An interesting article about a recently completed six-year study of more than 3,000 executives and 500 innovative entrepreneurs that uncovered the five skills that drive innovation. The five skills are:
Associating: The ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas from different fields.
Questioning: Innovators constantly ask questions that challenge the common wisdom. They ask “why?”, “why not?” and “what if?”
Observing: Discovery-driven executives scrutinize common phenomena, particularly the behavior of potential customers.
Experimenting: Innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots.
Networking: innovators go out of their way to meet people with different ideas and perspectives.
The interesting thing about these skills is that they are also common in the design and UX field.
When working with clients I have to connect unrelated concepts and ideas, question common thinking, observe (especially potential customers and users of systems), experiment (always trying new approaches and ideas) and network with others in the UX space.
What do you think — a reasonable set of skills?