Incremental Basketball
Tracking innovation
I recently heard a talk by Jack Ma where he shares an anecdote on the invention of basketball. I found the story fascinating and it fits in well with the theme of the article, innovation.
Basketball was invented by Dr. James Naismith in December 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts, as a way to keep athletes in shape during the winter months. He mounted a fruit basket to the lower railing of the gym balcony and used a ball that looked like a football.
The game was designed with 13 rules, players were divided into two teams of 9 players each and, they had to pass the ball around leading to a final shot at the basket. It did not have any of the physical aspects that we are familiar with today. This made the game devoid of any hard physical activity which kept the athletes injury-free during the intertwining months between the football and baseball season.
This construct of the game lasted for more than a decade until one day in 1906 an individual decided to cut off the bottom of the basket — making it easier to retrieve the ball. Until that time the ball had to be retrieved by an individual using a ladder every time someone scored.
Will you term this idea as incremental innovation or radical innovation? As a follow-up, which type of innovation is better? Let’s begin with understanding what these two types of innovation mean and the interplay between the two.
(I have shared my perspectives on Value Innovation, Innovation under Constraints and Building an innovation culture in the past.)
Incremental and radical innovation
Innovation can be defined as the process of translating an idea or invention into a product or service that creates value or for which customers will pay. Interestingly, invention and innovation are often used interchangeably, but they are different. The invention is the act of discovering or creating something new, whereas, innovation is the act of building upon it.
The creation of the telephone was an invention, but the mobile phone is an innovation
When it comes to radical innovation, it can be explained as a leap or a new way of doing things that disrupts the status quo and maximises value creation for all the stakeholders involved. It is a concept that changes the relationship between customers and service providers by way of a new business model, new product categories, invention of new technology, radical policy intervention, etc.
Telemedicine in India is a case in point that illustrates the creation of a new business model that was built at the intersection of technology, policy and user.
The adoption of telemedicine witnessed rapid acceleration across the globe including India, during the pandemic. In India, we already had all the necessary parts of the ecosystem in place,
- be it digital connectivity that connects patients and doctors,
- technology solutions enabling the ecosystem and,
- draft guidelines from a policy standpoint
The lockdown was the tipping point in mass technology adoption, both by the doctors and patients, along with approvals from the Health Ministry — making telemedicine the preferred way of providing care. Since then we have seen an entire ecosystem of offerings being created with customer experience (CX) at the core, spanning care delivery, pharmacy, patient management, diagnostics, and much more.
Road to radical innovation
Now, when we relook at the basketball story, the act of getting rid of the bottom of the basket can be termed as incremental innovation (as you may have guessed it) aka the domino effect. A simple idea that laid the foundation of how the game is played today.
The key learning here is that radical innovation cannot be actively designed, as multiple variables are at play, many of which may not be in our control. Considering this scenario, what is needed is a two-pronged approach.
- Co-creation approach: This enables an organisation to break down the silos and deploy a cross-functional team to improve the efficacy of its solutions.
- Trend mapping: At the same time, being aware of the environment in which the business is operating by actively tracking ongoing developments in the world of technology, policies, economy and environment.
When we put both these together, we are able to design a new business model that can be altered using the identified trends leading to new customer groups, new product offerings and new revenue models. This is something similar to what we saw in the telemedicine example earlier.
This is one of the approaches that I have leveraged across multiple innovation strategy engagements. It had definitely improved the efficacy of the decision-makers when it came to new product development and the strategy planning exercise at large. What’s your take on this? Would love to hear your thoughts.
Until next time!
~ Sajid
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Sajid is a Strategy Consultant who works at the intersection of human behaviour, business design and innovation strategy. He blogs at sknotes and tweets @sajidkhetani
