Make things people need
During November, we explore four mental models related to transformation and change. By the end of this month, you will have strengthened your innovator’s toolkit with these new principles and ideas.
Today we look at compatibility.
Your Snapshot
A quick synthesis of this issue to share
💡 Everett Rogers identified innovation attributes: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability.
💡 Compatibility is perhaps the most important when considering whether an innovation will be successful.
💡 Your innovation must be compatible with existing values, beliefs and practices for it to be adopted.
💡 To improve the compatibility of your ideas, engage in a design process, take time to understand your community’s needs and listen to feedback.
What does compatibility mean for innovation?
Everett Rogers, a communication studies professor, identified innovation attributes in his book Diffusion of Innovations: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability.
Of these attributes, compatibility is perhaps the most important when considering whether an innovation will be successful. Your innovation must be compatible with existing values, beliefs, and practices for it to be adopted.
For example, a new platform for sharing school news with parents may be incompatible with how they interact with information or access communications.
For your innovation to be a good fit for your school community, it must first overcome this compatibility barrier. When evaluating your ideas in the creative process, it is essential to consider whether it is compatible with the existing lived experience and community context.
Otherwise, the innovation may never take off.
Five characteristics of innovations
- Relative Advantage — The degree to which an innovation is seen as better than the idea, program, or product it replaces.
- Compatibility — How consistent the innovation is with the values, experiences, and needs of the potential adopters.
- Complexity — How difficult the innovation is to understand and/or use.
- Trial ability — The extent to which the innovation can be tested or experimented with before a commitment to adopt is made.
- Observability — The extent to which the innovation provides tangible results.
(Source: Diffusion of Innovations Theory — Adoption and Diffusion)
Compatibility is vital for a successful #innovation.
By definition, an innovation is something new and different; the word has roots in the late Latin word innovare, “to change; to renew,” This means it has the potential to disrupt the status quo.
For an innovation to be successful, it must be able to integrate into the existing ecosystem. It must be compatible enough with how things are currently done and create a tolerable level of disruption.
This is why so many successful innovations are incremental rather than radical — they build on existing systems and processes rather than trying to replace them. Compatibility is critical for successful innovation.
How to improve the compatibility of your ideas
Transformation, change and innovation can be a source of friction within an organisation, as new ideas can clash with existing processes and culture.
To improve the compatibility of your innovation, take time to understand your community’s needs and listen to feedback. By understanding the constraints within which your innovation must operate, you can develop a more realistic and achievable plan for implementation.
Additionally, by listening to feedback and stories of the people you are helping, you identify potential problems and make changes to address them.
The caveat is that sometimes we work with people who cannot articulate their needs. The transformational design work at the heart of successful innovation engages deeply with identifying unmet needs. We cannot dream up these insights from a meeting room; we must immerse ourselves in our community’s experiences.
A more precise understanding of what might work and what is compatible creates a mental model or framework for filtering during ideation.
⏭🎯 Your Next Steps
Commit to action and turn words into works
- Engage with the design process to uncover unmet needs.
- Evaluate potential ideas against compatibility criteria.
- Test and prototype with users to gain feedback on what works for them
- Analyse results, iterate, and refine your innovation until you have a successful fit for your school community.
🗣💬 Your Talking Points
Lead a team dialogue with these provocations
- How is our innovation compatible with the existing context?
- What impact do we want to have, and how can that help guide our decision-making?
- What feedback do we need from users to ensure compatibility with our innovation?
🕳🐇 Down the Rabbit Hole
Still curious? Explore some further readings
⟶ 5 Idea Characteristics to Increase Traction and Adoption [Tom Barrett] “Focusing on labelling people and their response to the idea is a dead end. It is much more helpful to think about the characteristics of your idea that might be changed to encourage adoption and acceptance.”
⟶ Finding and Growing the Islands of Innovation inside a large company [Steve Blank] “A first place to start was with the innovation heroes/rebels. They often know where all the innovation bodies were buried. But Anthony’s insight was he needed to get out of his 8th floor office and spend time where his company’s products and services were being developed and delivered.”
⟶ Making Things People Want > Making People Want Things [John Willshire] “MTPW > MPWT is a bridge between realms, spanning a chasm against the background of the times we live in. For too long, most companies have been content to simply exploit existing demand, and now find themselves unable to change.”