Make most of what you have got

We haven’t discussed about innovation for quite sometime. Today lets talk about dealing in innovation with limited resources. This is the case quite often too. We feel the spark of great ideas but then we let it go due to a seeming resource crunch. Seldom its money. Mostly its time that we say we don’t have. But I am not going to talk about time management. That’s one topic beaten to death. So lets focus on the other important issues.

So the crunch you would generally feel, other than time, will be either be money or technical know how. The money is not so important. We will come back to it later. The technical skill is a much bigger hurdle than generally anticipated. And later you discover it, the more it hurts. Because it completely blocks you. No amount of time or money will then help.

Now obvious thing to say would be to update your skills and keep learning and blah blah blah. I prefer different approach.

Just in Time learning

Basically, you don’t learn something, until you know you will need it soon. It doesn’t mean you wait till the very moment you need it, then block the work and start learning. Its Just in time. Just when you anticipate its the right time to update or acquire certain skills. No bullet lines Use common sense. Evaluate you learning speed, available time, etc and figure it out.

This way you can mitigate the risk of technical know how to a certain extent. But some time the JIT learning will tell you that the time required is not feasible or perhaps, the technicalities are way too complicated for you. In such case, I suggest you extend your team. Or build one, if one is not there already. Its better to collaborate with subject matter experts, rather than trying to learn and become one. But to ensure control over things, I suggest you acquire basic knowledge, even if you are taking services/help of an expert.

Now about the money. Well that’s where the real test of innovation is. Before you start looking for innovative ways of raising funds. Spend some time over what resources you have at hand. What can be borrowed feasibly. Brainstorm over ways you can implement your idea with whatever you have got. You will find mostly you can use inexpensive ways to simulate the actual implementation. This would help you gathering funds because you will have a working proof of concept.

 

Habit 2: Collaborative

Innovative people believe in collaboration. They look for you help to be successful and they help you to be successful too. They understand they can’t learn everything and each person has his own set of expertise. They collaborate with people having different expertise. With ever evolving world this is the best way to progress.

Geeks may not agree with me. Some of the greatest inventions may have come from a lone experimenter. But I would point them to the list of Noble Laureates. More often than not we see that the awards are conferred jointly. There is a reason behind all this. In this every evolving world, the problems are getting more complex day by day. The progress made by scientific community has been so tremendous that it has become almost impossible for any body to continue research work alone. You need to collaborate not only because you don’t know it all but also due to the fact that lot of time and resources are required nowadays.

Collaborating also helps you to multitask. You can now pursue many ideas. You donate some ideas. You borrow ideas. That is how it works.

It’s easier to solve a problem with more than one mind is working on it. I beg to differ. That is why I don’t consider this as need for collaboration. I will explain it later.