“The trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table.” -Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From
Such a good quote! We can put it into practice in so many areas of product development:
The innovation phase
You can think “big thoughts” all day, but until you build something, they’re just unbounded ideas
The development phase
Which type of fastener should I use? How do I make this mechanism work? Who knows?
Buy a few options. Build some samples. Make them real and get them on the table
The troubleshooting phase
Creating failure hypotheses is great, but it’s often much more effective to review every failure at once, and start identifying patterns.
How can you get things out of your head and onto the table today?
-Brian Schoolcraft
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