This book defines innovation as both a problem and a problem-solving process. It allows readers to approach innovation as a straight-forward problem solving process, and teaches them the paired constraint process to solve specific innovation problems.
The authors have used their experience working in creative industries, combined with their academic perspective to create a formal, teachable tool for solving innovation problems. This consists of a formal structure (the problem space), a functional strategy(the paired constraints) and process. (solution by substitution).
This book provides a practice section, allowing anyone interested in solving the problem of innovation to learn and develop their skills.

Pat's Preface Reversing the order of the title (Using Constraints to Solve Innovation Problems), I'll start with the two parts of an innovation problem and then briefly (very briefly) introduce a practical problem-solving framework you can use to solve both.
The Innovation Problem
The innovation problem has two parts: how do you start, and how do you sustain, innovation. The problem-solving framework has three parts: a structure (the problem space), a strategy (the paired constraints), and a process (solution-by-substitution).
Here's my short, much over-simplified, preview.
How do you start doing something new? You start very specifically. You identify a current product/style/situation to work against. This becomes the initial state in your problem space. You then select one element, just one, in that product/style/situation to preclude. Next you select/promote a substitute. Once the preclude-promote pairing begins, it becomes self-sustaining: one substitution suggests or requires another. I call the process solution-by-substitution. The substitution series is the solution path that solves the innovation problem (Stokes, 2006).
Haven't you also said that the solution path is itself the innovation?
Yes, it is. Thanks for reminding me.
How do you continue doing something new? You start over. Only now, your initial solution becomes the initial state.
Where do the substitutions come from? The tool box, the one in your head, the one you can't think outside of. The contents of the tool box are your expertise— what you know about your domain and what you can do with what you know.
These are what I call basics. Borrowing from other experts, and from other domains, are what make your tool box bigger.
Pat, you should tell them more about the tool box.
I will, later. (See Digression II).
Two Examples
Example I: Two authors, two-voices. The hardest part of writing a book is starting it. This is because all books (like all problems) are only realized, structured, and restructured as they are written.1 The solution path for any book is the finished book. This book had an additional difficulty. It was not just that there were co-authors, Michael and me. It was also that we wanted the book to reflect the conversations that created it. To do this would require a number of substitutions, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Two-voices problem
Initial state: Co-authors, one style
Search space Constraint pairs
Preclude ➔ Promote
Continuous narrative Conversation
Single voice/style Dual voices/styles
Shared type face Distinctive type faces
Goal state: Co-authors, two styles
The first substitution precluded a continuous narrative and, in its place, substituted a conversation, its exact form unspecified at first, but suggesting separately written sections interrupted (as conversations are) with comments, suggestions, digressions, questions. The second followed from the first: preclude a single voice and promote dual, distinct voices. The third followed from the second: distinct voices suggested distinct type faces. This is my (Pat's) type face. Michael's is this (italic).
An important, albeit partial, borrowing for the structure was a book in the form of a continuous conversation.
1Annie Dillard (wisely) wrote that the early chapters, especially the earliest which has become so that it is so familiar that it feels indispensable, must be revised because the book does not find its form so fast (Dillard, 1989).
Between?
Edward Said, the literary critic, and Daniel Barenboim, the pianist/conductor (Barenboim & Said, 2004).
Example II: Monet's Innovation—Impressionism. I thought we should have a more complete (albeit abbreviated) example (Stokes, 2001, 2011). So, Monet, a painter I hope is familiar to most of you. Monet's innovation, Impressionism, began with a borrowing, a color wheel published in a Parisian newspaper by a chemist named Chevreul. The wheel, which broke light up into 72 segments gave Monet both his continuing goal (show how light breaks up) and his first sub-goal (on things). Showing how depended on his existing and expanding expertise as a painter. The italics are important: substitutions are additions—new ways of making and of noticing—to an innovator's tool box.
Given the new goal, how did Monet start to do his something new?
With a single substitution (the first constraint pair in Table 2). He precluded contrasts in value (dark-light) and substituted/promoted contrasts in hue. If we think of hue as pure color, this pairing also substituted pure for mixed colors. It also suggested, in fact required, a second pairing (preclude depth, promote surface) and a third (preclude continuous brush strokes, promote a mosaic of separate color patches). The first three produce the fourth, preclude depth, and promote surface.
Table 2 Monet's first substitution series
Initial state 1: Show how things look (traditional landscape painting)
Search space
Constraint pairs
Preclude ➔ Promote
Contrasts in value Contrasts in hue
Mixed colors Pure colors
Continuity strokes Separate strokes
Depth Surface
Goal state 1: Show how light breaks up on things
Stop. I've seen your Monet sketches. Can't we include at least one here.
Good idea.
My cartoon version of Regatta at Argenteuil (Fig. 1) shows light breaking up into clear, bright, and clearly separated oblongs of pure color. The houses are sketched in separate strokes of pure cadmiums (red and orange). Their reflections overlap but do not mix with the pure blues of the sky and the pure greens of the trees and grasses. The sails and their reflections also break up (into cream-colored lozenges). The sails are closer to us, so their reflections are larger than those of house and tree, but all three (houses, trees, sailboats) sit on the same surface. Since dark-light contrasts (in value) are precluded, there is no depth separating them.
Fig. 1 Regatta at Argenteuil (1872)
Amazing but only the start—which leads to our next question: How did Monet continue doing something new? The answer is by starting over, re-structuring his own solution, changing his sub-goal from light breaking up on things to light breaking up between things. This shift led to what I call the second substitution series, summarized in Table 3.
Between things means (in French) the enveloppe or (in English) the atmosphere. Since the enveloppe is continuous, the first substitution precluded local color (the green of leaves, the blue of the sky) and promoted shared colors. Since the colors were shared, the original mosaic of separate strokes was precluded and, in its place, a continuous web of common colors was promoted. Finally, since the enveloppe changes continuously, the single study was precluded, and in its place, each image (poplars, haystacks, the façade of the cathedral at Rouen) was painted (again and again) on separate canvases that became a series.
Table 3 Monet's second substitution series
Initial state 2: Show how light breaks up on things
Search space Constraint pairs
Preclude ➔ Promote
Local color Shared color
Separate strokes Web of shared strokes
Single study Series of studies
Goal state 2: Show how light breaks up between things
Images of the series are easy to find online. Just type in Poplars, there are over 20 paintings in the series. You should also look at images of his third and most radical innovation, the Grandes Decorations, which I've discussed in great detail elsewhere. Start with Water Lilies—Reflections of the Willow.
Michael's Preface
My interest in constraints started as a Bachelor Honors student at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, back in 1998. I was renting a granny flat with a parish priest. The priest was a thoughtful, bookish man and he encouraged me to explore his extensive library. One cold winter evening, looking for something to keep me in front of the one source of heat in the house (an open fireplace), I stumbled over an A-4 sized manuscript, which seemed to be a bound thesis of some kind. It wasn't thick, maybe 150 pages or so, and had the intriguing title "Modeling Complexity." Its author was the late Paul Cilliers, and it was his Ph.D. thesis at Cambridge (under the supervision of Marie Hesse).
It was, I think, the first Ph.D. thesis I ever read, and I was awestruck by some of the statements, in particular the idea that boundaries and constraints are both enabling and constraining. In the sense that while they separate, they also unify since they constitute that which they bound.
My landlord could see my fascination with the manuscript and told me that Paul Cilliers was a Professor of Philosophy at Stellenbosch University, and so we got together. The various excellent dinners at Paul's house that winter (aided by venerable old reds from the Western Cape) were foundational in my interest in the ambivalent nature of constraints, in their role as innovation drivers. Several special issues, books, and articles later, Pat and I crossed paths and realized we had been working on the same topic, but from different directions, and the idea for this book was born.
My background (aside from cooking) is business management, with master's and Ph.D. theses on strategic renewal. The first academic job I got was as a Professor of Marketing at Milan's Bocconi University, and the title stuck. Much of my research focused on innovation management under constraints, but constraints defined in a more traditional, standard dictionary way. This way. According to Webster's, constraint is derived from two Latin words, con (together) and stringere (to draw tight). "To draw tightly together" becomes, in the standard definition, confinement or restriction, compulsion or coercion. Constraints of this kind generate a kind of innovation problem, commonly known as a problem of necessity (Hoegel, Gibbert, & Mazursky, 2008). Popular parlance has it that necessity is the mother of innovation, but innovation is not an immaculate conception, which leads to my first question.
Michael's Questions
If necessity is the mother of innovation, who is the father? I find this analogy striking. Think about it. Unless there is some kind of added ingredient, constraints are simply counterproductive when it comes to innovation. The thesis of this book is obviously that they are not counterproductive. A promising candidate for the added ingredient is the second of the constraint pairs that Pat introduced. The first, as expected, precludes. The second, unexpectedly, promotes the substitutions that father the innovation. Interestingly, very interestingly, this dual role also appears in postmodern philosophy. So, to answer Pat's earlier question, let me elaborate (briefly here) on boundaries and constraints in this more inclusive sense.
Wait! Wait! Couldn't we extend the analogy further? The Mother of Invention (Necessity), The Father (Strategy or Philosophy), The Fairy Godmother (Opportunity).
Wait Pat. Let me follow my train of thought first
How can boundaries both enable and constrain? The inclusiveness here comes from seeing boundaries and constraints as both enabling and constraining. When I say "boundaries" I really mean constraints, things that hold us back. Our natural reactions to things that hold us back are either (1) to literally and figuratively break through them to get to the other side somehow or (2) to accept them as impenetrable and submit to their dividing our space. But there is another reaction, I think. And that reaction is what this book is about.
Let's go back to Paul Cilliers' thesis (1998). Boundaries separate one thing from another and yet, automatically, they are also part of the things that they set apart. They are both the problem and the solution. Many approaches in systems thinking rely on a similar idea—the interdependence of problem and solution. For example, obliquity refers, not to taking a direct solution path (the one which perhaps is most immediately available, though not necessarily the most efficient or creative), but rather to taking a detour. The question is: which detour? In theory, the number of detours (think of the possible paths in Pat's search space) is limitless. Without guidance, detouring leads everywhere. Too much guidance leads to more of the same. It's in this area where I see boundaries and constraints as instrumental. If we cannot follow the intuitive, direct, solution path, we need to take the detour—and constraints point us in the right direction, to the right detour.
Why is less more, but not for everyone? Let me answer with an example. There's a saying in the Finnish army: if three soldiers cannot move the cannon, take one away. In another army, another soldier is summoned. In a third, the cannon is abandoned. The different responses depend on whether constraints (the immovable cannon, the adequacy of resources to move it) are seen as enabling or disabling (Gibbert, Valikangas, & Hoegl, 2009).
We can sort these views into four categories, each defined by how individuals respond to abundant vs constrained resources. The Finns are among the "Resourceful" who make a lot of a little. (Constraints are enabling.) Adding another soldier is the response of the "Resource-Driven" for whom high input leads to high output. (With abundance, there is no constraint). Abandoning the cannon could be the response of two different groups (for two different reasons): the "Resource Victims" who act as if that low input must lead to low output. (Constraints are disabling), and the "Resource Burners" who make too little of what they have (The disabling constraint here is the inadequate response, given the adequate material resources).
So, less is only more if you're in the Finnish Army?
At least when it comes to cannons.
References
Barenboim, D. & Said, E. D. (2004). Parallels and paradoxes. New York: Vintage Books.
Cilliers, P. (1998). Complexity and postmodernism. New York: Routledge.
Dillard, A. (1989). The writing life. New York: Harper & Row.
Gibbert, M., Valikangas, L. & Hoegl, M. (2009). Scarce resources inspire creativity. MIT Sloan Management Review online publication. http://sloanreview.mit.edu/improvisations/2009/04/ 08/scarce-resources-inspire-creativity/.
Hoegl, M., Gibbert, M. & Mazursky, D. (2008). Financial constraints in innovation projects: When is less more? Research Policy, 37(8), 1382–1391.
Stokes, P. D. (2001). Variability, constraints, and creativity: Shedding light on Claude Monet. American Psychologist, 36, 355–359.
Stokes, P. D. (2006). Creativity from constraints: The psychology of breakthrough. New York: Springer.
Stokes, P. D. (2011). Claude Monet 1840–1926. In M. A. Runco & S. Pritzker (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Creativity (2nd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 136–139). London: Elsevier.

1 Innovation Is a Problem-Solving Process. Part I: Structure 1

Problem Spaces 1

      The Paradoxes in Innovation Problems 4

      Innovating as Re-Structuring: Four Possibilities 4

      How Innovative Is a Re-Structuring? 7

Summing Up: Structure 8

Digression I: The Problem Solvers 8

      The Subjectivity of Problem Solvers 9

References 11

2 Innovation Is a Problem-Solving Process. Part II: Strategy 13

The Strategy: Paired Constraints 14

The Process: Solution-by-Substitution 16

      Pat's Example: Peasant Pesto 16

      Michael's Example: Feature Deletion and Re-categorization 17

Closing Thought: The Importance of the Initial State 18

Digression II: Thinking Inside the (Tool) Box 19

      The Contents of the Tool Box 19

Other Things to Remember 25

References 25

3 What's Your Problem? An Innovation Typology 27

The Matrix 28

Category I: Same Path/Same Goal ! New Path/Same Goal 28

Category II: New Path/Same Goal 29

      Necessity 29

      Desirability 29

Category III: Same Path/New Goal ! New Path/New Goal 30

Category IV: New Path/New Goal 30

      Opportunity: Something is Noticed 31

      Aspiration: Something is Next 31

The Take-Away: Four Problems/Two Transitions 31

References 32

4 Category I: Same Path/Same Goal to New Path/Same Goal 33

Transition I: Calling the Chauffeur 33

Transition II: Cooking School at Home 34

Transition III: College Classes at Home 36

Transition IV: Flipping the Classroom 37

References 38

5 Category II: New Path/Same Goal 39

Substitutions Required 39

      Margarine, Etc 40

      Skype 40

Substitutions Required and Desired 41

      Sous-Vide I: "Shorting" the Flavor 41

      Fashion I: Interpretation 42

      Fashion II: Reconstruction 43

      Automotive, Etc 44

References 44

6 Category III: Same Path/New Goal to New Path/New Goal 45

Point of Departure I: Modifying an Existing Product 45

Point of Departure II: Modifying an Existing Procedure 46

Point of Departure III: Repositioning an Existing Product 48

Point of Departure IV: Combining Existing Products 49

Reference 50

7 Category IV: New Path/New Goal 51

Opportunity: Something is Noticed 51

      Opportunity I: Starbucks 52

      Opportunity 2: Introducing Only the NUMBERS Count© in Kindergarten and First Grade 52

      Opportunity 3: Sous-Vide II 55

      Opportunity 4: Thumbroll 57

Aspiration: Something is Next 58

      Aspiration 1: Pop Art 58

      Aspiration 2: Roy Lichtenstein 59

      Aspiration 3: The BlaBla Car 62

      Aspiration 4: Pixar 62

      Aspiration 5: Re-enacting the Past 64

References 65

8 Evaluating Usefulness: Other Models and Ours 67

Other Models 67

      Blending, Breaking, and Blending 67

      Boundaries 68

      Bricolage 69

      Collaboration 69

      Design Thinking 69

      Paths 70

      Strategic Insight 70

      Thematic (vs. Taxonomic) Thinking 71

The Unique Contribution of the Paired Constraint Model 73

References 74

9 Putting Paired Constraints into Practice 75

Identifying the Problem 75

      Given Problems 75

      Found Problems 76

Solving the Innovation Problem Part I: Starting to Do Something New 77

Solving the Innovation Problem Part II: Continuing to Do Something New 79

Making Your Tool Box Bigger 79

Appendix A: Coming to Terms with Constraints 81

Appendix B: Opportunity Continued: Expanding Only the NUMBERS Count© in Second and Third Grades 83

Michael Gibbert is a professor of sustainable consumption in the communication science faculty of Svizzera Italiana at Lugano, where he is also the director of the World Challenge Program. He was previously assistant/associate professor at Bocconi University in Milan, research associate at INSEAD, and post-doc at the Yale School of Management. He has authored or co-authored multiple books and journal articles, and has acted as guest editor for journals such as Long Range Planning, Industrial Marketing Management and the Journal of Product Innovation Management.

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