Innovation

ASSIGNMENT ON ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

TOPIC :

LECTURE IN CHARGE

: DR. PRINCE ARVIND

DATE OF SUBMISSION : 25th JULY 2011

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Innovation

GROUP MEMBERS

NAME 1. LEAH SAJAN VARGHESE 2. NOELIN B

REGISTER NO PR11MS1 145 PR11MS1 154

3. KEVIN SANTHOSH KUMAR T 4. LENESH K 5. LIVINGSTON BALA SINGH P 6. MANIKANDAN M 7. MANU K A 8. JOB JOSEPH MATHEWS.P 9. JOSEPH M

PR11MS1 060 PR11MS1 O61 PR11MS1 064 PR11MS1 066 PR11MS1 O71 PR11MS1 045 PR11MS1 049

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CONTENTS
1. INNOVATION 2. INTER DISCIPLINARY VIEWS 3. SOURCE OF INNOVATION 4. VALUE OF EXPERIMENTS 5. GOALS AND FAILURES 6. DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION 7. MEASURES 8. INDICATORS 9. MEASUREMENT INDICES 10. INNOVATION PROGRAMS 11. INNOVATION MANAGEMENT 12. INNOVATING HUMAN RESOURCE 13. HOW TO STIMULATE INNOVATIVE THINKING 14. SIX SECRETS OF INNOVATIVE THINKING 15. CREATIVE THINKING

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INNOVATION

The term innovation derives from the Latin word innovatus, which is the noun form of innovare "to renew or change," stemming from in-"into" + Novus-"new". Although the term is broadly used, innovation generally refers to the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that affect markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention or renovation in that innovation generally signifies a substantial change compared to entirely new or incremental changes.

INTER-DISCIPLINARY VIEWS

SOCIETY

Due to its widespread effect, innovation is an important topic in the study of economics, business, entrepreneurship, design, technology, sociology, and engineering. In society, innovation aids in comfort, convenience, and efficiency in everyday life. For instance, the benchmarks in railroad equipment and infrastructure added to greater safety, maintenance, speed, and weight capacity for passenger services. These innovations included wood to steel cars, iron to steel rails, stove-heated to steam-heated cars, gas lighting to, diesel-powered to electric-diesel locomotives. By mid-20thcentury, trains were making longer, more comfortable, and faster trips at lower costs for passengers. Other areas that add to everyday quality of life include: the innovations to the light bulb from incandescent to compact fluorescent and LEDs which offer longer-lasting, less energy-intensive, brighter technology; adoption of modems to cellular phones, paving the way to smart phones which meets anyones internet needs at any time or place; cathode-ray tube to flat-screen LCD televisions and others.

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BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

In business and economics, innovation is the catalyst to growth. With rapid advancements in transportation and communications over the past few decades, the old world concepts of factor endowments and comparative advantage which focused on an areas unique inputs are outmoded for todays global economy. Now, as Harvard economist Michael Porter points out competitive advantage, or the productive use of any inputs, which requires continual innovation, is paramount for any specialized firm to succeed. As the classic economist, Joseph Schumpeter, who contributed greatly to the study of innovation, argued that industries must incessantly revolutionize the economic structure from within, that is innovate with new processes and products, such as the shift from the craft shop to factory. He famous asserted that creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. In addition, entrepreneurs continuously look for better ways to satisfy their consumer base with improved quality, durability, service, and price which come to fruition in innovation with advanced technologies and organizational strategies.

ORGANIZATIONS

In the organizational context, innovation may be linked to positive changes in efficiency, productivity, quality, competitiveness, market share, and others. All organizations can innovate, including for example hospitals, universities, and local governments. For instance, former Mayor Martin OMalley pushed the City of Baltimore to use CitiStat, a performance-measurement data and management system that allows city officials to maintain statistics on crime trends to condition of potholes. This system aids in better evaluation of policies and procedures with accountability and efficiency in terms of time and money. In its first year, CitiStat saved the city $13.2million. Even mass transit systems have innovated with hybrid bus fleets to real-time tracking at bus stands. In addition, the growing use of mobile data terminals in vehicles that serves as communication hubs between vehicles and control center automatically send data on location, passenger counts, engine performance, mileage and other information. This tool helps to deliver and manage transportation systems.

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SOURCES OF INNOVATION

There are several sources of innovation. In the linear model of innovation the traditionally recognized source is manufacturer innovation. This is where an agent (person or business) innovates in order to sell the innovation. Another source of innovation, only now becoming widely recognized, is end-user innovation. This is where an agent (person or company) develops an innovation for their own (personal or in-house) use because existing products do not meet their needs. MIT economist Eric von Hippel has identified end-user innovation as, by far, the most important and critical in his classic book on the subject, Sources of Innovation. In addition, the famous robotics engineer Joseph F. Engelberger asserts that innovations require only three things: 1. a recognized need, 2. competent people with relevant technology, and 3. financial support.

Innovation by businesses is achieved in many ways, with much attention now given to formal research and development (R&D) for "breakthrough innovations." R&D help spur on patents and other scientific innovations that leads to productive growth in such areas as industry medicine, engineering, and government. Yet, innovations can be developed by less formal on-the-job modifications of practice, through exchange and combination of professional experience and by many other routes. The more radical and revolutionary innovations tend to emerge from R&D, while more incremental innovations may emerge from practice but there are many exceptions to each of these trends.

An important innovation factor includes customers buying products or using services. As a result, firms may incorporate users in focus groups (user centered approach), work closely with so called lead users (lead user approach) or users might adapt their products themselves. U-STIR, a project to innovate Europes surface transportation system, employs such workshops. Regarding this user innovation, a great deal of innovation is done by those actually implementing and using technologies and products as part of their normal activities. In most of the times user innovators have some personal record motivating them. Sometimes user-innovators may become entrepreneurs, selling their product, they may choose to trade their innovation in exchange for other innovations, or they may be adopted by their suppliers. Nowadays, they may also choose to freely reveal their innovations, using methods like open source. In such networks of innovation the users or communities of users can further develop technologies and reinvent their social meaning.

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VALUE OF EXPERIMENTATION

When an innovative idea requires a new business model, or radically redesigns the delivery of value to focus on the customer, a real world experimentation approach increases the chances of market success. New business models and customer experiences can't be tested through traditional market research methods. Pilot programs for new innovations set the path in stone too early thus increasing the costs of failure. On the other hand, the good news is that recent years have seen considerable progress in identifying important key factors/principles or variables that affect the probability of success in innovation. Of course, building successful businesses is such a complicated process, involving subtle interdependencies among so many variables in dynamic systems, that it is unlikely to ever be made perfectly predictable. But the more business can master the variable sand experiment, the more they will be able to create new companies, products, processes and services that achieve what they hope to achieve.

GOALS

Programs of organizational innovation are typically tightly linked to organizational goals and objectives, to the business plan, and to market competitive positioning. One driver for innovation programs incorporations is to achieve growth objectives. As Davila, "Companies cannot grow through cost reduction and reengineering alone... Innovation is the key element in providing aggressive top-line growth, and for increasing bottom-line results."

One survey across a large number of manufacturing and services organizations found, ranked in decreasing order of popularity, that systematic programs of organizational innovation are most frequently driven by: Improved quality, Creation of new markets, Extension of the product, range, Reduced labor costs, Improved production processes, Reduced materials, Reduced environmental damage, Replacement of products/services, Reduced energy consumption, Conformance to regulations.

These goals vary between improvements to products, processes and services and dispel a popular myth that innovation deals mainly with new product development. Most of the goals could apply to any organization be it a manufacturing facility, marketing firm, hospital or local government. Whether innovation goals are successfully achieved or otherwise depend greatly on the environment prevailing in the firm.

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FAILURES

Conversely, failure can develop in programs of innovations. The causes of failure have been widely researched and can vary considerably. Some causes will be external to the organization and outside its influence of control. Others will be internal and ultimately within the control of the organization. Internal causes of failure can be divided into causes associated with the cultural infrastructure and causes associated with the innovation process itself. Common causes of failure within the innovation process in most organizations can be distilled into five types: Poor goal definition, Poor alignment of actions to goals, Poor participation in teams,

DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS

Once innovation occurs, innovations may be spread from the innovator to other individuals and groups. This process has been proposed that the life cycle of innovations can be described using the 's-curve' or diffusion curve. The s-curve maps growth of revenue or productivity against time. In the early stage of a particular innovation, growth is relatively slow as the new product establishes itself. At some point customers begin to demand and the product growth increases more rapidly. New incremental innovations or changes to the product allow growth to continue. Towards the end of its life cycle growth slows and may even begin to decline. In the later stages, no amount of new investment in that product will yield a normal rate of return.

The s-curve derives from an assumption that new products are likely to have "product Life". I.e. a startup phase, a rapid increase in revenue and eventual decline. In fact the great majorities of innovations never get off the bottom of the curve, and never produce normal returns.

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MEASURES

There are two fundamentally different types of measures for innovation: 1. organizational level 2.political level. Organizational Level The measure of innovation at the organizational level relates to individuals, team-level assessments, and private companies from the smallest to the largest. Measure of innovation for organizations can be conducted by surveys, workshops, consultants or internal benchmarking. There is today no established general way to measure organizational innovation. Corporate measurements are generally structured around balanced scorecards which cover several aspects of innovation such as business measures related to finances, innovation process efficiency, employees' contribution and motivation, as well benefits for customers. Measured values will vary widely between businesses, covering for example new product revenue, spending in R&D, time to market, customer and employee perception & satisfaction, number of patents, additional sales resulting from past innovations.

Political Level

For the political level, measures of innovation are more focused on a country or region competitive advantage through innovation. In this context, organizational capabilities can be evaluated through various evaluation frameworks, such as those of the European Foundation for Quality Management. The OECD Oslo Manual (1995) suggests standard guidelines on measuring technological product and process innovation. Some people consider the Oslo Manual complementary to the Frascati Manual from 1963. The new Oslo manual from 2005 takes a wider perspective to innovation, and includes marketing and organizational innovation. These standards are used for example in the European Community Innovation Surveys.

Other ways of measuring innovation have traditionally been expenditure, for example, investment in R&D (Research and Development) as percentage of GNP (Gross National Product). Whether this is a good measurement of innovation has been widely discussed and the Oslo Manual has incorporated some of the critique against earlier methods of measuring. The traditional methods of measuring still inform many policy decisions. The EU Lisbon Strategy has set as a goal that their average expenditure on R&D should be 3% of GNP.

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INDICATORS

Many scholars claim that there is a great bias towards the "science and technology mode" (S&T-mode or STI-mode), while the "learning by doing, using and interacting mode" (DUI-mode) is widely ignored. For an example, that means you can have the better high tech or software, but there are also crucial learning tasks important for innovation. But these measurements and research are rarely done.

A common industry view (unsupported by empirical evidence) is that comparative cost-effectiveness research (CER) is a form of price control which, by reducing returns to industry, limits R&D expenditure, stifles future innovation and compromises new products access to markets. Some academics claim the CER is a valuable value-based measure of innovation which accords truly significant advances in therapy (those that provide 'health gain') higher prices than free market mechanisms. Such value-based pricing has been viewed as a means of indicating to industry the type of innovation that should be rewarded from the public purse. The Australian academic Thomas Alured Faunce has developed the case that national comparative cost-effectiveness assessment systems should be viewed as measuring 'health innovation' as an evidence-based concept distinct from valuing innovation through the operation of competitive markets (a method which requires strong anti-trust laws to be effective) on the basis that both methods of assessing innovation in pharmaceuticals are mentioned in annex 2C.1 of the AUSFTA

MEASUREMENT INDICES

Several indexes exist that attempt to measure innovation include: 1. The Innovation Index, developed by the Indiana Business Research Center, to measure innovation capacity at the county or regional level in the U.S. 2. The State Technology and Science Index, developed by the Milken Institute is a U.S. wide benchmark to measure the science and technology capabilities that furnish high paying jobs based around key components.

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GOVERNMENT POLICIES

Given the noticeable effects on efficiency, quality of life, and productive growth, innovation is a key factor in society and economy. Consequently, policymakers are working to develop environments that will foster innovation and its resulting positive benefits. For instance, experts are advocating that the U.S. federal government launch a National Infrastructure Foundation, a nimble, collaborative strategic intervention organization that will house innovations programs from fragmented silos under one entity, inform federal officials on innovation performance metrics, strengthen industry-university partnerships, and support innovation economic development initiatives, especially to strengthen regional clusters. Because clusters are the geographic incubators of innovative products and processes, a cluster development grant program would also be targeted for implementation. By focusing on innovating in such areas as precision manufacturing, information technology, and clean energy, other areas of national concern would be tackled including government debt, carbon footprint, and oil dependence. The U.S. Economic Development Administration understands this reality in their continued Regional Innovation Clusters initiative. In addition, federal grants in R&D, a crucial driver of innovation and productive growth, should be expanded to levels similar to Japan, Finland, South Korea, and Switzerland in order to stay globally competitive. Also, such grants should be better procured to metropolitan areas, the essential engines of the American economy.

Many countries recognize the importance of research and development as well as innovation including Japans Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) ; Germanys Federal Ministry of Education and Research ; and the Ministry of Science and Technology in the Peoples Republic of China. Furthermore, Russias innovation programme is the Medvedev modernization programme which aims at creating a diversified economy based on high technology and innovation. Also, the Government of Western Australia has established a number of innovation incentives for government departments. Landgate was the first Western Australian government agency to establish its Innovation Program.

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INNOVATION PROGRAMS

People want to know how we are able to train our brain stormers to generate a drastically improved quantity and quality of ideas. Also, from our visits to Universities in the United States and around the globe we heard a great need for helping students to learn Idea Generation, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship. Thus we are offering a Brain Reactions learning program which can be a semester long course, leadership program over the course of months, or intensive retreat. We offer these Idea Generation, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship system of activities that can be incorporated within educational institutions or other organizations.

This system or program is developed through two integrated research areas. First, it is based on the hundreds of brainstorms, workshops, and training events we have provided to our own brain stormers to help them generate a large quantity and quality of ideas for a wide variety of professional clients. During the past three years, Brain Reactions training and learning initiatives have achieved excellent assessment outcomes and one of their programs, Innovation Trip, was recognized by Business Week magazine. Second, this program is tested and continuously developed by Darin Eich Ph.d. who has spent the past three years developing the Brain Reactions system and training program. Darin also spent 7 years in graduate school researching effective ways to teach leadership related skills like idea generation, innovation, and entrepreneurship. This program is based on Darins dissertation theory on high quality leadership programs for learning and development.

This system of activities is experiential and generative. Individuals will learn how to come up with many valuable ideas through doing it with the activities related to their own question or challenge. It is a system rooted in helping people develop as better idea generators, innovators, and entrepreneurs. This starts with generating a higher quantity of ideas to select from for further development of a concept that can become a novel new business, initiative, campaign, product, organization, or system. The program is a series of easy to facilitate or self-directed handout activities that can be distributed within an organization individually or as a whole.

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INNOVATION MANAGEMENT

Innovation management is the discipline of managing processes in innovation. It can be used to develop both product and organizational innovation. Without proper processes, it is not possible for R&D to be efficient; innovation management includes a set of tools that allow managers and engineers to cooperate with a common understanding of goals and processes. The focus of innovation management is to allow the organization to respond to an external or internal opportunity, and use its creative efforts to introduce new ideas, processes or products. Importantly, innovation management is not relegated to R&D; it involves workers at every level in contributing creatively to a company's development, manufacturing, and marketing. By utilizing appropriate innovation management tools, management can trigger and deploy the creative juices of the whole work force towards the continuous development of a company. The process can be viewed as an evolutionary integration of organization, technology and market by iterating series of activities: search, select, implement and capture.

Innovation processes can either be pushed or pulled through development. A pushed process is based on existing or newly invented technology, that the organization has access to, and tries to find profitable applications to use this technology. A pulled process tries to find areas where customers needs are not met, and then focus development efforts to find solutions to those needs. To succeed with either method, an understanding of both the market and the technical problems are needed. By creating multi-functional development teams, containing engineers and marketers, both dimensions can be solved. The lifetime (or product lifecycle) of new products is steadily getting shorter; increased competition therefore forces companies reduce the time to market. Innovation managers must therefore decrease development time, without sacrificing quality or meeting the needs of the market.

Common tools include brainstorming, virtual prototyping, product lifecycle management, idea management, TRIZ, stage-gate process, project management, product line planning and portfolio management.

Innovation is the change that outperforms the previous practice. To lead or sustain with innovations, managers need to concentrate heavily on the innovation network which requires deep understanding of the complexity of innovation. Collaboration is an important source of innovation. Innovations are

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increasingly brought to the market by networks of firms, selected according to their comparative advantages, and operating in a coordinated manner.

INNOVATING HUMAN RESOURCES

The Increasing Need for Innovative Human Resources Practices, The Value and Benefit of External Idea Generators, and 275 Innovative Human Resources Ideas from Prospective Employees for the Next 40 Years Numerous shifts in organizational and managerial philosophy, demographics, and generational preferences are creating a perfect storm for organizations, requiring them to develop innovative strategies to recruit, develop, and retain the best and brightest employees. External idea generators can help in the process of developing these innovative human resources strategies. This paper, in addition to providing an overview of this perfect storm and external idea generation, provides 275 innovative ideas for how organizations can most effectively recruit, develop, and retain the next generation of employees.

HOW TO STIMULATE INNOVATIVE THINKING IN YOUR ORGANIZATION TO SUSTAIN YOUR INNOVATION PIPELINE FOR GROWTH

If growth is priority number one, innovative thinking skills should be encouraged and developed at all levels of an organization. Sure, there should be a great emphasis on external or open innovation and many of innovative ideas can come from your customers or other subject matter experts. Nonetheless, it is the employees of your company who will connect those ideas and develop their own ideas within your innovation system in order to fill your pipeline on a continuous basis. The first place to open innovation is within your organization. Imagine what kind of culture of innovation your firm could have if every employee contributed to the innovation process at a place where his/her unique strengths aligned with your needs? A variety of employees can contribute to each stage of innovation by:

1. Providing insight to your research on problems and opportunities the starting points of innovationby sharing the voice of the customer with you.

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2. Helping to clarify opportunities and focus on specific problems identified by the research. 3. Providing ideas through brainstorming sessions, individual submissions, or company wide idea generating events. 4. Helping to analyze and synthesize the massive amounts of idea collected by using specified criteria or their own wisdom. 5. Participating in a live or interactive web event where employees can view the concepts they developed, and then help select which ones reach the innovation pipeline. 6. Helping to communicate and advance the leading concepts by contributing their thinking to make the message a memorable one.

The most prolific innovators exhibit many innovation thinking skills, including: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Systems Viewing Rapid Iterating Quantity Making Judgment Suspending Idea Funneling Deconstructing and Constructing Building and Extending Connection Making Outside Insight-ing

If your organization is at a place where employees at all levels are engaging in innovation in many contexts such as organizational improvement, product development, communications, etc. then the next opportunity is to engage the people outside of your organization to collaborate with the developed and engaged innovators on the inside. This collaboration can be powerful for enhancing both innovation thinking and results at all stages.

In sum, to grow, you need to innovate continuously and sustain this innovation so new and better ideas flow through the pipeline. To have better ideas you need to have a higher quality of innovation thinking from more innovation thinkers both inside and outside of your organization. You can develop this capacity through simultaneously teaching and engaging employees and other individuals in your innovation projects. Start by having a common innovation system that a variety of employees know how to use. Also, have a common format for ideas and how they advance down the innovation pipeline.

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Then, provide a wide variety of employees with opportunities for real challenges to help them contribute to innovation for actual projects.

INNOVATIVE THINKING: SIX SIMPLE SECRETS

A recent survey of top executives from Fortune 500 companies throughout the United States ranked creativity more important than intelligence for success in business today. Thats because these demanding times require leaders who can respond quickly and imaginatively to change. Its not surprising that, around the world, creativity training is growing in popularity; teaching out-ofthe-box problem solving techniques to employees at all levels. In these do-more-with-less downsized times, the need for every employee to contribute creative ideas and original solutions have never been greater. Learning to think creatively is the best business survival tool there is. Research has shown that regardless of age or education, everyone has the capacity to become more creative. Here are six tips to help you enhance your creativity and stimulate creativity with your co-workers.

1. Open Your Mind Have one new experience every day; no matter how small. New experiences stimulate the brain and help you make new and original connections; critical for boosting breakthroughs. Attend new forms of entertainment, read books or magazines youve never read before, take a class in a subject you know nothing about, listen to music you profess to hate, go somewhere really different on your next vacation, talk to people you normally dont have a chance to meet. New experiences become the raw material for new ideas. The cross-pollination of diverse ideas is a primary stimulator for creativity.

2. Diversify Involve others in your problem-solving efforts who bring a different perspective or cultural experience than yours. In addition to picking the brains of experts and knowledgeable colleagues, talk to people who are unfamiliar about the issue. By using this approach, youll be asked dumb questions that can often help you question assumptions, and see your challenge from a different angle with fresh eyes and a more open mind.

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A few years ago, I worked with a high-tech company to develop and implement a model for innovation that would solicit and reward creative contributions. The CEO assigned an established employee committee to work with me to create a model that fit their particular organizational culture.

It turned out that the committee was made up of the least educated, lowest paid employees in the company; many of whom did not speak English fluently. Yet the program that they designed was brilliantly innovative. Even the CEO was surprised when we presented the final design for his approval. After three years, the system developed by the least likely employees, continues to generate many creative contributions, companywide.

3. Mental Floss Take time to clean out your mental plaque by flossing daily; unplugging and taking time out to relax. Studies have shown that our intelligence and creative problem-solving abilities nosedive about 25% when were stressed out. Stress, exhaustion, boredom and even pain can block our pathways to creativity. Creativity often seeps in through the cracks. By allowing yourself time to quiet your mind each day, the solutions beneath the surface will bubble up and youll be available to catch them. Twenty minutes of uninterrupted incubation time daily will produce a plethora of ideas.

4.Stop Looking For the Right Answer

Look for many right answers. Multiple solution thinking can help you strengthen your creative muscle, while generating more ideas, which always leads to better ideas. Setting idea quotas can force you to push the envelope, forging past predictable, obvious solutions. Thomas Edison died with 1,092 patents to his name as a result of setting quotas for himself and his staff. His quota was as follows: a minor invention every 10 days, a major one every six months. In gold mining, it takes nearly 200,000 ounces of ore to produce just one ounce of gold. Its no different with ideas. Mine with perseverance and patience, and youll be richly rewarded.

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5. Discover Your Creative Rhythm Everyone has creative performance peaks daily. Some of us get our best ideas during our morning commute; others wake up in the middle of the night with thunderbolts of genius. Unfortunately, most of us dont honor this fertile idea-harvesting time. Start paying attention to when you get your best ideas. If you arent sure, keep a log for a week and jot down what time of day you are most mentally productive.

Its been said that the difference between creative geniuses and normal people is that creative have more effective capturing techniques. They pay attention to their best ideas and record them before they have a chance to slip away. Once you discover your creative rhythm, make sure you have a tape recorder, laptop, or pad and pencil nearby to capture your ideas.

6. Health Makes Wealth A wealth of new ideas can be yours if you exercise regularly and eat well. Regular exercise not only benefits your body, it boosts brain performance as well. One study found that 20-minute aerobic sessions twice weekly, kept up for eight weeks, brought about significant changes in creativity tests in college students who had not previously exercised. A welloxygenated brain functions more effectively. Everyone is creative, and everyone can strengthen their creative powers with practice, persistence and patience. By acknowledging how creative you really are, and using these six simple suggestions, youll be well on your way to your next breakthrough.

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CREATIVE THINKINGMAKE IT A HABIT!

There is something mysterious about creativity. We can describe it, admire it, strive for it and experience it, but we can never understand just how or why a certain innovative idea springs up at a particular time in the mind of a particular individual. Indeed, most people never expect to understand or master that process. Let's hope we do not, for our world would be far drearier if we ever fully harnessed the creative process and learned to produce results only on schedule or on demand. On the other hand, we can imagine a brighter future if we were able to stimulate the creative process and produce more innovations. Can we, indeed, take action to stimulate creativity? Some say "no," that due to their mysterious origins, creative acts can only arise without warning to those blessed by fate. According to this line of thinking, it's inappropriate or even futile to encourage creativity. I don't subscribe to such a dismal view; I think investigations in the history of innovation show that we can, indeed, enhance our creativity. These studies show that creativity is repeatedly associated with certain types of behavior and reasoning. I do not mean to imply that a simple formula can be derived, or that one technique will work for everybody, or that success is guaranteed. But based on the historical record, certain steps seem likely to increase your creativity. Restless? Begin by conditioning yourself to be restless and uneasy about the status quo. Don't overlook the familiar just because you've seen it so often. Rather make yourself even more aware of it, and then change the pattern slightly. If you invariably drive to the supermarket along a particular route, try a new one. If your spouse always buys the groceries while you return books to the library, switch jobs. If you eat a grapefruit like everyone else one half at a sitting eat both halves and compare the taste. (This exercise may astonish you!). If you always make a measurement or an evaluation in a fixed manner, change your routine. Sooner or later I'd bet quicker than you expect breaking your routine will help you invent an improved process or idea. Force your mind to see things differently in a new light, from a new angle, from another scale of time or distance, or from the perspective of someone with a different background. Explore beyond the bounds of your expertise you may have the exact perspective needed by a colleague in another field. If you have the germ of a good idea, preserve it by jotting it down immediately. Then, when you have time, think the idea through until you discard it as worthless or elevate it to the "significant" category. Great writers often scribble inspired thoughts when they arise, then subject them to the time-honored

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writer's formula: "l) revise 2) revise and 3) revise again." Consider your idea a rough draft that needs to be polished by a few cycles through the idea-processor.

GETTING USEFUL IDEAS Bare bones ideas are plentiful, but the trick is to identify the good ones. Ideas derive their importance and durability in relation to data, problems and other ideas. In other words, ideas must be tested against reality. Good ideas will have two effects. They will be useful in their original context and they will create surprising, intriguing connections among things that once seemed to exist in separate contexts. Divide your thinking into two distinct styles. One style should promote carefree, blissful dreaming. Would these compounds rapidly combine if "A" were true? What wonderful process could we invent occur if "B were correct? Questions like these help you outline the fragile essence of an idea. Then, once the idea is fleshed out, energize your analytical thinking. Test your idea against the data in the most dispassionate, objective manner. Most dreams deserve to fail, and its best that you scuttle them, rather than allowing someone else the chance. Do not be constrained by the critical side while you dream, but be sure to use those "reality-checks" once the idea has taken shape. In other words, learn to bounce back and forth from dreamer to critic. Adapt an idea from elsewhere if necessary. (Naturally, be sure to give the originator credit in an ethical manner.) If you admire a new product in another field, immediately try to apply the underlying idea as a springboard for improving something else.

CREATIVE-THINKING TIME Schedule regular times for creative thinking. I walk to and from work daily, about 35 minutes each way. After many years of following the same route (sometimes I do vary it!), the journey is routine, but I've dedicated the walk as a scheduled time for free, creative thinking, for dreaming, for envisioning what might happen, for devising imaginative solutions. I jot down my ideas immediately after reaching my destination. I also use sporadic, spontaneous times for creative thinking. At meetings of scientific societies, for example, I'm often so stimulated by news and unconventional events that I have difficulty sleeping. Those sleepless nights usually produce lots of ideas, some of them quite usable.

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I think the fundamentals for improving creativity are pretty clear from the literature on history's successful innovators. If this is true, then why not follow their lead and improve upon their techniques? In its essence, my advice is, "to be creative, think creatively". Don't muddle around hoping for a great idea to strike like a bolt of lightning. Train yourself to think in ways that have worked for others. Everyone knows a habit can be acquired through repetition. Why not make thinking creatively a habit?

COMMENTS AND SUGGETIONS

DR. PRINCE ARVIND ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

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