Balancing Optimization and Innovation

Curated Learning Resources

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  Designing an Organization that Can Optimize and Innovate

  Andy Johns, President, Wealthfront

  Andy argues that the most common drawback of functional organizations is that they start to over-index on business growth, and aren't designed to provide new and innovative value to customers (as opposed to optimizing the existing value propositions). The solutions are to design product organizations around the needs of the user and to provide explicit guidance on how to balance effort between optimization and innovation by product group.

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  Manage Your Time Like Google Invests its Resources: 70/20/10

  Noah Weiss, Chief Product Officer, Slack

  Noah discusses the importance of balancing innovation and optimization in product management. He draws a parallel between Google's investment approach and how product managers should allocate their time. Google spends 70% of its time on core search and ads, 20% on adjacent businesses, and 10% on new ideas. He suggests that product managers should allocate 70% of their time on short-term tasks, 20% on tasks up to a quarter out, and 10% on further-out tasks. He also highlights the importance of consistency and avoiding lumpiness in time allocation, as well as observing and looking for clues in short-term tasks that can lead to new ideas.

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  Dealing with “shiny objects”: tips for using both sides of your brain

  Steven Sinofsky, Board Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

  Companies need to balance focusing on existing products while also innovating new products and technologies. This is challenging but important for growth. Individuals within companies also need to exercise both sides of their brain by exploring new technologies while completing their day-to-day responsibilities. Steven recommends that engineers attend Conferences outside their expertise, explore new topics on their own, write about their ideas, and maintain a list of interesting technologies to expose themselves to new concepts that can spark innovation within their work. This cross-training of the brain can help them think beyond their specialist role and generate new ideas.

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