其他地方使用過的問題解決方案，是建構自己解決方案的材料。根據你對自己問題的了解，去尋求其他人在過去解決類似問題的方法。

一般來說，尋求的順序如下：

1 向競爭對手借用構想──評估業界其他有一席之地的公司，針對眼前問題所提供的解決方案如何，以此開始尋求。其最終目的，是要擷取一項解決方案的某些面向，再與另一個方案的其他面向結合，產生全新的混合體。

2 向其他產業借用構想──擷取其他產業中運用成功的構想與概念，然後根據自己的需求去調整。借用其他產業的構想並加以改良，已經成功運用在各種領域之中。

3 向藝術與科學借用構想──看看自然界如何解決這個問題，或是科學界如何處理這類問題，此外也可以觀察娛樂業之中的可行方法。構想俯拾皆是，只待人去取用。

4 向自己的觀察借用構想──觀察員工、顧客與事業夥伴的做法。注意他們已經採行的解決方法，看看這些構想在不同狀況之下是否同樣適用。

5 向其他國家借用構想──看看在不同文化之中，以及在使用不同基礎建設的條件之下，所採行的方式。他們可能會有比你自己國家更有效率的方法，可以解決問這個問題。

大多數關於創新的文章通常都是根據一項迷思，就是孤僻天才獨自奮鬥得出驚人成果。有鑒於此，讓組織更具創新能力的真正關鍵就在於，要讓組織上下更容易進行有效的團隊協同合作。

能夠聚集愈多團隊彼此互動，從中產生的創新便會愈扎實、愈有價值。適切規畫組織，盡可能讓團隊互動，這樣就能營造出理想的環境，讓突破性的新構想能夠一一浮現並引起注意。

為了努力促成集體才智型的創新，很多企業現在都會設立並經營創新實驗室，由企業內不同部門的成員組成團隊，每位成員對於產品研發過程中的各個階段，都具備特定的知識與技能。

值得注意的是，上述創新實驗室和過去臭鼬工廠式的創新方式並不相同。臭鼬工廠是選定特定人組成小型團隊，一切運作獨立於組織之外，目的是要構思出耀眼奪目的創見。創新實驗室則是讓基層員工暫時投入任務專案，由這些員工想出小規模的創見，希望一項創見能夠觸發另一項新創見，藉此追求大規模的創見。因為創新實驗室的成員會在短期內回到各自的工作上，可以帶著這些創見，在未來繼續協同合作。創新實驗室通常能夠為組織上下注入創新思惟，而不是把創新活動集中在特定單位。

要找出絕妙新點子，最好的方法就是投資很多「小賭注」在看來有希望的點子上。愈是到處大量播種、勇敢嘗試，愈清楚什麼可行，什麼行不通。就算某個實驗失敗，也沒什麼大不了，因為你也沒投入太多資源。

這個用來產生創新的「小賭注理論」告訴我們，實驗失敗也不是什麼大不了的事，因為這是產生創意的必要過程。事實上，趁著付出還不多，愈早失敗越好，好過最後花了更高的代價卻陷入死胡同。透過這種不斷重複、試誤的實驗，你會懂得隨時自我修正，不斷進步，最後得到突破性進展。

「小賭注理論」的根據是，我們能夠用一些較小的投資和有創意的方法，來找出可能的出路，進而產生偉大的成果。這種實驗方法的核心精神是，用較小風險和具體的行動，發現一些可行的想法，並加以測試發展。這些想法一開始只是充滿創意的可能方案，然後不斷重覆執行與修正。如果我們想要創造新的事物或解決問題，卻彷彿在茫茫大海中毫無頭緒地摸索，這個方法特別有用。如果我們無法預期會發生什麼事，執行小賭注實驗，可以幫助我們找到可能的影響因素。

The solutions to problems that have been used elsewhere are the construction materials for your own solution. Based on your understanding of your problem, you now do a search for how others have solved comparable problems in the past.

Generally speaking, you search in this order:

1 Borrow ideas from your competitors—start your search by evaluating how other companies already established in your industry provide solutions to the problem at hand. The ultimate aim here is to take aspects of one solution and mix them with aspects of another to come up with a hybrid combination that is new and fresh.

2 Borrow ideas from other industries—take ideas and concepts that are already successfully at work in other industries and adapt them to your specific requirements. Borrowing ideas from other industries and improving on them has been used successfully in every domain imaginable.

3 Borrow ideas from the arts and sciences—see how nature has solved that problem or how those kinds of issues get dealt with in the sciences. You might also look at what works in the entertainment industry. Ideas are everywhere just waiting to be picked up on.

4 Borrow ideas from your own observations—watch what your employees, your customers and your business partners do. Pick up on the solutions they are already using and see whether those ideas can be adapted to a different setting.

5 Borrow ideas from other countries—look at the way things get done in different cultures and using different infrastructure. They may have a more efficient way to solve the problem than is in use in your own country.

Most of what is usually written about innovation is based on the myth of the lone genius working in splendid isolation. With this in mind, the real key to making any organization more innovative is to make it easier for effective group collaboration to occur.

The more teams you can get interacting together, the more robust and worthwhile will be the innovations which flow. Design your organization to maximize group interactions and you create the ideal conditions for breakthrough new ideas to bubble up and get noticed.

In an effort to foster group genius style innovation, many corporations are now creating and maintaining innovation labs—groups made up of people from different corporate functions who have know-how and skills in all phases of the product development cycles.

Notably, these innovation labs are different from the more traditional skunkworks approach to innovation. In a skunkworks, a small group of selected people are isolated and expected to come up with a big flash of insight. Innovation labs take rank-and-file employees on temporary assignment and allow them to come up with small insights, each one hopefully sparking another, in the quest for something big. Since the people in the innovation labs are going back to their normal job assignments very shortly, they can take these new insights with them and keep on collaborating in the future. Innovation labs typically infuse the entire organization with innovative thinking rather than concentrating these activities in one place.

The best way to come up with brilliant new ideas is to discover them by placing lots of "little bets" on promising ideas. By planting lots and lots of seeds, you're then positioned to build further on what works and drop what does not. If an experiment doesn't work out, it's not a major problem because you haven't committed lots of resources to your development project.

This little bets approach to innovation suggests failed experiments are fine, they come with the territory when you're trying to do something fresh and original. In fact, it's better to fail fast while the stakes are low than to head down a blind alley which ends up costing you much more later on. By using an experimental, iterative, trial-and-error approach, you can gradually build a breakthrough and fine tune as you go along.

Little Bets is based on the proposition that we can use a lot of little bets and certain creative methods to identify possibilities and build up to great outcomes. At the core of the experimental approach, little bets are concrete actions taken to discover, test, and develop ideas that are achievable and affordable. They begin as creative possibilities that get iterated and refined over time, and they are particularly valuable when trying to navigate amid uncertainty, create something new, or attend to open-ended problems. When we can't know what's going to happen, little bets help us learn about the factors that can't be understood beforehand.

推薦書單

NO.255 用大隊接力贏得創意
Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration
by 吉斯．索爾（Keith Sawyer）
中文版：《團隊的天才》（天下雜誌，2007）

NO.357 借來的最創意
Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others
by 大衛．科得．莫瑞（David Kord Murray）
中文版：《借用創意，你最快出人頭地》（大是文化，2010）

NO.414 以少博大的小賭注理論
Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries
by 彼得．席姆斯（Peter Sims）
中文版：《花小錢賭贏大生意》（大寫出版，2012）