Technology is just a tool and innovation teams should treat it as such, focusing first on a deep understanding of the root cause of the problem. By focusing on a system as a whole instead of a specific component, we’ve learned that sometimes, a simple and holistic approach provides the best results.

“First Mode is working with industries on and off the planet to do design and creative engineering work, but also to build hardware and build solutions that get deployed around the solar system as well as a lot of harsh and challenging environments here on planet Earth,” Rhae Adams, vice president of strategy and business development, told GeekWire.

Many organizations make deliberate effort to capture lessons-learned in order to improve with mixed success. In order to truly learn a lesson, we must first recognize that lessons are being taught to us all the time. We explore how lessons from Mars Spirit and Opportunity contributed to Mars Curiosity’s success.