Introspective, Retrospective, and Techspective Innovation

Looking at innovation from different perspectives helps to build that bridge for fueling creativity and harnessing innovation. 

Innovation happens when you change the game; you bring a different twist to what is currently established and perceived. Innovation is about transforming novel ideas to achieve their business value. It is largely due to the fact that innovation in the digital dynamic has become increasingly complex in nature and expands its horizon for impact. Thus, digital innovation needs to lay out different mindsets, structures, processes, capabilities to unleash the potential. Here we introduce the introspective, retrospective, and techspective innovation.

Introspective Innovation: An essential aspect of creativity (individual or group) is the ability to challenge assumptions, conclusions, and beliefs, and to be able to contemplate multiple, even conflicting views of a situation. Creativity sometimes leads to tangible products which reflect the personality of the individual in their response to the problem stimulus and the means for its expression. Introspective innovation is the process to understand the psychology behind creativity and even manage the full emotion cycle of innovativeness. It’s about improving and enhancing self. Knowing oneself comes from the practice of actively and intentionally being present to relate to, see all the different parts of oneself and how they operate to possibly stimulate creativity. Creativity is comprised of domain expertise, creative thinking skills, and task motivation, as an ability to release emotional energy in response to a problem stimulus. Self-awareness mind helps to find energy released from one steady state to another, and from the outer realities attempting to change to the steady state of the inner self. This energy connects the dots and generates fresh ideas. Creativity comes into play when we call upon our conscious mind with the intention to bring forth solutions from our unconscious mind. It is a conscious mind we call with some unconscious activities of allowing creativity flow. It’s important to keep mind flow, release positive energy, out of this comes a beautiful thing, the freedom of choices and the plenty seeds of creativity.

Retrospective Innovation: Retrospective innovation is about taking “the backward” approach by leveraging the retrosynthesis scenario. It starts with what you want to see or have, imagine an innovative product or service; then, think backward from there to what the next simpler step is; and then back to what are the next simpler components, back to what you have at hand. Retrosynthesis describes the process of planning a synthesis backward, by starting at the ideal products; the “target,” and then taking it back a step at a time. Retrospective innovation is the process started whenever people start applying the scientific method of observing, creating hypotheses and taking retrosynthesis procedure to approve or disprove those hypotheses. It is the process that many disruptive innovators use as well as the artists who are fine-tuning their crafts take. It is also important to leverage varying processes such as analysis, synthesis, and retrosynthesis at the different phase of innovation management.

Techspective Innovation: With the overwhelming growth of data and often technology-led digital disruptions, Information & technology becomes the most time-intense piece for solving innovation puzzles. Organizations today rely more and more on technology, technology needs will only expand to fuel innovation and creative business opportunities. The reach and range flexibility that now exists in the business removes the barriers that have existed in the past and provides important opportunities to harness innovation. Today’s technology enables companies to leverage their various environments or ecosystems, to fuel innovation and accelerate performance. Innovation is about figuring out the better ways to do things. The highly innovative organizations depend more heavily on its technological knowledge and market capabilities to develop and commercialize innovation. Not only should information & technology plays an active role in designing, developing and producing innovative products or services, but also it can help to foster a creative environment. By leveraging powerful digital platforms and technologies, organizations can become more effective in executing innovative ideas by relying less on silo functions, more on cross-functional communication and collaboration.

Innovation is what leads to differentiation. There are many ways to differentiate and, therefore, there are many ways to pursue innovation. Innovation comes with the increased knowledge and understanding of facts. Looking at innovation from different perspectives helps to build that bridge for fueling creativity and harnessing innovation. It requires enthusiasm, belief, determination, and commitment as well as a good business case, in order to manage Innovation as a multifaceted discipline and iterative processes.

Posted in: Innovation