-checkpoints, and explored along steps of a) Define success, b) Do benchmarking, c) Define operational requirements, d) Document assumptions (Gallo, 2017; McGrath & MacMillan, 1995). The emergence of strategic innovation management NPD with other influencers along with Katherine Redeka included are adding to the body of knowledge, best practices, and frameworks, I am appreciative of your post Brian, as continue to explore her works as well. Cooper, R. G. (1986). Winning at New Products. In: Reading. MA: Addison-Wesley.

Gallo, A. (2017). A Refresher on Discovery-Driven Planning. Harvard Business Review, Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/02/a-refresher-on-discovery-driven-planning

McGrath, R. G., & MacMillan, I. C. (1995). Discovery driven planning. Philadelphia: Wharton School, Snider Entrepreneurial Center.

Miller, W. L. (2016). New Fourth Generation of Innovation Management Theory & Practice: Part 2. Journal of Creating Value, 2(1), 124-149. doi:10.1177/2394964315627259

Miller, W. L. (2015). Innovation Management Theory and Practice: Part 1. Journal of Creating Value, 1(2), 235-255. doi:10.1177/2394964315604433

Redeka, K. (2019). High Velocity Innovation: How to Get Your Best Ideas to Market Faster. Career Press.


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Richard Lefrandt
Full Time Student
DDiDDS LLC
Seattle WA
2063692456
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Thanks Richard, it was interesting to see her theory in context with all that other prior work on NPD, Lean Startup, MVP etc. I remember starting out in NPD using Stage Gate as a sort of reference bible. I felt it initially then became "passed out" by more iterative approaches. However I noted subsequent work that integrated agile and iterative thinking into that model, without "throwing the baby out with the bathwater".

I think where Radeka brings a new perspective is around the idea of "rapid learning cycles" as a means to increase the innovation velocity. I guess some of the other models have this inherently, but she brings it to the fore.

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Brian Martin
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-17-2020 15:57
From: Richard Lefrandt
Subject: High Velocity Innovation

Hello Brian,
Upon receiving notification of your post I was curious to review "High Velocity Innovation" Redeka (2019) with the available podcast, link, and comparing with Agile, Lean Startup concepts, among others. Another framework that came to mind was that of Discovery-Driven Planning (DDP) developed by Rita McGrath and Ian MacMillan (1995), with ideas known for influencing Lean Startup, rapid prototyping, and minimal viable product (MVP). The Stage-Gate new product development (NPD) flow (Cooper, 1986) also came to mind as has changed by adapting from linear focus to nonlinear thus becoming more iterative with feedback and signals at various stages supporting new learning and assessments required prior to advancing to next development phase; as well as Fourth Generation of Innovation Management (4G) contributing to new insights, principles and practices (Miller 2016; 2015). Also while maintaining continued relevance as strategic tool is the case with DDP, within the steps while innovating amidst uncertainty of the front end of NPD by assessing knowledge gaps, key assumptions identified, milestone-checkpoints, and explored along steps of a) Define success, b) Do benchmarking, c) Define operational requirements, d) Document assumptions (Gallo, 2017; McGrath & MacMillan, 1995). The emergence of strategic innovation management NPD with other influencers along with Katherine Redeka included are adding to the body of knowledge, best practices, and frameworks, I am appreciative of your post Brian, as continue to explore her works as well.

References

Cooper, R. G. (1986). Winning at New Products. In: Reading. MA: Addison-Wesley.

Gallo, A. (2017). A Refresher on Discovery-Driven Planning. Harvard Business Review, Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/02/a-refresher-on-discovery-driven-planning

McGrath, R. G., & MacMillan, I. C. (1995). Discovery driven planning. Philadelphia: Wharton School, Snider Entrepreneurial Center.

Miller, W. L. (2016). New Fourth Generation of Innovation Management Theory & Practice: Part 2. Journal of Creating Value, 2(1), 124-149. doi:10.1177/2394964315627259

Miller, W. L. (2015). Innovation Management Theory and Practice: Part 1. Journal of Creating Value, 1(2), 235-255. doi:10.1177/2394964315604433

Redeka, K. (2019). High Velocity Innovation: How to Get Your Best Ideas to Market Faster. Career Press.


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Richard Lefrandt
Full Time Student
DDiDDS LLC
Seattle WA
2063692456
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Brian,
Interesting article and thanks for sharing.  It would be great also if there were mentioning about capital repurposing as today's products were last cycle idea portfolio decisions. In other words, ideas are great as well as actionable velocity but these elements must also be in harmony with a flexible system that allows capital repurposing as they are finite.   
All the best

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Daniel Lago
Product & Industry Expert
SoftExpert
Johns Creek GA
407 502 8357
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