Inefficient Product Innovation
The goal of a product team is to build great products, not to be efficient. Seeking efficiency for its own sake is ultimately the most inefficient thing you can do. By doing so, you end up with a poor product that solves imagined problems in a boring way. I know that it may seem that not having fully spelled-out requirements and detailed mock-ups slows down progress for a product team, but this is only true at first glance. Allowing ambiguity to linger where it actually is allows the product to take its natural course, rather than an arbitrarily imposed course from someone with highly incomplete information.
Every process and every requirement is based on the assumption that what we are about to deal with is deterministic if we just plan it with enough detail. Of course, this is a fragile approach to an uncertain environment such as innovation. If we operate in an uncertain and complex environment, we need to let the product unfold in the direction it needs to go at each small step it takes in its development. Each team member that is part of building the product is involved in the small-scale decisions that, when compounded, can lead to very different outcomes.
As product builders and innovators, we need to dare to be inefficient. We need to admit our own ignorance in the face of the complexity of what we are dealing with. By admitting this, we realise that there is no better way to build great products than by embracing the chaos and giving the product the space it needs to come into being.