The Ground Rules: Understanding the Innovator’s View of Procedures

These steps for satisficing-based product development are funda­mentally different from what we typically think of as “procedures.” Even so, they are methods, and therefore they can be learned, adopted, and used by anyone. But because of how much they differ from other procedures with which most people are familiar, we here step back from the methods and discuss how they are to be used and what to expect from them. in particular, we cover four aspects of methods for innovation: 1) the methods require the user to work and think, 2) the methods cannot mass-produce ideas, 3) company invest­ment should be in the process rather than the outcomes, and 4) the methods require not just intelligence but internal motivation. We contrast these four points with the “For Dummies” series of books so that you will understand the different nature of the decision philoso­phy and mentality of innovators.