Final Thoughts
Developing great products requires exploration, not tracking against a plan. Exploring and adapting are two behavioral traits required to innovate—having the courage to explore into the unknown and having the humility to recognize mistakes and adapt to the situation. Magellan had a vision, a goal, and some general ideas about sailing from Spain down the coast of South America, avoiding Portuguese ships if at all possible, exploring dead end after dead end to finding a way around Cape Horn, then tracking across the Pacific to once-again known territory in the Southeast Asia archipelagoes. Great new products come from similarly audacious goals and rough plans that often include large gaps in which “miracles happen,” much like the miracle of finding the Straits of Magellan.