Article by Li Hongyi: “A common problem in innovation programs is that we do not know what we are innovating for. Are we trying to reduce costs? Improve usability? Save time? Or are we just trying to do something “new”? Without a clear goal your only reference point is what you are already doing. Then your only source of feedback is whether anyone is unhappy about change: and someone always is. So you get stuck, wanting to innovate but not able to move.
Conversely, when you have a clear goal you can be very flexible about how to get there. In the private sector, it might be profit. In F1, it is lap time. In AI, it is quality benchmark scores. Once you know what you are trying to achieve, you can stop obsessing over how you achieve it. Good metrics tell you what to care about, but also what not to care about.
Practically, even when a public sector team manages to overcome the bureaucracy, technical challenges, and operations to build something really good and present it to leadership, it often gets shot down with a simple “That’s not how we do things”. This is not really anyone’s fault. It is hard to make something new happen when your job is to make sure nothing bad ever happens…(More)”.
