#6 – The 5-Minute Innovator: Incremental vs. Radical Innovation
This is part of a series, "The 5-Minute Innovator", which describes concepts and theories in the field of innovation without jargon and in no more than 1200 words, which you can read in five minutes without being a speed-reader. May contain traces of snark.
What is it?
A key question in innovation has always been whether size matters. No, not like that, get your mind out of the gutter, but rather just how "big", in e.g. impact or novelty, an innovation has to be to count. At the extremes, the question is rather easy. Few would consider accenting an existing tool with a new color as innovation, and the emergence of a whole new kind of AI (like the introduction of ChatGPT) is self-evidently an AI. But what about the in-between cases, and how can we separate something like ChatGPT from e.g. creating a clearly better screwdriver? This is where the separation between radical and incremental innovation comes in. ChatGPT was, undoubtedly, a radical innovation – it changed not only how we viewed AI, but has the potential to change the way we work, the way we communicate, and so on. The alternative would be to take an innovation that already exists, and make it just a bit better. We might for instance say that the first iPhone was a radical innovation, but when we compare the iPhone 14 with the 15, the changes are less impressive (better camera, better processor, and USB-C, plus some smaller things). We would thus say that compared to the 14, the iPhone 15 is an incremental innovation, even if the iPhone in and of itself was a radical one.
What this implies is that innovation can be placed on a sliding scale of just how impactful and novel they are, and at some point this makes an innovation radical rather than incremental. Now, this is of course something that exists only in context – the radical or incremental nature of an innovation depends on what we compare with and at what time we are doing our analysis. It also isn't the case that there would be some magical barrier at which point an innovation switches from being one to being the other. Radicality (or the lack thereof) is a continuum, and more a question of how we make sense of innovations than something inherent in them. You can't be a little bit married, but an innovation can well be described as "somewhat radical". In fact, some innovations will seem radical in one context whereas they would be incremental in another. The categories are thus not absolute, but rather a way to compare and contrast.
This of course doesn't stop e.g. companies from trying to claim that their new products are radical rather than incremental – there exist no laws regarding what counts as one or the other, and exaggeration is not uncommon in the world of innovation. Thus, I have seen a pencil sharpener for classroom use marketed as nothing less than a 'revolution' in pencil sharpening, as ridiculous as that sounds. Our task as members of society is to keep a clear mind when it comes to the impact of innovations, and to be careful about how claims of radicality are made. This also means that we need to pay attention to the tremendous amount of work that goes into creating what appears to be an incremental innovation. In the case of the iPhone, the manner in which Apple continuously improves their cameras might seem like the epitome of incrementalism (who, really, cares about mega-pixels anymore?), but this doesn't mean that fitting better cameras into ever-smaller spaces cannot contain radical innovations of its own. In many cases, our technologies are already so developed that incremental innovation is all we can wish for, and not all radical novelties are worth the effort. Still, we need to be able to contrast and compare innovations, not least to ensure that we're focusing on the right things, and the longevity of the concepts incremental vs. radical show that they've been useful.
Why is it important?
It would be a massive misunderstanding to look at all this and think that the aim is to make sure we have more radical and less incremental innovation. In fact, the opposite might be the case! As radical innovation is costly and risky, incremental innovation can at times be far more valuable. That said, if a field (or, for that matter, a nation) is lacking in radical innovations this can be a sign of deeper issues. The best way to think about all this might be to see it from a portfolio-perspective. No matter if we're talking about a company or a country, you need to have both a healthy amount of incremental innovations, to ensure that we're improving upon things, and some radical innovation, to challenge the status quo. The exact balances between these have then been debated ad nauseam, with claims made that 98% of innovations in fact are incremental (but I've never found good evidence for this) and that there is a great need for more radical innovation. For most companies, any innovation is better than no innovation, and incremental innovation can well lead to the radical kind. Often it is best just to relax about it.
What now?
As we enter into a time with more and more AI-driven innovation, it will be interesting to see where the real impact will lie. An argument could be made that since today's AIs are to a great deal beholden to what has been, they are more likely to suggest many incremental improvements, as they can collate insights from far more fields than humans can. It is also possible that the "boundless" nature of AIs (in that they will always try their best and not let things such as norms limit them) would help in developing the kind of out-there ideas that can give rise to radical innovation. Time will tell which of these possibilities will play out. It should also be noted that whilst radical innovations in energy and green technology would of course be a godsend, what we need right now is a lot of incremental innovation in things such as manufacturing processes and so on, to ensure that we can keep our societies going without overtaxing the resources of our planet. We don't really need more radical consumer products right now, we need constant improvement to battle waste and overconsumption.
Where can I learn more?
There is no end to the number of books promising you the secret behind radical innovation. I have a burning hatred against such books, plus they tend to be quite dreary, so I won't recommend any of them. Abernathy & Clark (1985) is a classic article on forms of technological innovation, and still worthy of a read. A newer piece on not ignoring incremental innovation is the 2018 piece by Marcel Corstjens in HBR. Also see the 2007 report from NESTA about hidden innovation! More importantly, think for yourself: What makes something a radical development for you? What, for you, is 'only' incremental innovation?