Tinkerings is not a word, I think, that is easily or commonly associated with innovation. And yet! It appears several times on this blog as indicated by the #tinkering tag. And here is the reference to a nice article by Paul Millier entitled The engineer, the tinkerer and the innovator (L’ingénieur, le bricoleur et l’innovateur). I’m not sure if you can have free access so here is a brief excerpt:

The other way of innovating is that of the “Tinkerer” [1], who, on the contrary, collects pieces to get an idea of ​​the whole. He collects disparate elements from the left and the right which he preserves “in case it could be useful”. He brings them together, he assembles them, he organizes and reorganizes until suddenly – almost surprisingly – it makes sense and the innovator can say “eureka”. Damn, but it’s obvious! How had we not thought about it before? The suitcase and the wheel existed separately from each other until the day when someone brought them together to make the suitcase on wheels. How could we imagine traveling without a suitcase on wheels today? This is a radical innovation.

[1] The term “Tinkering” used here has no derogatory character, quite the contrary. It corresponds to a profound distinction proposed by Claude Lévi Strauss in “La pense sauvage” (1962) between two approaches (both valid) that of the “scientist”, of the “engineer” who defines himself by a project, and that of the “Tinkerer” who deals with the “means at hand” (and therefore with the client in the case of innovation). This term is quite positive for this author as for all those who, in strategic analysis, semiotics or sociology, have appropriated this notion.

The word “Tinkering” in innovation, I discovered it with a magnificent text by Tom Wolfe, The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce, which I strongly encourage you to (re)read!

PS: Not mentioning the death of Clayton Christensen on 23 January 2020 would have been a mistake and just mentioning it as a postcript here is probably another one, but I could not say anything better than
1- The Economist – https://www.economist.com/business/2020/01/30/clayton-christensens-insights-will-outlive-him
2- or Nicolas Colin – https://europeanstraits.substack.com/p/what-europe-could-learn-from-clay
If you did not know Clayton Christensen, you are lucky, you can now discover his work!