Quantity Over Quality

How often in your life do you hear "Quality over quantity"?

When it comes to creative pursuits, it is terrible advice! Instead, the inverse is true, quantity leads to quality.

Why? The Creative Process is nonlinear.

It is rare that ideas emerge in a single spark of inspiration. Nor do they through a linear process. The innovation process instead is iterative. Learning by doing spurs inspiration, which leads to more avenues of exploration, and so on.

A group of little 'ahas' eventually coalesce into a big 'aha'! Peter Sims calls this process 'taking little bets'.

Leonardo Da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa' didn't happen on the first attempt. Constant experimentation with new ideas led to his masterpiece over several years. Leonardo's notebooks contain tens of thousands of sketches. The sum of these ideas led to his famous artwork.

From a product portfolio perspective, the same rules apply. To generate reallyinnovative product opportunities, organisations need to invest in diversity.

“It’s not about coming up with the ‘right’ idea, it’s about generating the broadest range of possibilities.

D.School, Intro to design thinking.

A recent study of early-stage ventures found that only 1 in 250 $100k innovation projects will become a mega success. Strategyzer's Alex Osterwalder believes leaders need to remove blockers to produce quantity. “We don’t know which business model will succeed, or which project is going to work out. You can’t pick the winner”.

Innovators should push for the widest possible range of ideas, over the single best idea. Over time the best bits develop into a richer solution.