https://19-pacheco-torgal-19.blogspot.com/2025/05/blueprints-of-breakthroughs-tracking.html
Following a previous post titled "Blueprints of Breakthroughs: Tracking the Unseen Origins of Tech Revolutions" (linked above), it’s worth highlighting a recent paper in Research Policy that takes a deep dive into NASA’s Space Shuttle program. The study asks a compelling question: “How do organizations attain the aspiration level of each product performance attribute to create breakthrough inventions?” The authors show that organizations rarely move linearly toward achieving performance goals (“aspiration levels”) for individual attributes. Instead, breakthrough development unfolds through two tightly interlinked mechanisms: Oscillation and Accumulation.
Oscillation is basically taking a step away from a design goal and then coming back — a way to test how one feature affects all the others. Accumulation, on the other hand, is the slow gathering of multiple design goals across different versions, and it doesn’t happen in a straight line: some features hit their targets, then miss, then hit again as the design evolves. NASA’s shuttle program moved back and forth between these two approaches. Oscillations, like switching fuel types or changing payload targets, uncovered important trade-offs and connections between features, while accumulation phases pulled together the most promising combinations, like external tanks, jettisonable boosters, and reusable orbiters.
The study drives home a crucial insight: breakthroughs do not arise from random trial-and-error or from blindly following a linear path toward predefined goals. Instead, they unfold through a deliberate, almost rhythmic process of exploration and consolidation. At each step, designers experiment, probe, and test, generating valuable knowledge that informs subsequent decisions and gradually shapes a system that works as a whole. This approach produces what the authors describe as “satisficing” solutions — designs that are effective and functional at the system level, even if they fall short of unattainable perfection.
Although NASA’s shuttle program provides a vivid historical example, the principles behind this approach are far more widely applicable. The researchers emphasize that the same dynamics could guide other organizations seeking complex, multi-attribute innovations. Moreover, emerging tools such as artificial intelligence and open-innovation practices have the potential to fundamentally reshape the way oscillation and accumulation are carried out, enabling organizations to accelerate the discovery process and move more efficiently toward the next generation of breakthrough inventions. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733325001428#s0200
Update after 7 days: The post’s top five foreign readers come from Singapore, The Netherlands, Hong Kong, Russia, and the USA:
