1 - Introduction

Summary

This chapter lays the foundation for the book; defining innovation (impactful problem-solving leveraging something new) and comparing and contrasting it with creativity, entrepreneurship, discovery and invention. The need for innovators is far-reaching: business, government, education and in our personal lives.

Innovating requires three elements: people, environment, and methodology. While the people and environmental aspects of innovating are definitely challenging, it is often the lack of a methodology that makes or breaks our ability to repeatedly create and deliver new impactful solutions. The lack of a method will lead to inconsistent results; similar to the lack of correlation, that global consulting firm PwC found, between a company's research and development spending and their ability to create compelling new products and/or services. First and foremost, this book is focused on a methodology for innovating. A method that separates design from execution, problem identification from solution formulation and planning from implementing. A method that takes into account multiple points-of-view and perspectives while integrating assessment throughout. A user-centric, design-thinking method that utilizes creativity-based processes.