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REQUISITE VARIETY OF EXPERTISE WITHIN

A GROUP IN IDEA GENERATION

ANU SUOMINEN MSc., PhD-student

JARI JUSSILA MSc., PhD-student

Co-writers:

Heli Aramo-Immonen, PhD

Dr. Kaj U. Koskinen, docent

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Pauling:

”The best way to have a

good idea is to have lots

of ideas…”

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INTRODUCTION: TERMS

CREATIVITY

• Individual’s capability

• Within every person

• Involved in all human activities (with problem solving etc.)

• Prerequisite for organizational innovation

INNOVATION by OECD

“...the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (goods or services), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organisational method in business practices, workplace organisation or external relations.”

IDEA GENERATION

• The 1st phase of innovation process

• Without any ideas, no innovations will emerge

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CREATIVITY AND IT’S LINK TO INNOVATION

Expertise

Creativity

Skills

Creativity

Task

Motivation

Management

practises

Organizational

Motivation

Innovation

Resources

Creativity feeds

innovation

IMP

AC

TS

Work

Environment

Individual/Team

Creativity

Expertise

Creativity

Skills

Creativity

Task

MotivationExpertise

Creativity

Skills

Creativity

Task

Motivation

Management

practises

Organizational

Motivation

Innovation

Resources

Creativity feeds

innovation

IMP

AC

TS

Work

Environment

Individual/Team

Creativity Amabile CTC, CTOCI (1997)

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REQUISITE VARIETY

Asbhy’s Law of Requisite variety:

• the internal complexity of a system should correspond to the multiplicity and

complexity of the environment; otherwise the system will not function

effectively enough in its environment

Innovation requires Requisite variety:

• diversity is necessity (Florida)

• value of diversity (Martins & Terblanche)

• diverse range of skills; Hybrid nature of people and managers (Trott)

• team diversity (Farr et al.)

• Requisite variety of information (Nonaka & Takeuchi)

• Leveraging diversity: seeing differences as richness, being able to benefit

from different viewpoints and opinions

• Requisite variety: employment of range of people with different

backgrounds and skills

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EXPERTISE

Professional expertise:

• includes the mastery of job-related knowledge: technical, professional, or

managerial

• the motivation to use, develop, and share work-related knowledge with others

• Expertise & Challenges => Flow (Csikszentmihalyi)

Self-development

• different levels

• most basic level: used to sustain the current professional and technical expertise

• higher levels: extending knowledge beyond the current work tasks or current field

of expertise

Creative tension (Senge)

• is generated by the difference between a vision and a clear picture of current

reality (where we are relative to what we want) - a force to bring them together

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METHODOLOGY: CASE STUDY

4 TEST GROUPS:

Test persons from many industrial branches

Technically oriented people

GROUP 1: Experienced experts with higher level technical education

GROUP 2: Experienced experts with lower level technical education

GROUP 3: Less experienced, young experts

with higher level tehcnical education

GROUP 4: mixed group with bothh young and older experts with both higher and lower level technical education

• Expertise minimum: 5 years in project work

• Higher education minimum: BSc or MSc or corresponding

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METHODOLOGY: CASE STUDY

TWO TEST SETTINGS:

1. Individual test

• Four types of innovations were studied:

• 4 P = Product, Process, Position, Paradigm

• paper and pencil

• look at the video

• simultaneously capture as many ideas of four innovation types as

possible

• write them down

2. Pair test

• Same procedure with pair

• Conversation allowed (and encouraged)

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RESULTS

Quantity Quality

GROUPS 1 SETTING

Average amount

of ideas

2nd SETTING

ideas per group

2nd SETTING

1 (4+7) EXPERIENCED

EXPERTS

WITH HIGH

EDUCATION

Average: 51,6

ideas per group

Group 2 generated

only 3,45 ideas

per person

Group 4 generated

most ideas:

10,42 per person

Group 1

generated

altogether most

ideas: 77 pcs

Average:

15 % more with

pairs

50 %

Position & Paradigm innovations

(especially in the Test setting 2)

2 (11) EXPERIENCED

EXPERTS

WITH LOWER

EDUCATION

44 % of just Product innovations

3 (7) YOUNGER

EXPERTS WITH

HIGHER EDUCATION

40 % Position & Paradigm

innovations

4 (7) MIXED 65 % of Product & Process

innovations

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RESULTS

Test setting 1:

• ideas by individuals: 0 - 31pcs

• 12 ideas on the average

Test setting 2:

• with pairs 15 % more ideas on the average

• people generate even more ideas while working in

pairs than as individuals.

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RESULTS

• the mixed age structure and variation of expertise and

experience also influenced on the capability to capture the ideas

from the video (group 4)

• the lower the education level of the test group was => the less

new ideas were generated (group 2)

• the higher the education was, the higher the quality of ideas

was (group 1 and group 3); process and paradigm innovations =>

more complex ideas

• the highest number of new ideas was generated by the

homogeneous group of highly educated expertise in the

second phase as working in pairs (group 1)

• both the expertise group (group 1) and mixed group (group 4)

were able to generate over 70 pieces of different ideas in two

times 13 minutes sessions

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RESULTS

• people of all backgrounds generate ideas

• requisite variety of expertise adds both to the

quantity and quality of idea generation in a group

• working additionally with pairs adds considerably

to the quantity of the generated ideas

pair working causes stimuli to idea generation

and also pairs learn from each other while

generating ideas together

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CONCLUSIONS

The requisite variety of expertise

• important feature in idea generation within a group • grows the quantity of the generated ideas

• expertise generate more complex ideas, but Innovations require a lot of new ideas – and especially different types of ideas

Working in pairs:

• Two people working together generate greater number of ideas than two individuals accumulated singularly

• people learn from each other during idea generation

Working in a project work context:

• working in mixed groups conducts more new ideas => fruitful to have mixed aged groups

• expertise is partially based on experience

• variation in individual’s capability to idea generation creates a risk of failure in innovation process, whereas working in teams reduces the risk significantly

Organizations should build up groups with people having various types of expertise and ages; also working as pairs or within a group should be encouraged, in order the idea generation to flourish in organizations

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

CONTACT INFORMATION

Tampere University of Technology at Pori

PL 300, 28101 PORI, FINLAND

Anu Suominen

E-mail: anu.suominen@tut.fi

GSM: +358 40 556 2303

Jari Jussila

E-mail: jari.j.jussila@tut.fi

GSM: +358 407178345