Can you ride a bicycle? Suppose, that you do not know how to ride a bicycle. Now, what will your response be, if I ask you to accompany me on a 2-week bicycle return trip from Delft to Paris? We start on Saturday in 4 weeks. It will be a great trip, I expect to have fair weather and some rain. I have already made reservations at bed & breakfast hotels in small towns on the route where we can relax after cycling for 6 a 8 hours (ca. 125 km) each travelling day. We should have some days to visit Paris and then start the return trip! Will you accompany me? What are the chances that in four weeks’ time you will have learned to ride a bicycle?
What is the relevance of learning to ride a bicycle for user-centered innovation? I am using it as a metaphor for doing something new. Within organisations, if something new is to be started, it must often quickly become a great success: this is akin to the goal stated above: let’s depart in 4 weeks’ time, on a grand trip! Many managers are impatient and are often rewarded for short-term results. If positive results take too long to realize, innovative efforts may be killed before they have grown to maturity.
Let’s look closer at the example of the bicycle trip. Reality can be so different from the initial nice idea! Have you ever learned to ride a bicycle? Here in The Netherlands, children learn to ride a bicycle already at a very young age. Looking at the young children, we see a number of phases:
Shall we go on a bicycle journey?
- learn to get on and off the bike
- stop falling over while pedalling
- learn to cycle in a (more or less) straight line
- learn to brake
- learn to make a turn
- learn to brake before making a turn
- when looking left or right, still cycle in a straight line
- learn to look for the other traffic
- learn to look over your shoulder, and cycle in a straight line
- learn to anticipate the actions of other traffic
- learn to cycle next to another cyclist
- learn to adjust your bicycle movements when being overtaken by a fast and big car or truck
- learn to adjust your speed when the road is dirty (water, sand, …)
- learn to ride the bicycle in different weather conditions (sun, rain, wind, snow, ice)
And this is all with a single-gear bike where the brakes are activated with the pedals (pedalling backwards causes the brake to engage). When you get a multi-gear bike:
- learn how to switch gears
- learn how to brake using the manual brakes
- learn when to use which gear
Interesting enough, there is no prediction on how quickly a person can learn to ride the bicycle. You may rearrange some of the steps, but you cannot skip any: these are all needed.
And finally, when having built stamina and using a comfortable saddle, only then you will feel comfortable about the bicycle trip to Paris. Which is a challenge: not only for the distance to be covered but also for the renowned traffic in Paris…
You may find it quite obvious that one should first learn to ride a bicycle before starting such a journey. And it is: you have to take the time to learn a new skill to become proficient. The learning process includes that you make mistakes that are non-fatal. Such as using a safe environment, a teacher, et cetera.
Back to the lofty goals of organisations about entering new markets or launching new products.
“Your proof of concept XYZ must generate at least 10 million Euro in 3 years’ time”.
“Your idea XYZ did not generate any profit in the last quarter, so it is now abandoned.”
I’m not against setting goals. Rather the reverse; goals help the quest for finding solutions. In my opinion such goals need to be accompanied by decisions about the time and resources to actually find these solutions.
If you are embarking on doing something new, you have to reserve time for the creative process. And allow for mistakes to be made. Mistakes are important: they teach what does not work. Transforming an idea into a new product and/or a new market, is a process: it takes time, effort, and entails a lot of learning and creativity. It is key to de-risk this process to avoid expensive failures (‘fatal mistakes’): this is the topic of the next blog.
Users need time to change their ways and take over your innovation. This user adoption process and ways of putting the users in the centre of the innovation process will be the theme of later blogs.
Do you wish to read more?
- David Mozer, “Teaching a Kid (and Adult) to Ride a Bicycle“, visited 23 August 2015.
- Zachary Shahan, “Dutch kids have a different relationship to the bicycle“, visited 23 August 2015.
- Douglas Eby, “Mistakes Fuel Creativity and Innovation”, visited on 29 August 2015
- Jim Connolly , “Creativity and the need for mistakes”, visited on 29 August 2015
- Finn Kollerup, “Innovation Mistakes – Choice or Embarrassment?”, visited 29 August 2015.