If any of you are in the business of creating – whether that’s a mobile app or a building – I’m sure you understand that the product or thing you’re working on will naturally evolve and change over time – probably in unexpected ways.

In fact, I usually take this as a positive sign. When I have my head in a project and I’m focused on solving problems, ideas will naturally start to flow. I start thinking of things that I never would have thought about at the outset. That’s why I generally think of creativity as a process, rather than as some divine gift.

But the challenge with all of this is that many of our existing business processes are not set up to deal with this kind of ambiguity. If anything we try and punish these sorts of deviations. If it wasn’t pre-meditated at the beginning of the project, we call it “scope creep” and charge extra for them as “change orders.” These two words equal death in construction.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I completely understand the realities of running a business and the importance of managing scope and resources. It’s a balancing act. Without some structure, nothing would get done. 

But the more that iterative lean methodologies and “design thinking” can be embedded into our processes, the more value creation I believe we will see.

My thinking is as follows: At least part of the reason that innovation comes from startups and new market entrants is that the founders aren’t usually sitting around talking about defined scope and laying out elaborate business plans. They’re focused on creatively solving problems and doing whatever it takes to get there.

It’s also one of the reasons that conventional wisdom dictates that tech startups shouldn’t outsource development. It’s too core a competency and you can’t “move fast and break things” if you don’t have that in-house and you’re constantly worried about eye-popping invoices hitting your desk.

I have always seen lots of parallels between startups and architecture. In both of these worlds, the idea you start with is rarely what you end up with (at least that’s the case in architecture school). You research, learn, and iterate along the way and that leads you in new and unexpected ways.

And in my view, that’s often what the path to innovation looks like. Because if you define the entire path at the outset, how can you expect to go anywhere new? And if you’re not going anywhere new, how can you expect to outperform the market?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ8ODREybcs?rel=0]

About 9 months ago I wrote about a new startup called Urban Engines that was trying to improve urban mobility by using big data to optimize transit usage. 

Last Tuesday the app launched in 10 cities across North America. So if you’re in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, or Washington D.C., you can go ahead and download it right now.

The biggest “wow factor” is probably the augmented reality feature that allows you to hold your phone up and see transit information overlaid on top of the street in front of you.

But more fundamentally, the real potential lies in the platform’s ability to collect data on the way people move in cities and on how transit lines are performing, so that it can be fed back to improve overall efficiency.

That’s why the company is also working with cities to give them 24/7 analytics and reporting on how every bus, car, and train is performing in their networks.

My hope is that with better data at our disposal, we’ll be able to elevate the discussions around transit and transit planning. Without great data, it’s too easy for these discussion to become political.