Jugaad is a Hindi word that cannot be directly translated. It can stand for an improvised quick solution, a clever way to overcome difficult conditions, a workaround outside the official system, a way of life to get things running quickly. It stems from a mentality that can only be understood when you’ve visited India. Jugaad is everywhere!
In everyday Indian life, there are numerous examples of highly creative solutions developed with limited resources.
It’s rather the mindset that shapes Jugaad:
- Always recognize chances even in adverse circumstances
- Do more with less
- Think and act in flexible way
- Keep it simple
- Include the margin
- Follow your heart
However, Jugaad is also a new Indian management concept that is already being discussed in literature and at management conferences. The authors believe that the West could learn something from the movement of flexible and frugal innovation. They integrate current approaches of lean, design thinking, co-creation, and open innovation into Jugaad Innovation. The principles of successful innovation management in highly dynamic and emerging markets are therefore:
- Search for simple and sufficient solutions for market-relevant products
- Creative and unconventional thinking “out of the box”
- Flexible, fast, improvised, non-linear development processes and constant feedback
- “Frugal engineering” with limited resources
- Prototyping in close collaboration with customers
- Resilience as an attitude of all involved
On a recent trip to India, I had the opportunity for a company discussion. In the development department of an automotive supplier, this exact working method allows for patterns to be built and prototypes to be created in the shortest possible time. And this by a creative, highly motivated and committed developer team.
The showcase example from the Indian industry is the Tata Nano – a sufficiently safe means of transportation that meets the basic requirements of a no-frills car. Another example is the Tata Swach – a cost-effective, simple water filter that nevertheless uses nanotechnology.
Besides the voices of an almost romanticizing “quick fix” mentality, a “just do it” and “keep it simple, fast and flexible” approach, there are increasingly critical attitudes as well. The art and culture of Jugaad can also be a hindrance when it comes to the scalability of the solution, the robustness in stable processes, safety and sustainability. In such cases, Jugaad leads to a clever invention, but not to a real innovation. And then perhaps another meaning of the Hindi word comes into play – it could stand for “muddling through”.
Jugaad is a Hindi word that cannot be directly translated. It can stand for an improvised quick solution, a clever way to overcome difficult conditions, a workaround outside the official system, a way of life to get things running quickly. It stems from a mentality that can only be understood when you’ve visited India. Jugaad is everywhere!
In everyday Indian life, there are numerous examples of highly creative solutions developed with limited resources.
It’s rather the mindset that shapes Jugaad:
However, Jugaad is also a new Indian management concept that is already being discussed in literature and at management conferences. The authors believe that the West could learn something from the movement of flexible and frugal innovation. They integrate current approaches of lean, design thinking, co-creation, and open innovation into Jugaad Innovation. The principles of successful innovation management in highly dynamic and emerging markets are therefore:
On a recent trip to India, I had the opportunity for a company discussion. In the development department of an automotive supplier, this exact working method allows for patterns to be built and prototypes to be created in the shortest possible time. And this by a creative, highly motivated and committed developer team.
The showcase example from the Indian industry is the Tata Nano – a sufficiently safe means of transportation that meets the basic requirements of a no-frills car. Another example is the Tata Swach – a cost-effective, simple water filter that nevertheless uses nanotechnology.
Besides the voices of an almost romanticizing “quick fix” mentality, a “just do it” and “keep it simple, fast and flexible” approach, there are increasingly critical attitudes as well. The art and culture of Jugaad can also be a hindrance when it comes to the scalability of the solution, the robustness in stable processes, safety and sustainability. In such cases, Jugaad leads to a clever invention, but not to a real innovation. And then perhaps another meaning of the Hindi word comes into play – it could stand for “muddling through”.