...when 140 characters are not enough

The next section of my capstone project focuses on my literature research. Since the section is so big, I decided to break it up into several sub-sections on the blog. One of the sub-sections is an overview of the talk that Kristian Andersen gave last month. Since I already posted about that talk in a previous blog post (Kristian Andersen - Brand Experience Design), I am not going to re-post it. Here is a listing of links to the previous capstone project posts:

• Capstone Project: Part 1 - Abstract
• Capstone Project: Part 2 - Introduction
• Capstone Project - Part 3: Approach and methodology

Disruptive Innovation

One of the early primary influences on this project was Clayton Christensen’s Keynote Address at the TechPoint Innovation Summit on September 29, 2009. He elaborates on the quote above by identifying a specific type of innovation that is “disruptive” (Bower and Christensen 1995). Disruptive technology and innovation is identified by three specific characteristics:

1. they generally make possible the emergence of new markets,
2. they appear to be financially unattractive to existing organizations, and
3. they do not meet current customers needs.

Christensen gave examples of how disruptive innovation has dramatically transformed many different industries, including steel manufacturing, computer hardware, automobile manufacturing, and consumer electronics [Figure 5]. He explained how new markets emerged, new companies were formed, existing companies lost market share, and markets were broadened. These disruptive innovations have been the catalysts to transform organizations, business models, and even the requisite skill sets of the employees within those organizations.

In one of his articles, Christensen indicates that business leaders are missing “a habit of thinking about their organization's capabilities as carefully as they think about individual people's capabilities.” (Christensen and Overdorf 2000) I began to consider whether or not this missing habit of thinking had any correlation with design thinking. The disruptive innovations he referred to sounded like they were very similar to the “ill-defined” (Cross 2004), “indeterminate” (Buchanan 1992), and “wicked” (Rittel and Webber 1973) problems addressed in design.

It turns out that Christensen’s resolution to the problem of disruptive innovations is to create a new spin-off organization that is separate from the parent organization and keep it separate in order to “isolate them from the stifling demands of mainstream organizations” (Bower and Christensen 1995). This solution may provide a direct answer for business organizations competing for profits in the marketplace. However, it is extremely simplistic.

Christensen fails to address the underlying rationale that would lead to an overall thought process change. He has done a wonderful job of helping business leaders identify disruptive innovation and he told them what to do when they come upon it. It falls short of identifying the fundamental principles to help us understand how and why organizations need to adopt, manage, and adapt to disruptive innovations.

Figure 5: Clayton Christensen’s Diagram of Disruptive Innovations

Source: www.claytonchristensen.com/images/keyconcepts/disruptiveInnovation01.jpg

References
Bower, J. L. and C. M. Christensen (1995). "Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave." Harvard Business Review 73(1): 43-53.

Buchanan, R. (1992). "Wicked Problems in Design Thinking." Design Issues 8(2): 5-21.

Christensen, C. (2009). How to Create New Growth Businesses in a Risk Minimizing Environment. Innovation Summit 2009, Indianapolis, IN, TechPoint.

Christensen, C. M. and M. Overdorf (2000). "Meeting the Challenge of Disruptive Change. (cover story)." Harvard Business Review 78(2): 66-76.

Cross, N. (2004). "Expertise in design: an overview." Design Studies 25(5): 427-441.

Rittel, H. W. J. and M. M. Webber (1973). "Dilemmas in a general theory of planning." Policy Sciences 4(2): 155-169.