Hitting Comets & Managing Innovation

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We read a lot these days about innovation and “failing fast.” We read a lot about “lean startups” and rapid iterations to arrive at successful products and services. The Deep Impact story makes these endeavors seem simple by comparison, but it also puts these ideas in stark relief.

For those not familiar with Deep Impact, the objective was to send an “impactor” to hit a comet (Tempel 1) that was 83 million miles away from Earth and traveling at 64,000mph. The collision would kick up a bunch of ice and dust, which would be photographed by a “flyby” craft and several terrestrial and orbital telescopes, including the Hubble.

To spoil the ending (for those not already familiar with it), the project was a major success. The impactor struck its mark at the precise time and location as planned. The images returned were spectacular to say the least.

It is easy to think of this story as an exercise in explaining complex science. There is plenty of that, but this story is a good read for managers and executives because it covers so much about innovation leadership and management of massively uncertain endeavors. Here are just a few of the lessons that I derived from it.

• Strive for a common, cannot-fail goal. At its core, the Deep Impact story is about a team of people committed to a clear goal: Hit a comet millions of miles away, so the results can be photographed. This commitment focused everyone involved so that they deeply understood their roles, their dependencies, and their relationships to everyone else striving for the same goal. No one in this story is punching the clock with no idea what the work means. Too many of our much simpler projects have no clearly stated goals and therefore no measure of success and no common motivation.
• Embrace a trial and error mentality. People working on complex projects with massive amounts of uncertainty need to have the space and time to build, test, and learn repeatedly. Expect solutions to one problem to bring to light new problems that need to be solved. Failure is a byproduct of moving toward a common goal. Expect it, but make sure it yields knowledge of how to do it better.
• Get creative. Creative problem-solving is essential to overcoming massive uncertainty. There is a great story about how the team conducted “acoustic testing” on the Deep Impact spacecraft. They needed to find a way to create 143dB of noise (13 times louder than a typical rock concert) to ensure the payload could survive the roar of the rockets. They turned to Maryland Sound International and borrowed speakers for an upcoming Hall & Oates tour.

There is a lot more to the story, including good lessons about keeping people motivated, dealing with partner organizations with different motivations, and delivering bad news early. Stories like Deep Impact help us see innovation at work in the face of complexity and uncertainty, therefore shedding light on our own management practices.