Shipulski On Design

Archive for June, 2026

Innovation is difficult. Often, we argue about the definition of the word at the expense of actually doing the work.  There is sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation, and though they share the same last name, they are not related.  In fact, they cannot exist within the same resource allocation rule set.

A sustaining innovation can be delivered within the existing resource allocation rule set, and disruptive innovation cannot. The resource allocation rule set is an umbrella term for the logic you use to run your business.  Your sales team’s compensation model will fit with a sustaining innovation. They’ll sell the heck out of the sustaining innovation because it amplifies their existing compensation system.  They will NOT sell the disruptive innovation because it violates their existing compensation system.  Think high dollar, high margin, sell just a few units versus low dollar, low margin, many units, sell a boatload of units.

A sustaining innovation can be successful with your existing team’s capability, and disruptive innovation cannot.  For example, if your resource allocation logic caused you to develop the world’s best mechanical engineering team to commercialize your world-leading mechanical product, you will be able to execute a sustaining innovation because you have the mechanical engineering skills to pull it off.  A new product that requires a world-class software team is a disruptive innovation because it violates your resource allocation (invest in mechanical engineers) logic.

A sustaining innovation can succeed within your existing customer base because the value proposition fits with THEIR resource allocation logic.  The previous product helped them make progress (and profit) in a specific way that fits with their resource allocation logic.  For example, if the product helped them make their products faster, a sustaining innovation will improve on that value proposition and help them go even faster.  A disruptive innovation will deliver on a whole new value proposition.  For example, where the previous product delivered speed, the disruptive innovation delivers improved portability.  And if the customer has invested in a system that is stationary, the innovation will be disruptive because it will not fit with their resource allocation choices.

Sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation are both good, and I’m not judging one over the other.  The point I want to make is that sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation cannot coexist within the same resource allocation logic space.  Said differently, to succeed, they need to be brought to life in different resource allocation frameworks.

When you’re doing innovation, I think it’s important to know whether it’s sustaining or disruptive.

Image credit – Angela Kanner

Progress is made through the processes you have, so it’s helpful to define your processes

Work is done with the tools you have, so make a list of your tools.

Teams are made from the people you have, so create a spreadsheet of the people you have and their knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Projects are completed with processes, tools, and people you have, so measure the goodness and timeliness of your projects.

Improvements of your processes start with the processes you have.

Improvements of your tools start with the tools you have.

Improvements of your projects start with processes, tools, and people you have.

Improvements in your progress are measured against how you do it now.

We get caught up in creating idealized future states and North Stars.  I think it’s more effective to define things as they are and set a direction from there.

Journeys start from where you are, so why not figure out where you are?

Image credit — JOP

China, as a country, is eating important industries.  Here’s the process.  They choose an industry that they want to eat; they coordinate their massive network of world-class suppliers and OEMs and let them compete against each other; they create unmatched manufacturing scale; they innovate faster than imaginable; they design and commercialize products that work well and are priced far less than the competition; they sell those killer products to customers in other countries. They start in the east and move west country-by-country and displace in-country manufacturers one-by-one.

The best example is the Electric Vehicle (EV) industry.  Their cars look great, perform well,  have new and interesting features, and cost far less. In Europe, the Chinese EVs are displacing the cars made by European manufacturers.  And the same thing is happening in other countries.

If China decides it wants to eat your industry, you’ll lose if you try to compete head-to-head with them.  You cannot out-scale them, and you can’t outlast them.  Simply put, you cannot beat them at their game.  And that’s why it’s time to play a different game.

Here are some new ways to think that may help you win a different game.

Less With Far Less – Turn more with less on its head.  Instead of bigger for the same price, think smaller for a far lower price.  Instead of more performance, think less performance for a far lower price.  Instead of more range, think less range with a radically lower price.  I don’t know what will come of it, but you will be working in new design space.  Other companies will not compete with you because they’ll think you’re nuts for working in that space.  It could give you time to get out in front and create a new market or industry.

Partnership Of Rivals – Turn the company with the rival technology into a partner.  Ask them to co-create a hybrid product that brings together the best of your technology and theirs.  Because you’re rivals, your partnership will be unimaginable, and no one will see it coming.  I don’t know what’s possible when you combine forces with your rival, but neither do you.  However, I know the design is uninvestigated, and you have an opportunity to create a new product category.

Obsolete Your Best Work – Create the conditions for your teams to purposefully and vigorously obsolete your best product.  Incentivize them to create something that will make your customers throw away your best product and buy two of the new ones. This will accelerate innovation and open up new design space.  I don’t know what your team will come up with, and neither do you.  But it will be exciting and different.  And no one will expect you to obsolete your best work, so you’ll catch them off guard when you reinvent your industry.

Learn What Your Company Already Knows – Your teams have demonstrated technologies in the lab that would radically slash the cost signature of your product, but you don’t know about them. You have prototypes that would create new industries, but you don’t know about them.  You have people in your company who have solved intractable problems that would underpin a new generation of products, but you don’t know about them.  You have unimaginable gems that your teams have created from things that don’t belong together, but you don’t know about them.  And because these crazy prototypes defy logic, you have the opportunity to create a new category in a compete-with-no-one way.

If you battle China with traditional thinking, I think you’ll lose.  If you employ new thinking, you could live to fight another day.

Image credit – pete beard