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The IADS is at a crossroads when it comes to helping its members, by at the same time addressing their most operational questions and coordinating the informational flow, but also helping them to address future challenges, by questioning their methodology and providing a different point of view.

This is the reason why the IADS invited Eugenie Rives to share her view on the management of innovation and transformation, as the Early Project Managing Director at  Project X, Alphabet’s “moonshot factory”. Before joining X, Eugenie led Operations for Google in France and Sub-Saharan Africa. Before Google, Eugenie worked for Alcatel in Mexico city, managing projects to connect cities and public infrastructure online.

Alphabet’s moonshot factory is the place where uncomfortably ambitious, world-changing ideas are developed. These early-stage moonshot teams are exploring radical new ways to solve some of the world’s biggest problems using breakthrough technology. She explained how a moonshot project works.

Introduction: Google Project X’s purpose

Google Project X was created 10 years ago by the Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, to develop the Google of the future. In that framework, Project X’s mission is to invent and launch “moonshot” technologies where world-changing ideas are developed to make the world a better place. Moonshot teams are exploring radical new ways to solve some of the world’s biggest problems that cannot be solved with conventional, incremental ways of thinking and behaving.

A moonshot is a project which sits at the intersection of the 3 following ingredients:

1. A huge problem affecting millions or billions of people,
2. A radical, sci-fi-sounding solution that may seem impossible today,
3. A technology breakthrough giving hope that the solution could be possible in the next 5-10 years.

Managing such projects requires a different thinking process as well as alternative management methods which could inspire retailers.

The “moonshot” factory: a few examples to understand Project X and its variety

Waymo, formerly Project X’s self-driving car project, is the perfect illustration of a “moonshot”. 1.4 million people dying each year in car accidents is a huge problem. LiDAR (machine learning and smart sensors emitting pulses of infrared light instead of radio waves) is a true breakthrough technology which will empower a radical solution: a self-driving car.

Tapestry is a “moonshot” for the electric grid that aims to speed the transition to a resilient, carbon-free electricity system. It develops new computational tools that will create a holistic and dynamic picture of the grid.

Intrinsic is a robotics software and AI “moonshot” working to unlock the creative and economic potential of industrial robotics for businesses, entrepreneurs and developers. The team is developing software tools designed to make industrial robots easier to use and more flexible so that more people can use them to make new products, businesses and services.

Using beams of light, Taara is working to bring high-speed, high-capacity and affordable internet access to the 4 billion unconnected and under-connected people around the world.

Tidal is developing new tools to protect the ocean while preserving its ability to support life and help feed humanity, sustainably. To that end, the team is working with ocean farmers to develop an underwater camera system and a set of machine perception tools.

How does Project X work?

Filtering ideas and building projects 

Teams at Google Project X don’t want to work respecting processes. As a result, there is only one process: filtering. Each potential “moonshot” starts with an idea. A rapid evaluation (a few weeks) of the very interest of the project is done and a small team is created to enter the project’s early stage phase (lasting a few months). If all goes well, it becomes an X project which will last several years. During that phase, the team evaluates the risks and possible applications of the project. The incubation phase lasts 1 to 2 years before ‘graduating’ to become a 100-people project.

There is an additional filter to decide which project to work on, considering there 2 types of projects:

•    The ones with 100% chance of helping 10 million people.

•    The others with 10% chance of helping 1 billion people: this is the kind of project Google Project X is focusing on.

Six principles relying on people and culture

Project X is a “moonshot” in and of itself. Its breakthrough idea isn’t technology: it’s the people, culture, values and practices that can make radical, purpose-driven creativity the path of least resistance. Breakthrough innovation happens when passionate teams of people have the audacity to challenge each other’s perspectives and aim for what seems impossible.

To that end, 6 work principles are applied at every step of the way. Some are counterintuitive to how projects are often managed in companies:

1. Aim for 10X, not 10%: the surprising truth is that it’s often easier to make something 10 times better than it is to make it 10% better. Applying this principle is also more exciting for people involved in the project and forces them to free themselves from existing assumptions, always questioning the status quo.
2. Work on the hardest things first, even if it can be seen as counterintuitive. If someone was asked to train a monkey to stand on a pedestal and recite Shakespeare, most people would start by building the pedestal, because it’s easier even though training the monkey is a crucial task. When taking “moonshots”, it’s almost always best to take on the hardest, most important part of the problem first, rather than waste time on relatively simple tasks that can be achieved later on. Working on the hardest thing first is basically the opposite of what companies usually do: look for the ‘low-hanging fruits’. At Project X, small wins are not considered fulfilling while overcoming significant challenges quickly is.
3. Make contact with the real world. The outside world will always teach things which cannot always be anticipated. The key is to get out and test in the field as early and often as possible. The real world quickly tells what doesn’t work and what can be improved.
4. Fall in love with the problem, not with the solution or not even with the technology. Technology is ‘just’ a tool, not the end game. The starting point for any new challenge should be to focus on the problem and seek to gain a deep understanding of it. That way, people can be more open to new approaches to find the best solution possible. This is a paradigm shift as people to run away from problems as fast as possible.
5. Build in diverse perspectives: innovation happens when creativity is fuelled by diverse teams, communities, cultures, and disciplines, challenging each other to spark even better ideas.
6. Embrace learning, not failure: people should be able to kill the project they are working on, hence killing their jobs. Society has conditioned us to see failure as shameful and best to be avoided at all costs. But taking “moonshots” isn’t possible without failing. So it is crucial to create a culture that makes it psychologically safe for people to fail and reframes each failure as an opportunity to learn. Celebrating such failures as much as successes and valuing each mistake for its lessons is the purpose of ‘Dia de Los Muertos’ events organized to celebrate the death of projects. It is also noted that failures are an intrinsic part of future innovations (what Google calls the “moonshot compost”: every innovation comes from an earlier project that had been stopped). In order to enable teams to be able to kill their projects in a reasonable manner, management is defining with them the bare minimum to be achieved and the no-return points, which are all reviewed at every management checkpoint.

What retail companies can learn: breaking predictability and a few rules

Sometimes counterintuitive, such principles can be interesting to companies in the midst of a transformation process. A lot of CEOs are coming to Project X to know more about the principles and how to apply them to their own teams. Innovation and transformation are not just a team’s problem, they are a company problem. Ikea is a fair example of a company transforming itself by hiring many talents coming from the tech world, bringing them together with the other teams, and empowering them with autonomy and trust. Executives should probably do it first, but the key idea is to have all employees on board to avoid a company working at 2 speeds: the ones innovating and the others. In that sense, CEOs are expected to lead by example as well as be ready to learn from “technical” people.

Innovation can be difficult to implement in companies where resources are limited. Project X’s point of view is that innovation should be a mindset. People and teams should innovate in their own jobs: this is not easy and requires a profound ability to change, but in the end, innovation doesn’t require that many resources.

Trying to break as many rules as possible, Google Project X asks employees to spend 20% of their time on any creative activities (from the doorman to the HR or the CFO). As a result, employees -not only do it- but come back to work with better ideas and feel empowered. It works, as Project X employees are eager to learn and want to make an impact. As a result, they truly use this time in stimulating activities.

When assembling a team, Project X makes sure each person’s background leads to a unique point of view or might mirror someone else’s. People who have wildly divergent paths can break each other’s routines and generate creative connections that aren't likely otherwise. People are encouraged to use ‘and’ instead of ‘but’: it encourages value and constructive feedback.

Finally, the performance management and the incentive scheme are quite different from the ones usually put in place in retail companies. Project X splits incentives as follows:

•    50% on ‘how’: team development, how people are helping others. Of course, it’s more difficult to manage as it’s more impalpable.

•    50% on the what, the result.

Conclusion: innovation is all about shifting perspectives

Being agile by shifting perspectives can be more powerful than being smart. Very often, people think that the answer to a difficult problem has to be complex or expensive. But simply looking at it from a different perspective could uncover simple and efficient answers: working on the hardest things first and spending more time understanding the problem rather than running away from it can make a difference.

As far as transformation is involved, whether it’s about digital or sustainability, it has to infuse the entire company and all the employees to bring actual innovation. Agility has become an important value and skill (even more since Covid): in its own way, Project X is an agile company, shifting paradigms to achieve true innovation.

Credits: IADS