Precedents Thinking

What if “old wine in new bottles” is actually the secret to game-­changing innovation? The authors explore what they call precedents thinking, illustrating how radical breakthroughs such as Henry Ford’s assembly line and Reed Hastings’s Netflix model grew out of creative combinations of existing ideas. They describe the three-step process of precedents thinking: framing the challenge, searching for relevant precedents, and combining them to generate innovative solutions. They demonstrate how this method can drive innovation in both startups and established companies, drawing on the successes of DoorDash and a multinational they call Global Foods, among others.