James Todhunter, Crowd Innovation

A very interesting discussion started by James Todhunter at realinnovation on Crowd Innovation has resulted in different reactions.

And James put all the specific comments and his reactions on his blog as well here.

I dont want to re-post the whole discussion here. Just to high light some key points

1. Original Post of James (my summarization!)

Crowdsourcing popularity will be short lived as there is lack of credible evidence to support its productivity. History teaches us that the wisdom of the crown is a fiction and that the intelligence of the mob regresses to the mean. The best achievements in sustainable innovation are seen in those organizations that understand that the quest for innovation can not be divorced from internal expertise. This is not to say that external knowledge and contribution is not of value. In fact, the integration of external concept sources is vital to breaking free of natural inertial forces that develop within organizations. But this integration must be done in a rational manner guided by the in depth understanding of the enterprises capabilities, objectives, and the needs of the client.

2. Ellen Domb's Comments (she says watch and wait - giving 180 days for the buzz to buzz off may be :))
Crowdsourcing will have its niche of usefulness, especially in development of consumer products, where people who participate in influencing a product development are also likely to help with the word-of-mouth advertising.
Let's check again in 6 months and see if the buzz has gone out of this.

3. My comments I reproduce verbatim
The world is changing fundamentally. I really dont know how would one attribute the success of Open Source Movement - the self-organizing capability of crowds driven by selfish goals - yet working towards creating something that is not done by any top-down plan per se - is sweeping the existing command control structures - developed in the last millennium in ways that are unprecedented. Starfishes are the future organization structures not the spiders (to quote the current book of the same name) - I believe hierarchies had their day - it is the melting structures towards loosely coupled networks that are going to play bigger role then they had - the age of Co-Creation is here - in a disruptive way - in my opinion. Hence having a very strong negation of anything different is not really going to help enterprises to thrive - Choice of one path is oh -so last century :) - New millennium speaks for embracing all and leaving none!

4. spacecadette says there is merit especially in reducing cost

5. Anil Rathi proposes a designer crowd sourcing approach - which his company is practicing for example.

"On the other hand, a well designed, structured "crowdcasting" activity with carefully framed questions which channels ideas from targeted audiences will have a better chance of producing "refined" ideas.In summary, the more open-ended your crowd-xing activity is, the more open-ended "raw" ideas you'll receive. But, if you want to create a repeatable process for leveraging the crowd and increase the chances for more refined insights...the key is focus, structure and design of these activities"


James must have liked these different responses as he posted all these and his reactions to our reactions to Crowd Innovation. He says,

"The crowd may be able to provide grist for the mill, but there is a lot of work required to refine that raw material and derive something of value. There are better, faster ways to get there." - My comments Obviously there are multiple ways to do everything - which is better which is not is so context and people dependent that one cant say this one is better in all scenarios - Optimization theory works specific to context of the problem - never generic

But I don’t see sufficient examples to support crowdsourcing for innovation as an effective path for sustainable innovation practice. To meet this metric, we will need to see real evidence that the successes are more than mere chance would produce. Co-creation should definitely be leveraged, but in so doing companies can achieve strong, reliable results by managing their networks for greater relevance and alignment.

My comments " I searched my blog for co-creation and following posts have surfaced - may be interesting to see what are these examples

http://innovationcrafting.blogspot.com/2007/11/revisiting-co-creationization.html
http://innovationcrafting.blogspot.com/2007/09/gix-is-changing-rules-of-game.html
http://innovationcrafting.blogspot.com/2007/08/co-creationization-emergence.html
http://innovationcrafting.blogspot.com/2007/08/co-creationization-of-fiat-500.html
http://innovationcrafting.blogspot.com/2007/08/do-it-yourself-age-of-co.html
http://innovationcrafting.blogspot.com/2007/08/co-creationization-begining-of-age-of.html

Obviously - we are through this process of eliminating many of the methods (including open source software development - from where it all started - the kids showed the way - anyway) - reaching to a very narrow definition of crowd sourcing - which will go to dumb mob - creating lot of noise no value -

Well James - it is your choice to reduce it to what ever suits - but one trend is clear - Social computing, web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0 and other new ways of collaborative technologies are making co-creation and crowd sourcing a reality - Innovation is the emergence of new or different from the interactions that are enabled - it is not a mob frenzy that we are talking about - we need to be inclusive!

It is not Flat? Is it?

“Please watch out, we are coming,” said Ram Ramakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer for India’s Bajaj Electricals. “If you want hands and feet, go to China. But if you want hands and feet that have a brain, then come to India,” Ramakrishan said in reference to his country’s high percentage of engineers and doctors.

What a statement? It is an amazing statement. Why are you supplying to anyone, if you have brains - why not utilize brains to create value where you are - rather than supplying it!

Indians and India need to grow bigger in their dreams, aims and execution. Why should we be supplier of hands and feet with brains? Why shouldn't we use the brain to make other economies supply to us? The shift is needed fundamentally - India need to be in a position of consumer of labour and supplier of intellectual leadership!

Utilize the strength that we have. Dream to make dreams happen - as Kalam said - Small aim is a crime!

Knowledge Quantized

Many years ago, light was quantized - from the wave nature to the particle nature - the experiments of de Broglie and Einstein's photo-electric effect showed the dual nature of light.

Google is doing the same to the concept of knowledge - it can be quantized. Knowledge's unit is knol - new unit discovered and produced by google - it is an attempt to monetize the wikipedia as well -

Here is an example of a Knol - an article on Insomnia People are already calling this the web 3.0 component

Is this the competition to wikipedia - wikipedia says it may be :)

Predicting 2008 BlackSwans

OK Let me try to get the Black Swans from Google (2008 Black Swans)


1. Predictions for 2008: A massive data meltdown (Text below taken from the link)
Remember the panic when the first computer worm hit? We're going to have a crisis like that next year when we get the first data center meltdown, predicted Subodh Bapat, a vice president in the eco-computing team at Sun Microsystems.
"You'll see a massive failure in a year," Bapat said at a dinner with reporters on Monday. "We are going to see a data center failure of that scale."

2. Ten Threats predicted here (What an interesting Imagination - Unfortunately from my vantage point it is just one scenario!!!)

• Facebook widgets will be used to distribute malware.
• In 2008 we will see the first attempts to exploit Open Social tools to hack social networks.
• I predict that 2008 will be the year that SFDM applications will be exploited for nefarious purposes.
• 2008 will see a continuance of China’s attacks on Western governments and industry.
• I predict that Russia will continue to use their newfound ability to use cyber extortionists’ tools to impose their political will on break away states.
• More companies and individuals will find themselves the targets of hackers in 2008.
• Financial markets will be disrupted by increasingly elaborate schemes: pump and dump combined with DDoS for instance.
• In 2008 we will learn just what the Storm Trojan is meant to do.
• Terrorist organizations bring out DDoS as a weapon against e-commerce and media sites that choose to display images of Mohamed.
• Game console exploits will be transmitted over the Internet, the Wii in particular.

3. Seven Predictions

• Linux on the desktop will get some more good breaks, but the “Year of Linux” is still a long way off.
• Watch out Mac users, hackers are after you!
• No matter how cool you think your current iPhone is, iPhone 2.0 will make you hate it.
• Expect DRM to have a tighter stranglehold over your digital life.
• The “we’re waiting for Vista SP1” excuse will be replaced by “we’re waiting for Windows 7.”
• AMD will spend another year playing catch-up with Intel.
• You think spam’s bad now? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

Will search some more.... Is there a Black Swan?

Trends of predicting New year trends

December is really a prediction time! A big time prediction month!

Lets start with McKinsey Eight business technology trends to watch

Managing Relationships

1. Distributed Co-Creation: Why do all of us want to coin a new term for the same trend? May be the way to articulate and show the "I" of the writer!
2. Consumers as Innovators: Am really not sure this one and the first one are really different!
3. Tapping into the world of Talent: Really McKinsey, this should not be a trend to watch. All of us are engaged in it.
4. Extracting more value from interactions: Model is to design experiences for value interactions, I am not able to see the unique insight in this trend

Managing Capital and Assets
5. Expanding the frontiers of Automation: This is so obvious that it is not even funny :)
6. Unbundling Production from Delivery: This is anyway the modularization of enterprise trend

Leveraging Information in New Ways
7. Putting More Science into Management: I really cant understand this, Management is dead - it is creation - dont try to manage - if possible for God's sake Join in as participant!!!!
8. Making Businesses from Information: Well, so far what is happening in this century?

After BusinessWeek's prediction the Mckinsey's prediction further fails to ignite anything really!

Lets see What are Gartner's Predictions

Green IT; Unified Communications; BPM; Metadata Management; Virtulization 2.0; Mashup and Composite Apps; Web Platform and WOA; Computing Fabric; Real World Web; Social Software .....

Where is the BLACK SWAN in all these predictions? Is there a lurking BlackSwan in 2008. May be its a good idea to play out Black Swans for 2008!!!

Innovation 2008

The Businessweek Innovation Predictions 2008 is remarkable in the fact that there actually are no predictions at all. This is a great time to be creating the next generation innovations. What the author says, "The only truly predictable thing about the coming year is that it's sure to be full of surprises. But some innovations will be ways of dealing with just that fact..." By Bruce Nussbaum

1. McKinsey Buys Ideo : I have a feeling Ideo may like to buy Mckinsey :)
2. Management to Design : There are already interplays - Old Management theory classes are well just classes
3. Creative Growth : I dont buy Consultants changing the enterprise!
4. Innovation Policy as Politics : Dont really understand what policies have to do with Innovation
5. Failure of $100 Laptop : Well talk to Simputer guys in India!
6. SuperCities Study: It makes sense - why is this an Innovation Prediction?
7. FlyWifi: Is anyway there? Is there any disruptive thought here?
8. UnFriend way of Social Networking: Well it is the speicfic choice of people?
9. Mobile Explosion : Whats New?
10. Kindle : The Amazon e-book - (well I have a feeling its next avataar will catch fire (Prediction 2011))
11. Identity and Experience : I feel no one will replace - but its the mesh up of experience, identity and attention that will drive the new economy - it is the interplay of me with my experiences
12. Longevity Vs Sustainability : well really - what is this prediction?
13. Customers Replaces Competitors : Well Blue Ocean Strategy authors may be happy with this?
14. On demand web based tool kits for enterprises: A very generic prediction

Well here we are? What are we predicting - why are we really predicting - get inside the frenzy - not watch it by prediting what and where it will go?

Please get in... Its the major shift!

Enterprises Chopped and Broken

The biggest change is the way enterprises are forced to change. The old structures are falling like dry leaves every where. The new structures are making life hot for command and control, military style stove-pipes, top-down metric driven, The Boss-Centric, the un-cluttered linear order flow enterprises.

Well, what are these new structures? Look at the most secret enterprise, the most controlled, the most non-marketed organization - lets take one - the Defence Intelligence Agency (The DIA). Look at what is happening inside it - what is happening you may ask - the DNA is changing - in fundamental ways - have you heard of open-source spying? Obviously not - last year's New York times article explained how the D.I.A. is forced to mend its ways - by exploring, experimenting and taking into account the - oh so kids stuffy - structures. The article is defintely a strong warning to last millennium enterprises - please understand you have to be the change that your kids are creating for you. This article has opened a major pandora box - oh really!

I remember a famous saying from Khalil Gibran," Your heart cant be open unless it is broken". The Open Enterprises if they really need to become open, they need to be broken - make structures fluid, fast-action, on-the ground decision makers, make flat structures, create just-in time solutions, join in the creative frenzy with their co-creators that is their clients - some talk about crowd sourcing -

I think the Open Enterprises may be what we should be really talking about!

ChangeThis - Seduced by Success

The Changethis manifesto titled Seduced by Success is very interesting. Robert J. Herbold has studied 44 successful companies and came out with principles that keep the successful companies retain their success in a changing world.

On top of the 44 companies comes two of my personal favourites - Toyota and Proctor and Gamble (P&G). The reasons articulated by Herbold for their success are as reproduced below


"Look at how Toyota has prospered for 30 years with its culture of continuous improvement. Look at how Procter & gamble continually thrives with its constant focus on finding unarticulated consumer needs. "

Well - is there anything more to say - Yes the manifesto articulates 9 seduction traps and solutions to them as well: (I am reproducing below)

HOW CAN YOU AVOID THESE TRAPS?

For each of the 9 traps, there are various actions that can help avoid these problems. Below, for each of these traps, we outline one of these approaches:

1 ~ Business Model: Avoid committees and consensus in developing big, distinctive business
model advantages. Individuals have big, distinctive ideas; committees and consensus turn big,
distinctive ideas into mundane ideas.

2 ~ Product: Pick your top performers, charge them to get your products out in front of important technology, industry, and customer trends, and then get out of their way.

3 ~ Branding: Always be fresh and relevant, but most of all, always be distinctive.

4 ~ Processes: Continually demand new approaches to “proven” processes, and for each process there should be a czar that is personally accountable to make sure their process is always super lean and industry leading.

5 ~ Agility: The key to speed and agility is leadership. Be sure you have strong, action-oriented leaders in the key jobs.

6 ~ People: You need a top notch performance appraisal system to spot the stars and confront
the bottom 5–7%, and you need a “key people development program” to continually stretch and
grow the future leaders of the company.

7 ~ Culture: The focus should be on excellence in continually finding and solving problems
and jumping on opportunities, not on basking in prior glory.

8 ~ Turf Wars and Fiefdoms: Break up the fiefdoms by re-organizing around your key
initiatives for improvement.

9 ~ Communications: Every employee should always know where the organization is going
and how it is doing.
--------------------------- The author has a book on the same subject as well

I personally like the 9th point and the strategy - let every employee know where we are going and how we are going there!

Innovation and Humour

The question on LinkedIn that I asked was

Innovators need humour - is there a strong correlation?

How much is humour relevant to inventors, innovators and creativity? It is becoming clear that ability to create humour is the extremely difficult part and in fact a very creative act of human mind. Is it essential for Innovation....?

Amazing answers from amazing people below (Thank You All)

Good Answers (2)

Anshuman Singh
IT Consultant managing IT Delivery and Experience Design

Humour is the essentially ability to see/show an alternate perspective to a situation at hand OR to improvise in a situation (Tom & Jerry?). My favuorite example is an old comic strip by Glasbergen: The Technical Support on phone is suggesting - when everything fails, try falling in love - it makes you feel better. So while you may not need to be humourous to be an innovator - chances are that if you are creative/innovator you would be humourous. It should not be confused with making others laugh, which would be 'stand-up comedy' and almost a performing art. Edward de Bono says, Humour is by far the most significant behaviour of the human mind. You may find this surprising. If humour is so significant, why has it been so neglected by traditional philosophers, psychologists and information scientists? Humour tells us more about how the brain works as mind, than does any other behaviour of the mind - including reason. It indicates that our traditional thinking methods, and our thinking about these methods, have been based on the wrong model of information system. It tells us something about perception which we have traditionally neglected in favour of logic. It tells us directly about the possibility of changes in perception. It shows us that these changes can be followed by instant changes in emotion - something that can never be achieved by logic. <>

Costas Papaikonomou
Insight-Led Innovation

Hi Navneet, Humour is extremely powerful in any creative process, as it disturbs implicit assumptions and thus opens views to new approaches. Is the glass half full or half empty? Neither, it's just twice the size it should be. Costas@costas.nl
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Brother%2C_Where_Art_Thou%3F

Jason Schutte
Director of Promotions at WCCX

I wouldn't say that humor is essential for innovation, but rather a byproduct of the creative mind. The ability to see humor in a given situation is not something everyone is born with. I think the correlation is one of necessity, people who feel the drive to innovate and move forward need humor as a release from stress and pressure. Many creative people tend to develop a feeling of being "boxed in" and I think humor is a way of dealing with that uncomfortable feeling.
Tom Field
Editorial Director at BankInfoSecurity.com

Well, humor generally is a sign of intelligence, and I'd argue that intelligence plays a strong role in innovation. best, Tom

Soledad Quiroz
Graduate Student at Michigan State University

Like Jason I would correlate humor with creativity, the ability to look at something from a very different point of view, which is essential for innovation. Soledad

Hari Panicker
Banking Consultant at Emirates Bank

Humour is not much relevant for the reference class. However, if they have the flavour, can produce outstanding humour. When one is working on a serious innovation she/he may not even sense humour.

Chandra Garre
Sr Software Design Engineer at Expedia Inc

One thing is sure, when there is too much of innovation, it would lead to the person snapping off at some point or the other, then you will find a lot of unnecessary sense of humor. Humor (to some extent) usually indicates a good state of mind as long as the subject is a sane person. When a person is happy, it indicates that the person is happy doing the current work which means that since the person is happy there is a high potential of innovation. too much of innovation is bad, too much of humor is also bad.

Amit Mittal
DGM - BPO Marketing at IBM Business Process Outsourcing WW

It is a mild excuse for sarcasm as well and is used to communicate disagreement with the expressed point of view. Just something to assuage the feelings of the audience and many times the inventor himself as he tries to purge his disappointments while tracing the collective wisdom aligning to the new idea. I believe, entirely optional as most people end up using it in bad forms and end up with avoidable conclusions. only exceptional maturity can actually understand most good points of expressed humor.
Clarification added 3 months ago:
It is a mild excuse for sarcasm as well and is used to communicate disagreement with the expressed point of view. Humor is just something to assuage the feelings of the audience and many times the inventor himself. The inventor tries to purge his disappointments while tracing the collective wisdom aligning to the new idea. I believe, humor is entirely optional as most people end up using it in bad forms because of the sarcasm inside and end up with avoidable conclusions with the audience. Only exceptional maturity can actually understand most good points of expressed humor. Good humorat the right time therefore outlines the maturity of the group and somehow underlines the greatness of the idea.

Cheri Baker
Organizational Development Consultant

Humor and Innovation have a big thing in common. Both rely on the ability to connect two or more formerly unconnected things with a result that pleases. That being said, there are humorists who are not creative, and creative types that aren't very funny. So I wouldn't say it is essential. That being said, anyone who is innovative is likely to encounter a lot of rejection in life and a lot of failure. A good sense of humor is likely to keep them going when things get tough!

Dimitri Flores
IT Planning and Innovation Manager

Humor provokes laugh. Laugh gets more oxygen to the brain. Then the person thinks better and gets the innovation done. :)

Are Managers Anti-Innovation?

Three months back I asked the following question at LinkedIn -

Managers are anti-innovation?

Does the increasing number of choices, especially in a scenario where number of ideas are generated in the ideation or creative solution to specific problems, make the decision maker which typically is a Manager, insecure? This is so, as the manager has been given more options to choose from and more options for analysis, and as we know from our experience, increasing number of alternatives make the task of choosing one alternative exceedingly difficult. If yes, in effect Managers do not want Innovation actually...? Would like to have your thoughts comments or inputs

Answers below from different people - Fantastic

Good Answers (2)

Andrew Meyer
Owner, Capability Alignment Professionals

Let me put a slightly different twist on the question. As Warren Buffett has long said, "It is far better for one's reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally." There is a lot of truth to this. No one was ever fired for buying IBM and (to continue stealing from Warren Buffett) while lemmings as a whole may have a bad reputation, no individual lemming has ever been singled out and uncriticized. While many people may claim that "leaders innovate" or don't fear innovation, that doesn't really make sense. Companies and the individuals in them, succeed because they understand the way the company operates and they operate that way successfully. If you make incremental improvements to that process, that is a conventional innovation. Managers are not likely to resist it. As Niccolo Machiavelli said 500 year ago: "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order to things." That is still true today. People who benefit under the current way things are done, will fight tooth and nail to prevent the change from taking occurring. People who will benefit under the new system, will not know how they will really benefit, so their support will be, at best, lukewarm. Innovation is risky for managers for good reasons.
Messages from Andrew Meyer (1):

Peter Wilbur
Site Manager at Perot Systems/NAH and Owner, Wilbur Enterprises

Managers, like many other folks, do not like change. Leaders bring change. If you are only a manager, you do not want something to change. This just means you have more to manage. This is why the manager is insecure or indecisive -- trending on unfamiliar territory and no guidance is available. A leader, on the other hand, will introduce change and look for ways to get outside the box and improve the process. Leaders prefer innovation. They do not fear it, but instead demand it.
Messages from Peter Wilbur (1):

Jason Schutte
Director of Promotions at WCCX

Navneet, I don't believe this is the case. I think it depends on the person in the position to make the decision and the quality of people researching the various solutions available. Any manager is only going to be as effective as the people who work for them, it's a manager's job to clearly define what they are looking for and choose based on organizational need. Innovation is a funny thing. I would say that conservative is much more along the line of what you are talking about. Most managers are very unlikely to rock the boat with a solution that is revolutionary, because they do not want to be the person who attempts a radical approach which fails. If you are looking for innovators you need to go higher on the totem pole to people who are paid to be innovators. Managers are simply managers, and typically will work with known and trusted quantities, because that is the basis of their job and job security.
Messages from Jason Schutte (1):

Tom Field
Editorial Director at BankInfoSecurity.com

Well, some managers are groomed to conduct "safe" business, and innovation isn't always safe. This may be the big disconnect. It isn't that managers are anti-innovation; it's that they're anti-risk. best, Tom
Messages from Tom Field (1):

Hari Panicker
Banking Consultant at Emirates Bank

Encouraging innovation is something a Manager can not do away with ! If a person does not understand this ...... well need to check his job description before passing a comment.
Messages from Hari Panicker (1):

Varun Verma
Lead Software Development Engineer at Citrix Systems

I don't think one can make such a blanket statement that managers are anti-innovation. If a manager takes the approach that he is going to stifle innovation so that he has less options to choose from, well, then God save his team and his organization. I would argue that managers should in fact encourage innovation so that they have some new and different options as well when considering solutions to a problem. Choosing which option to go with should also be based on a risk/rewards ratio among other things.
Messages from Varun Verma (1):

Piyush Bhatnagar
Technology Management Executive, CISSP, PMP

Navneet, I dont think this is a YES or NO answer and as usual there are a lots of shades of Gray. The role of the manager is to get the work done while maximizing the productivity, meeting delivery deadlines and minimizing the risks. Most managers have to walk a tight rope and the risk and impact of falling can be disastrous for the organization. Although there is always a scope of innovation in each project. the degree of innovation in any project is also quite varied. Each situation is different and needs to be seen in the right context. The amount of innovation needed in a R&D organization is usually very high, while in an organization, delivering a specific solution, to meet specific specification , the scope to innovate will be less comparitively. Similarly, in R&D organizations you will find more managers that encourage innovation is higher as compared the other places. In addition, you also have to look the cost of innovating and depending on the organization/project may decide that the rewards are not worth the risk. So it will be unfair to say that managers are anti-innovation. They are just getting the tasks done and the amount of risk-aversiveness is dependenent on the amount of innovation necessary to get the work done.
Messages from Piyush Bhatnagar (1):
{By the way Piyush is my M.Sc ClassMate and we worked in the same lab in India as our first job - Many years ago :)}

Wolfgang Brait
VP, Head Latin America, Novartis Oncology

Navneet, the only thing that keeps your business successful in the long term is permanent improvement. This is simply founded in the fact that any successful business by its pure existence will attract competition. Competition will - what else - compete by trying to make something better than the current owner of the business does. And this means they will innovate. Consequently, there is a need to permanently innovate to be able to improve the current quality, reach, efficacy and whatever else is important in your specific business. A manager that is an obstacle to innovation is an obstacle to the survival of the company. The art though is to decide which of the 'new things' add value to the business and which dont. And that's where you will have the conflicts arising in a productive environment. If however the controversy is about what adds more value, than you have a constructive exchange and competition of ideas which in itself drives innovation again.
Messages from Wolfgang Brait (1):
RE: Managers are anti-innovation?

John Sharkey
Interim Manager / Management Consultant / Contact Centre Expert / Change Manager

In my view the culture and organisational drivers are more important than the manager. But, the most important factor is the culture driven by the board or VP. For example if the culture is one that rigidly adheres to a quality accreditation then innovation will take longer as it has to be proven better than the accredited processes. However, if the culture is one of fast change and a champion challenger approach is the norm then the manager is likely to be more receptive to innovation. Also if the VP / Board recognises that innovation may occasionally not produce perfect results but they also recognise the intention and innovation then more will be attempted. Conversely if every variation is critically assessed, reviewed and peer groups assessed against the absolute results over a short period, then what incentive does the manager have to innovate. The biggest influences are culture and the measurements used within the organisation. Talented managers who want to further their careers will deliver the results that are tangibly rewarded and valued.
Messages from John Sharkey (1):

Stuart Ali
Scientist, Manager, Entrepreneur

Interesting question. Couple of thoughts. One could ask whether there are any managers that truly are anti-innovation; perhaps the manifestation is related to risk aversion - especially when confronted with options, ideas and people. Second, I think it is important to consider the origins of innovation. Is it really about good ideas and evaluation/execution of options. Or is it more deep seated in organisational culture? What drives innovation in the first place? How is it directed to add value? How is change perceived? What processes share the employee and notions of sustainable competitive advantage? Therefore, one could question wether it is insecurity of individual managers that stifle innovation, or whether the issue is more deep-seated.
Messages from Stuart Ali (1):

A R
El Nino Invest

its always interesting to discuss wide terms and concepts. What if there is a manager for bringing innovation? I assume along the organization´s chain of command the manager with least height will cover the basics. they are probably very creative in their daily work but usually the terms and condition for their work is over viewed by even more creative individuals. The problem managers get into is usually that they get really good at executing and start to like doing the same old thing, hence hate changes and never stop checking out the rest of the world. Also with a narrow measurement system managers can get blinded which means that the performance mgmt systems can dictate the level of innovation allowed.
Messages from A R (1):

Sahil G
Sterling Supply Chain Consultant at Infosys Technologies Limited
Navneet, What a specific manager does, I think, is a specific case. But in general, I don't think that managers should or would avoid innovation. By suppressing innovation in his team, a manager will never be able to find an idea which can result in better and quicker solutions. The responsibility of a manager is to facilitate the execution of the project in the best interest of the company that he is working for. He should and must (depending on availability of time ofcourse) take inputs and suggestions from all the team members and then weigh their pros and cons and eventually chose 1 or more options. Yes, it can be a daunting task sometimes, but thats part of the job. The benefits of innovations definitely outweigh the effort required for analyzing various options / innovations. You being a consultant, I am sure, don't want managers to run away from innovative ideas :)
Messages from Sahil G (1):

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Many thanks to all respondents - Just posting on the blog to keep the questions alive - and discussion Ongoing - it is important to keep the questions alive I think :)

Lean Product Development

Incidently this is my 150th post to the Blog - last 100 posts have happened so fast that I myself am amazed - I went by the Lean principle of on an average 1 post a day - May be I am keeping my sanity intact through blogging



On Linkedin (http://www.linkedin.com), I asked the following question:

Has anyone explored Lean (Toyota) Product Development methodologies, especially the so called Set-Based concurrent engineering (SBCE). Kindly share your expriences if you have?

The answers that I received I am just reproducing as is - for public at large

I implemented Lean Product Development (including SBCE) for one of HP's major businesses. I now help other companies use Lean PD to shorten time to market, lower product cost and increase R & D productivity. I just wrote an article for the Product Development Management Association that surveys the landscape of differing approaches to lean product development, and I will co-chair a conference for the Lean Enterprise Institute in 2008 that will be devoted to the topic. I have linked to the article and to my own website. Feel free to browse the resources there, including a reading list of books and articles, a number of knowledge briefs that I have written, and my blog, Product Development Field Notes. I've blogged several times about SBCE specifically.
Links:
http://www.whittierconsulting.com
http://www.pdma.org/visions/june07/npd-trend.php
Messages from Katherine Radeka (1):
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When working at Lithonia Lighting, I spearheaded an effort to implement Lean Product Development, but found the existing methodologies to be too feature/benefit and cost driven for what we wanted to accomplish. We built a ground-up system called Lean PDS based loosely on our previous tollgate driven system, and infused with principles of Kaizen, rapid data gathering, customer involvement, and structured brainstorming. The resulting process was a significant improvement over the previous system, but as in all things Lean, it was just the first step towards perfection. Contact me privately if you would like to have the contact information of someone at Lithonia who might be able to offer you more detail or up-to-date information.

Messages from Paul Pickard (2):

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Bruce Orcutt suggests this expert on this topic:
Lee Shaeffer
I participated in a Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) event with a speaker named Lee Shaeffer. Lee is an expert in Lean and could be a good resource for information and feedback. He is LinkedIn. Good luck.
Messages from Bruce Orcutt (1):

IPv6 - the Tipping Point Year

This is a news item I just cant afford to miss.

2008 is being proclaimed as the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) tipping point year. The author proclaims,

"IPv6 is finally breaking out of its cocoon of R&E networks; Government funded experiments, IPv6 Fora and Summits, some early adopters in the ISP community and is now on its way to become main stream. What changed in 2007 is the awakening and acceptance that we are really running out of IPv4 addresses and that further procrastination might be risky and detrimental after all. Like often in a timeline of events, change accumulated to create a discontinuity, resulting from the confluence of changing values for economical, technical and political variables. Needless to say, the moment of inertia to overcome with the present size and economical weight of a maturing internet was and remains considerable. "

I get a feeling of deja vu. I wrote an article in 2002 which was published by a magazine Voice and Data - the article was - IPv6 - Eight Driving Trends. I wrote,

"The existing Internet infrastructure is getting saturated with extreme demands on its capabilities. NGII will need major overhaul of the existing Internet Protocol called IPv4. IPv6 will enhance the IP address space from the present 32 bits to a mind-boggling 128 bits.

Although the economic factors of overhauling the existing Ipv4-based Internet Infrastructure will delay the wide spread deployment of IPv6, eventually IPv6 will prevail.
IPv6 simplifies many operations done by the existing IP in patched up or afterthought implementations. Also, some of the capabilities of IPv6 are simply not there in IPv4.

Japan, East Asia and Europe are three geographic areas that have already started investing heavily in IPv6. Japan has stressed the need for a IPv6 Internet infrastructure by 2005 AD. India and China are also catching up. However, in the US, the v4 to v6 conversion has yet to pick up. Hence, the spread of IPv6 has started from Asia, moving towards Europe, and will eventually take over the US."

A version of the artcile was translated and published in Chinese version as well @ http://www.ipv6.org.tw/NDHU/article/20020722.htm (Taiwan's IPv6 Forum site).


It is indeed the new era of 128 bit IP addresses, when all of us can own our own 100 IP addresses without having any Network Address Translations (NATs) in between. How will it help? It will give us an unbelievable access to each one of us - peer to peer will become a true reality and the world will be so location independent that Globalization that we have seen today will look like a cluster of different villages separted by Sahara deserts.

It is the new future that we will witness Now!

TRIZCON 2008

The annual TRIZ conference (TRIZCON 2008) in US organized by Altshuller Institute is slated to be held during April 2008.

I attended last year's TRIZCON 2007

It was an interesting collection of TRIZNiks and the TRIZ enthusiasts. There seems to be perception that TRIZ methodology is very complex - and requires different type of mindset. Well, if one do not want to pursue something (beacuse of reasons of its origin, marketing etc) - no one can do anything anyway.

Similarly, there are multiple types of people who claim different proficiency levels in following the classic TRIZ versus the new ways etc - then they get into this way or the so called his master's voice etc - well for all people - my suggestion is to experiment before commenting - if it works or whetever element works, please use it, imbibe it, explore it and develop it.

Above all - do visit TRIZCON 2008!

How to Innovate

Prakash refers on his blog to the article in business week - on common mistakes. James Tohunter referring to the same article - points out a fundamental gap - saying companies dont really know how to Innovate. Reading this three posts I have put my comments at Prakash's Blog as (Look at how minds combine together - to have a dialogue - I really am impressed with the power of blogging, sharing and making thoughts open)

Referring to the same article James Todhunter on his blog (http://www.innovatingtowin.com/innovating_to_win/2007/10/in-avoiding-com.html) says Many compnies dont know "how to innovate". It is interesting in the light of the discussion he points to five pillars of innovation as - Culture, People, Process, Communication and Organization. I have another question now - on whether these pillars are anyway pillars for functioning of any enterprise. So the question that he poses continues to remain as is - hence these pillars and these mistakes need to give a or several methods of how to innovate - In the light of our ongoing discussion on how to innovate - I think these may be just the starting points, if I may say so!

Bizarre Patents Calenders

Ron Simmer, the Patex CEO, publishes a Bizarre Patents Calender every year. I have received one for last 5 years that he has been publishing - the 2008 Bizarre Patent Calender, one can download from the site . In fact all calenders starting from 2004 are there at the site.

Some of the patents are absolutely amazing - look at which dimensions Human mind can go to. Consider for example the following one (More than 100 years old) - this has been liked by my ex-Boss and I just reproduce his comments without his permission:

Navneet:
My vote goes to … NOV08
I liked the illustration where the individual seems to be reinforcing “Aa Bail Mujhe Mar”. The kicker was not only the fact he turns on the apparatus himself but the blindfold may enhance his visualization J
Thanks

“Aa Bail Mujhe Mar” Means "Inviting the Bull to hit you"!!

Initiation Device
US654611 July 31, 1900
Inventors: Edmund de Moulin and Ulysses S. de Moulin
First ever spanking machine! This invention relates to devices employed in initiating applicants for membership in secret organizations, and it has for its object to provide a device in the nature of a spanking machine, the construction being such that the applicant will be struck with a paddle and at the same time will be given an electric shock, the mechanism being thrown into operation by the applicant himself.

Sciences of the Artificial

The Sciences of the Artificial by Herbert A. Simon the Nobel Laureate, has been with me since October 2006. It was very strongly recommended to me by Neeraj Sangal, the founder and CEO of Lattix.

I read some portion of the book sometime back and now have started reading it with much clear intensity. I am already cursing myself on the delay in reading this book. It is an absolute gem. Look at what Simon says in the preface, " Goal of science is to make the woderful and complex understandable and simple - but not less wonderful."

“…artificiality is interesting principally when it concerns complex systems that live in complex environments. The topics of artificiality and complexity are inextricably interwoven…”.

The last chapter - The Architecture of Complexity - Hierarchic Systems is interesting as I can see the genesis of Design Structure Matrix theory built up.

Do get the book in your library! Strongly recommend!

Google Results- How to Innovate

I did google "How to Innovate" and got 1.4 Million Hits. Will show some of the links below.... Looks like every one thinks a particular way is how to Innovate - as I am sure 1.4 million are not referring to same method. Really! How many different ways exist to Innovate is the question? Infinite some says, TRIZ guys says we know 40 Inventive Principles - but frankly how many different ways may not be known - but may be at the higher level - there is just one way - Obviously we dont know!

Some interesting hits below by the way:

How to Innovate Successfully
How to Innovate Faster than Anyone Else
Design Thinking - Talent Hunt Business Week
How to Innovate on Time by failures
Innovate on Purpose
How to Innovate by solving problems

Ok ... I am sure you were not thinking I will sift through all 1.4 Million hits and choose the real diamonds for you....

I suggest you can do this anyway!

Dark Side and Limits of Globalization

Some months back I read a book called World on Fire . Amy Chuha describes " that globalization has created a volatile concoction of free markets and democracy that has incited economic devastation, ethnic hatred and genocidal violence throughout the developing world."

This is really the pther side - the connected in the globalizing world becomes haves and stronger haves, leaving the unconnected as have-nots. This is potentially a dangerous disparity that can kill the very roots of globalization.

Now comes the book by Pankaj Ghemawat - Borders and cultures still matter greatly. This is the identity that individuals and individual communities want to protect at huge costs. There in lie the nemesis of standardization through technology enabled globalization.

How globalized are less developed cities? The article on Iran highlights the issues. It says " Poverty essentially has three closely interrelated aspects: "poverty of money", "poverty of access" and "poverty of power." -

Another interesting article on Dark side of Globalization says "The State Department estimates the global value of trafficked labor to be $9.5 billion. That includes children in servitude in factories in India or Latinos working in slave-like conditions on farms in Florida. Estimates are that 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year."

Well 20,000 per year is not trafficking in my opinion. The way populations move en-masse in the so called non-developed economies in such poor and mal-nourished conditions that all globalization and its related development - technology, business, money etc - remains a small story.

We need to globalize to remove hunger - not to aggravate it.

The Next Chinese Outsourcing Wave - Drug Development

The News article caught my eyes. The next wave of oursourcing is drug development.

Are there such easily decipherable boundaries that we can call next wave etc. How does media create this reports? Some weeks back we looked at Butler services and tutor services outsourced to India - some media story teller prclaiming next waves.

When do we really start calling some trend as a wave? When do we really look at a discontinuity from the ongoing trends - is it evolutionary or step-jump? Are there really ways to forecast? Are there really trends?

Altshuller the creator of TRIZ found some trends in system evolution - the technological systems evolution. Are there trends everywhere? If yes than what are Black Swans - the phenomenon described by NNT in this book as well as his previous book - Fooled by Randomness.

How do we really understand trends - I have no answer?

Vedic Inventive Principles

Karthik's article on The Vedic Inventive Principles which he has been carrying out research for last almost a year has been published at the innovationtools. One can download the artilce as pdf from there.

I have experimented with some of these principles in the Innovation workshops, and found to be very productive. These are used as triggers for making people come out of psychological inertia. Further some of Karthik's explanations as described in his paper have been quite effective.

This has led us to explore other sources of higher inventive principles. Of course the initial trigger was the TRIZ 40 Inventive Principles. As part of larger sources of higher order principles we are carrying out research on other sources besides ancient texts which Karthik has been researching. Other sources may be nature - natural evolution, complexity theory, complex systems, heuristic optimization rechniques - Genetic Algorithms, Simulated Annealing, Ant Colony Algorithms, etc. It will be great if more people join in this research to explore and come out with a higher order set of Inventive principles.

Jasbir Ryait's comments posted to TRIZ India Yahoo group

It is a pleasure to get the following email from Jasbir Ryait, Chairman of GS Auto International. This was posted to the TRIZ India Yahoo group (trizindia@yahoogroups.co.in). Jasbir has been one of the earliest TRIZ proponents and really an innovator in true sense. His company has grown leaps and bounds over the years - Getting comments from him indicates that we are arriving in Innovation Community. Thanks Jasbir, Look forward to more interactions!


Hi all,

I reproduce below what Navneet Bhushan has written about triz thinking on his blog….and would like to add my comments below:
TRIZ THINKING
May be the whole idea of TRIZ - trying to craft a theory of inventing if I may, one need to look at - Altshuller talks about following main points1. Focus on Function2. Describe Ideality3. Look at resources - in and around4. Study Contradictions - Merging of Extremes5. Learn from past solutions - knowledge - inventive principles6. Study what happens to various systems as they evolve - study evolution of systems and predict next stage of your system based on other such evolutionary trends7. Do everything systematically - step by step.Let us look at what some others are sayingKaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking by Shingo (Cross posting from my other Blog)Kaizen and the art of creative thinking the new book by the co-creator of Toyota Production System - popularized as Lean Thinking, promises to be an important journey through the Lean Thinking. It is indeed a culmination of years of exprience which goes deep in the execution by thinking through - rather than management theories pushed through the organization - which is the regular way the change is forced on th enterprises. Just quoting the text at the link aboveKaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking The Scientific Thinking MechanismBy Shigeo Shingo Edited by Norman Bodek, Collin McLoughin, Tracy Epley Even the greatest idea can become meaningless in the rush to judgment. To gauge an idea as feasible we must cut our ties to the status quo and find the balance between constructive criticism and judgment. Within that balance we will uncover crucial input for making our ideas a reality.Do download the chapter freely available at Chapter 5 It is called from ideas to reality. It promises to be the solution to last week's objections that people had during the barkamp on "what comes in the way of idea generation".It will be interesting for us to understand the differences and similarities in these two systems - coming from Russia and Japan independently and from two different sources as well (TRIZ from inventions, Lean from producing world class automobiles)


8) THE LAWS OF CAUSALITY: a) For every effect, there is at least one cause.
b) Every cause produces both negative and positive effect.
9) THE ABSTRACT THINKING: The breakthroughs/ innovations occur while iterating between lower and upper levels of abstraction. It is during this iteration process that contradictions get resolved(For the time being)

Warm Regards,

Jasbir Singh Ryait
CHAIRMANGS AUTO INTERNATIONAL LTD,
GS ESTATE, GT ROAD ,
LUDHIANA-141010INDIA

What Are Best Triz-For-Software Sources?

This was the question posed at TRIZ-JOURNAL.

My response that I posted to the question - I am cross posting below.

Hi Eric,
The best source of information for TRIZ for software innovation in my opinion will always be "Yet to come". Having said that I would like to add that TRIZ as a philosophy as well as theory can be applied as such to any problem - it is artificial to distinguish between fields, for example, software, manufacturing, automotive etc. At the higher level all fields are similar as per TRIZ. I will go to the extent that may be at some higher level they may be same, it is really the problem of abstraction - which we need to overcome in our mind.
So in essence what I am saying is all existing sources of information for TRIZ can be sources of software innovation. Let us say about evolutionary trends - TRIZ recognized some trends in systems. Cant we study and find what are the trends in Information Technology - let us say, (A) Information Representation - Bits, Bytes, Hexadecimal, Mnemonics (assembly language), Higher Level languages, data variables, data structures, files, data bases, distributed data bases, knowledge bases, XML, etc (B) Information Processing - Data, information, knowledge (rules), business intelligence, extracting co-relations, data visualization, Decision enabling knowledge (C) Information Communication - data communication, information networks, knowledge networks, social computing. Now if we add what are the methods to perform all these functions we have codified the IT knowledge for software development engineers.
Let us look at TRIZ concept of IDEALITY - TRIZ talks about ideality as function achived without cost and no adverse impact to the system. For software systems, ideality assumes a slightly different meaning - which we are discussing at TRIZ INDIA FORUM (http://trizindiaforum.blogspot.com/2007/11/triz-thinking-ideal-software-system.html - Software as you know (Mythical Man Month, brooks) is an representation of conceptual construct. Since the function of a software system itself evolves over time and since there is no static definition of function of s software system, it becomes imperative to look at system structure - the ideal system is the so called least coupled system of highly cohesive software elements. This lead us to concepts of coupling and cohesion which are anyway fundamental to Software design.
In essence my response is that instead of looking for sources on TRIZ for software it may be more appropriate to understand TRIZ and then see how software systems can be designed using TRIZ concepts.
My two cents!
Navneet

Category Theory - Developing complex modularized spread sheets

Oxford, UK, Category Theory - a branch of mathematics has been used by a researcher Jocelyn Paine to set up a Web-based software library for Excel users.

It is very interesting to see the spreadsheet horror stories at this link that prompted Paine to create the robust modularized web based excel library.

Only time will tell how the experiment goes. It may be of value if each module comes up with clear documentation about who did it for what purpose and what errors have been rectified. May be a Wiki approach can help. Can this be a web service - just thinking aloud?

Anyway Paine has an (Dot) org site at http://www.spreadsheet-parts.org/

His before and after modularity cartoons also I liked. The quotes on why modularize are also of interest

Balaji's Joy of Innovation

I met Balaji at CII Innovation Summit held in June 2007 at Bangalore. He had a stall on his invention on paper file tracker technology.

We exchanged some emails on the CII summit as well as our reactions to what transpired. Since I shifted to Chennai in September, I was hoping to meet him someday. It is indeed a pleasure to receive an email from him regarding an event he is organizing on the Amazon Web Services Business Model and its evangilist from Amazon, Jinesh Varia, who is visiting India during first week of December 2007. I reproduce the email verbatim for others to see the work that Balaji has been doing and if others want to leverage Jinesh presence in India they can also get the benefit.

Jinesh's Travel Wiki is at this link. Balaji's email to me - (Thanks Balaji for remembering me)


Dear Navneet,
Amazon Web Services(AWS) http://aws.amazon.com as you are aware is an interesting web scale computing building block. It has high disruptive potential to unleash the creativity of startups.
More than the technical innovation, the business innovation of AWS be it pricing or community building will be of interest to you. There is going to be an informal meetup with Amazon Web Services Evangalist Jinesh Varia on Dec 13 http://awschennai.pbwiki.com. I invite you to participate in the meetup to get a feel of startup action around AWS in Chennai.
If your interested in AWS is more enterprise oriented, you are welcome to check out Jinesh''s India trip wiki http://evangelists.wetpaint.com/page/Jinesh+Varia+India+Dec+2007?mail=1127&t=anon and schedule a meeting to suit your requirement.

Jinesh,
Navneet is an Innovation thought leader and is Vice President & Head - Innovation Labs, Hexaware Technologies. He is old school enough to have countless publication to his credit and new school enough to embrace and experiment with unconference phenomenon. In short right
kind of person to pitch the benefits of AWS. Check out his blog to get an idea of what I meanhttp://innovationcrafting.blogspot.com/.

Regards.
-Balaji S.
Blog: http://labsji.wordpress.com

Art of Creative Thinking - from co-creator of Toyota Production System

Kaizen and the art of creative thinking the new book by the co-creator of Toyota Production System - popularized as Lean Thinking, promises to be an important journey through the Lean Thinking. It is indeed a culmination of years of exprience which goes deep in the execution by thinking through - rather than management theories pushed through the organization - which is the regular way the change is forced on th enterprises. Just quoting the text at the link above

Kaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking The Scientific Thinking Mechanism
By Shigeo Shingo Edited by Norman Bodek, Collin McLoughin, Tracy Epley

Even the greatest idea can become meaningless in the rush to judgment. To gauge an idea as feasible we must cut our ties to the status quo and find the balance between constructive criticism and judgment. Within that balance we will uncover crucial input for making our ideas a reality.

Do download the chapter freely available at Chapter 5 It is called from ideas to reality. It promises to be the solution to last week's objections that people had during the barkamp on "what comes in the way of idea generation".

Barcamp - the KM Unconference

kamp-blr - the unconference at Bangalore on Knowledge Management was an eye-opener for me. It was indeed the difference between the so called conference and unconference (the structured agenda versus evolving self-organizing agenda of the unconference) which was of interest. Although the difference did not play out to the extent I thought it will, considering the newness of concept may be it requires more practice. Nevertheless, hats off to the people who made this happen - there is whole bunch of them. It indeed will be my privilege to be part of the same crowd.

I made following presentation - but to make this presentation I really had to struggle. Morning my laptop conked off. It was not ready to access the OS - it is amazing how at the specific moment it went off - Kaput. Prakash, my friend helped me with his laptop, luckily I had some presentations with me in the USB memory stick which I collected together to make a - pot pourrie presentation.

Globalizing Innovation Complexity - Creating Wealth in GIXBang world

One intereting event at the end of the day was what was termed Knowledge Cafe - the details are described at Murali's Blog. The question was interesting " what comes in the way of idea generation" - My mind looked at the root of an idea - it has to be some sort of thought - which itself comes to us through some experience. Well once experiences (which can be problems, crisis, normal behaviour, something unique or extraordinary etc) becomes thoughts they can develop into ideas. Obviously it is not about ideas in the mind - the whole problem of Intellectual property is related to so called idea-expression dichotomy - ideas need to be articulated and should be expressed to be considered generated. People mentioned the past experience in an enterprise inhibits people to express ideas again - the psychological safety is an issue most of the enterprises.

However to my mind it is really following two issues

1. There are not enough varied experiences for people to have richness of understanding of reality
2. There is not enough imagination if you have experiences to link one experience with another to generate thoughts that become an idea and then get articulated

Second part was - what should the enterprise do to increase the hinderances - well make it an experience based learning

Let people get into varied experiences - more variety they have more likelihood of ideas - plus enable them with to generate more ideas by providing them capabilities to link multiple experiences.

Learning Enterprise is a really the framework for success!

From the Old Thoughts - Future of Warfare

Almost a decade back I wrote the following chapter the starting point of my book called "Future of Warfare - A search for Military Doctrine". Since the book never came out of my mind, yet the chapters are there - I will share them here... readers can may be peep into my history
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1 Warfare

War is a matter of vital importance to the state

Sun Tzu

1.1 Introduction

Despite the centuries of civilisation, human race is not able to avoid war. Wars will remain till human beings exist. Therefore, to study ways of avoiding, prosecuting if imposed, sustaining and supporting wars is an essential activity of a modern nation. The present day knowledge-based world will influence the way the wars will be carried out in future. These wars will be greatly affected by the fundamental changes taking place in the global geo-strategic environment and the increasing role of political, cultural and socio-economic factors in the overall security equations. However, technology will have sweeping influence on future wars. Therefore, to understand future warfare, it is not only necessary to understand the unpredictable, uncertain and unknown domains in which our world is rapidly moving, but also to assess the revolutionary ways in which the technological developments will influence future warfare.

This book predicts and analyses the alternative future structures of the world and ways to deal with them in the framework of a military doctrine. The advances taking place in information technology, military electronics, surveillance capabilities and precision guidance should be exploited to the full extent within the formulation of the new doctrine. The fact should be understood that the present day military hardware such as aircraft, ships and tanks have been reduced to the status of only a platform for carrying precision guided munitions, sensors and missiles. Unless these platforms are enmeshed and integrated in the nation-wide security system, their value is minimal. Therefore, the key to the future is integration. The military doctrine should encompass and bind together the whole spectrum of diverse forces into an effective whole that can be used as a capable striking force that no enemy force can match.

A war, statistically speaking, is a rare event. It is also an exceedingly costly and disruptive form of interaction between people and states. A war indicates that level of bilateral relationship between two states, which exists from the time, first mobilisation of troops is called for against the other side till peace is reached. This view of war implying only active armed conflict however is a restrictive definition. Here it is assumed that war/conflict is in operation, from the moment a state decides upon a policy of armed resistance or inclination to counter an external/ internal threat with military ramifications, to the time the solution of the active threat is achieved or it is made dormant. Modern day wars have been defined at three levels of increasing intensity though not necessarily increasing complexity and duration (See Fig. 1). At the first level is the most prevalent form of warfare, i.e., Low Intensity Conflict (LIC). The LIC is defined as a conflict between irregular forces, mercenaries, revolutionaries, terrorists, etc and the regular, conventional armed forces of a nation. The biggest challenge facing the conventionally armed forces of a nation, which are trained and equipped for fighting against the conventionally armed forces of the enemy, is to deal with LIC. The Mid Intensity Conflict (MIC) is the conventional warfare that is indoctrinated in the regular armed forces of the world. With the advent of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), the chances of High Intensity Conflict (HIC), which is defined as a conflict involving WMDs, are increasing. As is evident from Fig 1., the probability of occurrence of a LIC is high and also the duration of such conflicts is more. This is due to the fact that LIC is a continuous process, which the armed forces all over the world have found hard to contain. The probability of WMD based HIC is low compared to LIC/MIC. However, a threat which this spectrum misses out is the possibility that, WMDs may fall in the hands of irregulars engaged in an LIC. This will bring the conflict to HIC levels, where the nation fighting the insurgents or irregulars will suffer. Therefore, the armed forces of a modern nation need equipment, force structure and doctrines to deal with threats at all three levels of intensity. These armed forces should strive to achieve a balanced force structure to deal with hi-tech conventional threats from other forces and to deal with low to medium technology LICs on the other hand.

A basic question that arises, however, is that why do people fight? What are the causes of conflicts? Why do we need to maintain considerable armed forces and spend huge amounts on their maintenance? To answer these questions, we have to look into the history of warfare.

1.2 Warfare - Historical perspective

Once the basic needs of humans are full-filled, there starts a striving for control and power. Human beings have a natural requirement to control everything as per their whims and fancies. This egoistic controlling itch, generates an inclination for hoarding of resources which are required by other beings. The resources include land, wealth, pleasures of all sorts and knowledge. The person having more of these resources can control the lives of more human beings. This ability to accumulate resources and hence control other lives, creates 'power'. Once the human beings realised that power is the ultimate tool, which can serve their ego, the wars on this planet started. War is ultimately a conflict to gain more power.

Every nation strive to become more powerful in this world. However, the three legs of power i.e., economics, military and knowledge capabilities of respective nations orders the power structure of the world. A nation which is economically strong, militarily strong and controlling more knowledge resources is more strong than the one who has less economic, military and knowledge capabilities. Therefore, to capture more power every nation strives for more economic, military and knowledge strengths. At each of these dimensions and paths to power, every nation encounters many other nations. This striving to gain relative power advantage creates the possibilities of conflicts and wars.

History is replete with many wars, however, each of these wars and conflicts can be attributed to a conflict for more power- be it economic, military or knowledge. It must be mentioned here, that knowledge in this context is taken as a broad term encompassing religion as well as political ideology. The power seekers have been enveloping their naked lust for more power by calling their competitors and their targets as threats to their national interests or objectives. The interest of a nation may be in conflict with the interest of another nation. If the two nations have equal power and geographical proximity, or a nation has capability to project its power in the geographic proximity of the other nation, then the chance of conflicts are high between the two countries. If a weaker power is threatened by a strong power, it calls for help from another strong power to counter the threat. It so happened in most of the cases, that the power coming to the rescue of the weaker nation started controlling it. This process led to the formation of power blocks within the world geo-political structures and hence the world was divided into major power blocks controlled by a big power and each such block was in confrontation with the other.

Writing on the reasons and trends of major wars of the 20^th Century, Stoessinger [ ] presents the following observations:

No nation that began a war in this century, emerged a winner

Outbreak of war depended to a major extent on the personality of leaders

Most important single precipitating factor in the outbreak of war is misperception. Such distortion may manifest itself in four different ways:

In a leader's image of himself

A leader's view of his adversary's character

A leader's view of his adversary's intentions towards itself

A leader's view of his adversary's capabilities and power

Most national leaders on the brink of war expected victory after a brief and triumphant campaign

When a leader on the brink of war believes that his adversary will attack him, the chances of war are fairly high. When both leaders share this precipitation about each other's intent, war becomes a virtual certainty

It is not the actual distribution of power that precipitates war, it is the way in which a leader thinks that power is distributed.

The way a nation fights a war is dependent upon its history, present power alliances, terrain and technology. Historically speaking, warfare has always been a regular way of living for many nations. The nature of warfare has also changed as the world has evolved.

Traditionally functions in wars have been analysed as – Planning, Execution and Logistics [ ]. These functions are superimposed on two operational areas of warfare i.e., strategic and tactical. There are grey overlaps between strategic and tactical areas reflected in diverse definitions of strategy and tactics. However, in the war continuum – strategy is concerned more with `planning’ – with only a small excursion in `execution’, whereas tactics starts at the fringes of planning and is mainly exercised in the execution of battle [ ]. Planning involves three main phases – formulation of war policy, acquisition of strategic intelligence and the movement phase involving mobilisation, allocation and distribution of material resources and preliminary deployment of forces. Execution was concerned with two phases i.e., movement and `destruction’.

Tactics has been concerned with two important elements – weapon power and the capability and speed of keeping it moving in battle. This traditional concept of fire-and-movement has been the basic tactical principle throughout the ages. However, most commanders have given more importance to fire power than movement. This has resulted in wars of attrition when the opponent commander has also given the same emphasis. However, with judicious movement of weapon / weapon system the exclusive fire-power based tactics have been defeated. Superiority of fire-power as a means of victory has been the major requirements of British Commanders (e.g. Montgomery’s campaign). It is the capability to combine movement along with firepower that has proved to be the major downfall of weapon power based tactics.

Since the traditional military campaign were mostly based on ground with minor air support, the terrain or ground on the battlefield played a major role. Based on terrain, the basic formation of armies i.e., how they are deployed on the battlefield, were line, the column and the square [ ]. Each formation had its own advantages and disadvantages – and the commanders had to choose their formations taking into account the tasks to be performed by the armies.

Historically wars were based on the ground forces ability to destroy enemy armies in frontal attacks and manoeuvre battles to flank attacks. Most of the time the ranges at which the battles took place were within few kilometres of the attacker's visual ranges. With the induction of tanks and mechanical infantry – traditional eye ball to eye ball conflict shifted to a movement based warfare. Tank symbolised the fire and movement tactics. However, many commanders used the tanks as in old age concept of protected fire power. The mobility aspect of tank was exploited by Germans in World War II. The blitzkrieg tactics of Germany proved that tanks could not only be used to achieve a break-through where traditional methods of heavy pounding by artillery fire and subsequent assault by waves of infantry had failed, but were also capable of independent mobile operation to force a decision. The Germans were able to defeat a numerically superior force by piercing the enemy position at a few selected points, followed by swift thrusts to effect deep penetration and destruction of main body of the enemy forces. The blitzkrieg attacks were based on the theory of infiltration [ ]. The blitzkrieg, when compared to traditional warfare of hitting the enemy at each level, halting one’s armour so that flank formations can catch up and then moving forward to the next line of enemy defences, performed much better only because the doctrine underlying the fire and movement tactics was exploited to the full.

A major problem of providing artillery fire-power to the armoured formations, once they have penetrated deep inside enemy was solved by the use of tactical bomber aircraft. Aircraft assumed the role of flying artillery and thus was seen more as an extension of traditional artillery. The concentrated panzer divisions of German army utilised the armour formation for the deep penetrations. These formations were able to defeat the linear defences of traditional defence forces. These tactics indicated an important point that one should realise throughout, that the aim of war is not merely to inflict maximum casualties on the enemy but it is to defeat the enemy.

German Panzer divisions met their match in Russians, who evolved a new form of defence doctrine against massed armoured thrusts. Once the armour thrusts have taken place, Russians instead of retreating the front, re-organised in their own territory in small pockets. These small areas were used as strong castles against enemy armour formations and mobile units were dispatched to frustrate the incoming armour formation. This counter offensive was also based on fire and defence movement. This was a major shift from the linear static defence doctrine to a dynamic defence doctrine. British used armour to seek and destroy enemy armour, whereas Germans used armour against non-armoured forces, thus making the major difference between victory and loss. Role of armour for independent tank action was proved wasteful, whereas it is in conjunction with all arms co-operation that the armour achieved its major task of infiltrating at a high speed and going in for strategic targets.

It can be seen that traditional warfare has not freed itself from vagaries and intricacies of terrain and it is based on fire and movement doctrine used by armour formations. Air power was used only as an extension of artillery.

1.3 Current Wars

In the present world scenarios, the type of wars that are being fought is a reflection of a shift in societies of the world. Information Technology (IT) has brought the awareness level of a common man to almost to the highest professional in respective fields. The common man of this decade is more aware than say the common man of two decades before. The level of his awareness of the world around him, has increased at a remarkable pace. This awareness has created in his mind the irrelevance of wars. Also, it is very difficult to fool him with lies. Hence, initiating and justifying a conventional war against any country by the rulers of a country has become exceedingly difficult. Therefore, the current world is seeing less of conventional wars or what we call the mid intensity conflicts.

However, an individual has become more aware of his basic rights with the continuous information explosion. The comparison with other societies makes him strive for more from his own political system. With this, his reason for fighting for himself or his local group (which is based most of the times on his religion rather than his nation) has increased due to competition from the other such groups. This awareness in him is increasing his urge for more power. Hence, individuals tries to organise religion based groups, however small, so as to carve a leadership position for them. Once these groups are created they tend to fight/attack other groups for justifying the necessity of their existence. This lead to an exponential growth in the number of conflicts which are termed as low intensity conflicts. When such conflicts are supported from outside (through financial, moral and material support) the problems for a nation increases manifolds. To counter such LICs is the major challenge that the world armies are facing today. Another factor that has fuelled this trend is the end of cold war. The melt down of the bi-polar world has resurfaced the age old ethnic religious conflicts that were dormant during the cold war years [ ].

The reluctance of big powers to give away their Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) is the major factor for the proliferation of WMD. This increasing trend is going to continue unless the big powers agree to live in a Nuclear Weapons Free World. Until that happens the world will continue to live under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust. There are two ways in which the world can free itself from nuclear weapons. One is to let everyone develop these weapons. Once all the countries have exhausted their limited national budgets on building and maintaining sufficient nuclear weapons, then will start the process of freeing the world from these weapons. Another way is to eliminate WMDs from the countries possessing these weapons. There is a strong possibility of freeing the world from WMDs in today’s scenario, when the number of countries who possess these WMDs or are in the process of acquiring them, are less than ten. Once this number increases, which is likely to occur, it will become increasingly difficult to eliminate WMDs from the world.

Hence the two trends of increasing LICs and proliferation of WMDs are shaping the nature of current wars. These wars are living in an imitable world characterised by demise of bi-polarity, increasing reluctance on the part of political leadership to resort to wars due to more awareness of individuals, almost revolutionary impact of Information Technology (IT) on the society in uncountable ways through multiple dimensions and increasing intellectual contributions in evolving the new way of warfare.

Air Land Battle Doctrine and its many variants is the intellectual fabric on which the current wars of higher powers are being designed. For lesser powers, the fruits of such high-end resource-intensive doctrine are not available due to budget and technological constraints. Hence, these powers are evolving their own doctrines making the U.S. doctrines as the basis with which to compare their capabilities. It is highly unlikely that U.S. is going to give away the immense lead that it enjoys over other powers. But other powers are going to strive for achieving near parity with U.S. This trend of inventing the new Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) is going to shape the nature of future wars. In current wars, air power has assumed three distinct roles – one is the traditional role of its support of ground forces, the second is the possible role of attacking the enemy through air force before the ground offensive or counter offensive actually starts. This second concept is exemplified by the 1991 Gulf war, when U.S. and allies heavily pounded Iraqi forces for about 6 weeks before the actual ground action by U.S. forces started for only a few days. The third possible shift in the role of air power as a distinct force attacking the enemy force and achieving the mission of enemy destruction or halting the enemy forward movement by the use of air power alone. This is the recently emerging trend [ ].

1.4 Future Wars

The hi-end future wars (involving U.S. and other super powers) are going to be anywhere any-time wars [ ]. The fronts (battle, theatre and war) will vanish and will be replaced by whole five dimensional expanse of our existence i.e., the space, air, land, sea surface and under water. The war in each dimension will have trans-dimensional impacts due to remarkable jointness between the war making elements. The clarity of goals will make the necessity of elimination of enemy obsolete. The attrition warfare of the yester- years will be replaced by the disruption warfare, where the intent is to control information flow and information edge. These hi-end wars may not occur at all. The conflicts of future are most likely to be conflicts which will be messy, irregular and revolving around the rise of highly networked non-state actors, whose principal targets may, in many cases, be states [ ]. The technology will revolutionise the dynamics and attributes of new conflicts – with increasing decentralised attacks with over-lapping offence and defence capabilities. Strategic aims may shift from destruction to disruption. Possibility of a nexus between political and criminal actors with large overtones of terrorism and insurgency is going to require forces that can win the future information based conflicts.

There is a need to study the influence of information revolution on the structure of future world to take care of unanticipated and multi-dimensional threats. This influence will impact the traditional ideologies, objectives, doctrines and organisational structures. The dynamics of future wars should be studied for extracting and evolving the military doctrine and force structures by peeping through the window of future world. However, it is important to address the necessity of looking at the war doctrine for a force.

1.5 Need for a Military Doctrine

For the purpose of this book, the military doctrine is defined as a comprehensive system of views and procedures for conduct of future wars including various military operations, established by military experts, technologists and armed forces, in the likely threat environment, and within the purview of present force structures. This doctrine is subject to periodic reviews and analysis and is evolved taking into account the dynamic geo-political, economic and technological trends in the world scenarios. Also such a doctrine should be freely available as a comprehensive document, so as to give a common basis for decision making at all level of military and defence hierarchy of the nation.

With the availability of such a document the armed forces can visualize their force structures, technology influences and missions within the muti-dimensional milieu of the future war scenarios. Such a military doctrine should have a political, technoogical and economic basis coming out of the national vision for security and guarding the interests of the nation. The political basis should clearly mention the situations and reasons when the armed forces of the nation will be called upon for a military action. The technological requirements of such military actions based on the missions and tasks of various armed forces constituting the military of action should be clearly spelled out. The industry, economy, foreign policy and military of the nation should be geared to provide necessary capabilities and resources to the armed forces for carrying out the assigned tasks.

It must be mentioned here that technology, muscle power, raw courage, quality of armed troops, weapon systems or organised forces alone cannot guarantee victory in the future wars. A coherent well developed vision of future war to viable and usable operational concepts coupled with proper training, agile leadership, and technological backing is needed for the non-linear, high speed, more lethal and highly uncertain battlefields of the future.