While reading a recent post called  ’Innovation as the lifeblood of any industry‘, it got me thinking… what is the difference between innovation and invention…

One always receive an overload of information on ‘Organisational Innovation’ etc, yet, while training and coaching organisations in South Africa on Agile as the best way to create an environment of invention, it seems like people confuse innovation with invention…

So here we go on the terminology ( from Dictionary.com )

‘Invention’
- an act or instance of creating or producing by exercise of the imagination

‘Innovation’
- the act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods

So, the difference is quite clear then…

In a Kaizania Whitepaper on the 3 eras of Work, we make the case for Agile in the Software Development world, which basically is that software development is all about invention, and to invent one need to create a culture of learning and acknowledge that people invent new things as only people can imagine and dream…that is the essence of Agile ( also read ‘Losing the Agile plot’ ).

So, the real difference between Innovation and Invention is that any organisation would need to build a culture of learning first in order for their people to invent, only then can they Innovate or introduce new things or methods.

On the other hand, can any organisation invent without innovating first?

Think about it, if Innovation is the introduction of new things or methods, then one would have to innovate and introduce new methods, like Agile, to enable the necessary culture of learning to enable Invention…

All this said, is this a case of which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Does it really matter?

I honestly don’t think so. What matters is to acknowledge that technology is not the problem, but people and how we interact with each other in order to innovate or invent…

The essence of Agile is to create an organisational culture of learning in order to invent, or create an ‘edge’… thats what it is all about…

As an organisation, ask yourself: Does my approach and process hinder learning or enabling learning?

Dependant on your honest answer, either innovate or invent, does not matter, just do whatever you have to do in order to enable learning!

Arrie van der Dussen

Agile Coach
Kaizania

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