Frugal innovation takes advantage of available resources, but it doesn’t just put them to use in an obvious way. Materials, skills, and tools are combined in creative and surprising ways. Like the bespoke character in MacGyver, a frugal innovator pulls together whatever is at hand to get the job done.
A great example of this is an approach to testing people for eye disease. The standard treatment requires the use of expensive electrode technology. Optometrist L. S. Mohan Ram successfully adapted the traditional Indian practice of Zari, “the art of wrapping silk threads with flattened gold or silver strips,” and created electrodes at 2% of the standard cost.
Often, people adapt naturally, almost instinctively, to what surrounds them–especially in survival circumstances. When pushed, we can reimagine the things around us in ways that can help us survive. And, recently, there has been a rediscovery of the thrill of adaptation and construction on a personal level. Do-It-Yourself, “make culture,” and life hacking revel in this, taking MacGyver as an inspiration and patron saint. So, enthusiasm (the near cousin of necessity) can be the mother of (frugal) invention.
But, because we live in a world crammed full of purpose-built objects (and virtual objects, such as software applications) — ready, available, inexpensive, and complete — it’s easy for us to lose our ability to reimagine potential within the world that surrounds us.
Interestingly, adaptation in a Darwinian sense also takes advantage of what is at hand. Famously, the panda’s thumb is actually an extended wrist bone. But reuse of what is available takes place on the smallest scale. Many of the segments of DNA that code for bits that come together for advanced functions—say human vision—can be found in simpler organisms, doing more mundane jobs.
Now, while nature has many inspiring lessons around adaptation, demonstrating over and over again the breadth of possibilities in things that surround us, none of us would want their innovations to proceed and the slow, deliberate pace of evolution. And, we would not be happy with the wastefulness of repeatedly generating say, one million failures for every success. (Though there are exceptions. Such a biomimetic approach can make sense when developing computer code because “generations” can be achieved in reasonable times.)
We need a methodology that is appropriate to the human timescale. So, how do we cast about for possibilities for innovation?
There must be an understanding of context and alternatives
The culture context is all-important. Within a large corporation, practitioners of frugal innovation must either have permission or be ignored. If people in power, whether they are bureaucrats or executives, are actively resistant to surprising, jury-rigged solutions (that appear to be of low quality, but may be “good enough”), then they are likely to block frugal innovation. This is especially true in the early stages.
In addition, there has to be an aesthetic accommodation. In one memorable scene of the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, companions of the main character are scandalized when a piece of a tin can is used to make a repair. The idea of using such waste material to fix a top-of-the-line motorcycle is too much for them. So, although aesthetics can help guide effective adaptation, they can also get in its way. The steering wheel from a go-kart might be usable in a luxury car, but that sort of hack would be unacceptable to most drivers.
There must be clarity about the essence of what’s needed
Marketers say that people want solutions, not products, and there is some wisdom in this. Looking hard at a product, like a smart phone, and trying to create a cheap substitute, is not the same as working to provide a farmer with current prices for crops in different regions. Another kind of up-side-down approach I’ve seen is searching for innovative ways to get value from waste. Merely discovering the possibilities within something that is at hand ignores competing values. The economics must make sense. The roles of individuals and culture must be understood. Alternatives must be examined. It’s also important to understand how the case can be made to other people. Recycling paper, for instance, may only make sense within the larger context of finishing space for disposal of solid wastes and overall energy costs.
The work must be approached with enthusiasm if not urgency
One of the advantages that innovators from developing countries have over their counterparts in the industrialized world is that they are in the habit of looking at things in a different way, not just for fun, but because alternatives are fewer.
What is at hand must be understood in its essentials—and this usually means decomposing the functions and characteristics in creative ways.
Going in the other direction, functions and characteristics need to be presented in imaginative, synergistic and higher-level combinations.
None of this is easy. Effective adaptation requires multiple perspectives. To do it systematically, there must be support for the interaction between participants—time, teamwork, and technologies. Fundamentally, innovation is a social activity, and frugal innovation depends upon greater appreciation of different values and more tolerance of retail, hands-on points of view than traditional innovation.