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Continuous Learning for Innovation Leadership

Learning today takes very different forms than it did 10 or 20 years ago.  In the past, learning was primarily delivered in a classroom and was delivered based on a schedule given an employee’s tenure with the firm.  Skills transfer occurred from an expert teaching novices. 

Today, learning materials are delivered in short cell phone video clips, on-line, via webinar, and yes, even in a classroom.  Skills transfer occurs both vertically and horizontally, and training can be driven from an expert teaching a novice technical skills or from a new employee to experienced staff teaching market approaches.  Importantly, training is delivered more on-demand, when the learning is needed and job skills need performance enhancement. 

On-Line Training

There are a lot of benefits to on-line training period participants can access courses anytime and anywhere using practically any device.  (iPhones still have some format limitations to deliver video learning content.)  This means a person can access training during regular work hours or choose to learn new skills at home in evenings for weekends.  On-line training is very flexible. 

Of course, with the prevalence of on-line training, many organizations have observed the disadvantages, too.  A lot of on-line courses for leadership and innovation performance enhancement go unfinished.  Mandatory on-line training courses (e.g. for safety or regulatory requirements) must include constraints on screen advancing because participants tend to skip to the test in order to avoid dry, boring content but the training hours can be audited.  And while people have the best intention to do an on-line training class at night or on the weekend, there are lots of things that can get in the way such as sports, family, friends, yard chores, and so on. 

Classroom Training

A recent Harvard Business Review article (Mar/Apr 2019) notes the classroom training is essentially a thing of the past.  For all the benefits and flexibility of on-line training, classroom learning is not competitive.  And so goes the case against facilitated courses.  The argument is that classroom training is expensive, not only for the instructor and facilities but also because people are pulled away from their “regular” jobs.  Some employees will need to travel to the training center, resulting in added costs due to airfare, hotel, and rental cars. 

Yet, with all the expenses of classroom training, many organizations are missing the key benefit of face-to-face learning.  Networking.  Especially as employees climb career ladders, internal and external networks become a crucial resource for learning as well.  Leadership development and soft skills growth are best delivered in face-to-face format to allow a diverse cohort of young leaders opportunities to network. 

Kenny Smith, former Houston Rocket and ESPN basketball commentator, noted that the team was laser-focused on the game, especially during playoffs, when they traveled.  The team ate meals together, practiced together, and spent their free time together.  Home games always had distractions.  Classroom learning built this same camaraderie for an up-and-coming leadership cohort. 

Master Mind Groups

in the best of both worlds, people will get the training they need when they need it and are given a chance to build a reliance network for learning later on.  A master mind group offers a hybrid for learning and practicing leadership development skills.  Advantages of both on-line learning and the networking effects of classroom training are enhanced.  And because master mind groups are largely self-directed by the cohort, learning is on-demand and delivered just-in-time.  Training is delivered via live webinars, on-line video modules, podcasts, and through collaboration with your cohort advisory board.  In between live webinars, master mind members communicate on private discussion boards and complete required activities to develop and practice their leadership skills. 

Continuous Learning

As the March/April 2019 issue of Harvard Business Review emphasizes, leaders need continuous learning.  Successful innovation leaders don’t limit themselves to required corporate training courses or wait for nomination to an executive training session.  Smart, growing leaders are passionate about trying new skills how to improve their current situation.  They are as excited and proud to place a new certification on their Linked In profile as they are to share the development opportunity with their teams.  This is continuous learning. 

Contact Me

I am passionate about learning, especially for innovation and leadership.  I want to help you and I’m sure I can learn from you, too.  A great opportunity to engage in continuous learning is the Life Design Master Mind group where we apply tools of Design Thinking to career, professional, or personal challenges.  The next open cohort meeting is 21 May 2019.  Click here to register for your six-month transformation and learning journey.  Based on your feedback, this master mind group is extremely affordable.  You’ll also be interested to learn about the Flagship Innovation Leader program.  Join us for a free webinar in June.  Contact me at area code (281) plus 280-8717 or at info@simple-pdh.com for more information. 

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Why You Need Creativity for Creative Problem-Solving

A lot of people say they are not creative.  I guess we are afraid that if we share our imaginations and dreams, we might be ridiculed or criticized.  Yet, every day, an artist opens a new gallery.  She is proud and excited to share her creations with others. 

Kush Art Gallery, Las Vegas

Creativity is defined by Dictionary.com as “the state or quality of being creative,” which in turn means original thought or expression.  So, an artist creates original oil paintings and we admire them at an art gallery or museum.  An architect designs a modern symphony hall and we praise his work with the unique building style fitting into the skyline of the community.  My personal creative outlet is in scrapbooking and making greeting cards.  Someone who is a “real” artist might criticize the simplicity of my cards, but others find joy in receiving a handmade card on their birthday or anniversary.  I am not afraid of what others think because my creativity is my own and I relax while I am creating. 

Creativity, then, takes many forms.  It can be the creation of an original work of art or it can be the piecing together of various parts.  Dictionary.com also defines creativity as “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns … to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods …”  This is the precise definition we should keep in mind as innovators applying Design Thinking to our life challenges.  Leaders can increase creativity in their new product development (NPD) teams by using tools that help team members capitalize on their individual strengths in a collaborative, sharing environment.  It is often the assembly of these various individual ideas into a larger whole that “transcends traditional thinking.“  And when we come up with new ideas and concepts, we can apply them to situations that improve customer satisfaction and product quality. 

Creative Problem-Solving

Problem-solving typically involves at least 5 steps to be successful period to be successful period

  1. Identify the problem
  2. Define the problem statement
  3. Generate potential solutions
  4. Test solutions
  5. Review and select the best solution

A standard problem-solving procedure is methodical and simple.  It should lead you to the best solution and in the shortest time possible.  Yet, I observe innovation teams marching through these steps, marking them “complete“ without a full consideration of really addressing the problem.  This is where creative problem-solving enters the picture.

Creative problem-solving doesn’t grab the first or the easiest or the cheapest solution.  Instead, creative problem-solving is a bit messy and it’s iterative, yet it will generate a better solution in the end.  For example, when you identify a problem that challenges your customers, is it a closed discussion in the problem statement such as “improve product reliability by 10%“.  Open-ended problem statements can lead to more creative solutions since there are not assumptions built in.  “Improving customer satisfaction” is a more open-ended problem statement than including a specific reliability improvement metric.

32381172 – problem – idea – solution

Creative problem-solving instead investigates the drivers and customer emotions that require product development work.  What percentage of customers complain about reliability?  How does our product reliability compare to competitors?  Where are failures in product reliability occurring?

Again, we return to the tools of Design Thinking to guide creative problem-solving.  Design Thinking allows us to empathize with customers to truly identify the problems they face.  We shadow and observe how, when, and where they use the product.  What is the reliability issue – does it occur immediately upon product usage or after 10 or 100 uses of the product?  And importantly, as NPD practitioners, we must ask why is product reliability important to the customer?  The food and drug industry will have different answers then companies that specialize in software-as-a-service. 

Divergent Thinking

When we’re satisfied that we’ve identified the right customer problem, and we can clearly and concisely define it with a problem statement, we generate potential solutions with creative ideation.  Ideation is just a fancy word that means creating ideas and concepts.  During ideation, functional NPD team members work with customers to combine, modify, and substitute pieces and parts to generate new ideas and concepts.  Ideation is a divergent thinking activity where even wild and seemingly illogical ideas are created.  Sometimes, there is a gold nugget within a crazy, impractical idea that leads to a creative product solution. 

For example, after an oil spill in the ocean, a large drilling company was stuck on how to clean it up.  Using the traditional problem-solving steps, they were only coming up with ho-hum, incremental ideas.  But, when they stepped back, applied the ideas of Design Thinking and creative problem-solving, they generated a unique solution to clean-up.  It started with the crazy idea that seals absorb a lot of oil into their fur.  Yet that innovation materialized in a rotating vessel equipped with oil-capturing brushes and a collection tank that facilitated removal of oil from the water surface. 

Design Thinking tools like analogies, role playing, interviewing, and SCAMPER all help teams generate potential creative solutions.  Matching, A/B testing, and card sorting are tools that provide insight to customer needs and whether we have defined the right problem to solve.  Design Thinking also lets us test prototype solutions for functionality and customer acceptance with a low-cost commitment during product development.

Creativity for Creative Problem-Solving

Creativity is generating new ideas with the ability to transcend existing thinking about a problem.  All of us can be creative, even though we might not be famous artists or architects.  We can combine colors, textures, and functions to generate novel ideas.  Importantly, we can be creative problem-solvers using deep listening with customers to empathize with their problems.  Understanding the many different facets of a problem leads to a better, more creative solution.

Design Thinking tools are great to apply as NPD teams create lots of potential ideas and concepts.  Lots of ideas is an expected outcome of divergent thinking and supports customer collaboration.  Creativity in problem-solving yields superior results and allows an organization to get to market faster with new products that satisfy customer needs.  Many of these tools and techniques also serve individuals well as they seek to make balance personal and professional decisions to find joy and purpose in life.  Join us on Thursday, 18 April 2019 at 3:30pm to learn about the Life Design Master Mind group.   The webinar is FREE and, based on your feedback, we have redesigned the online workshops to make it extremely affordable!  Click here to register.  Contact me at info@globalnpsolutions.com or area code 281, 280-8717 for more information or questions.

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Think Tanks and Advisory Boards

I am still super excited about the publication of PDMA Essentials Volume 3.   My chapter on virtual teams (Chapter 6) describes a model of five elements and 16 practices.  The virtual team model (VTM) helps new product development (NPD) teams improve communication and effectiveness when team members are geographically dispersed.  You can learn more about the VTM here or by taking an online course that helps NPD project teams and leaders apply each element to their real-world situation. 

It is also really exciting to read and learn from the other authors who contributed to PDMA Essentials 3.  The book offers descriptions of common innovation constraints (like dispersed teams) and offers practical solutions to overcome these barriers to productive NPD deployment.  Part 1 describes individual and consumer constraints in NPD.  You can read a related blog post that shares information from Chapter 1 of PDMA Essentials 3 (Increasing Creativity by Creating Boundaries).  Part 2 covers organizational constraints, like virtual teams, and Chapter 4 offers advice on using a think tank to overcome internal NPD barriers.  Finally, Part 3 describes market constraints that inhibit acceptance of new products and services. 

Organizational Constraints to Innovation

Innovators often face barriers to creativity and acceptance of failure within their organizations due to limited processes, structures, and resources.  For example, an organizational constraint to innovation within an organization includes limited training and the lack of enabling processes for NPD.  Successful firms and NPD project leaders embrace the inherently risky nature of innovation while simultaneously allowing teams to determine success criteria. 

Symptoms of Innovation Barriers

in Chapter 4 of PDMA Essentials 3, the authors describe five symptoms of innovation constraints within organizations.  These symptoms can be observed by project sponsors, executives, and even the team members themselves.  As an innovation process improvement consultant, I have noted these observable behaviors at client companies that are struggling to convert ideas into successful commercial products.  Symptoms of innovation constraints within or organization are (Chapter 2, PDMA Essentials 3, pg. 64):  

  1. Lack of internal cooperation,
  2. Lack of external cooperation,
  3. Shortcomings in goal-setting,
  4. Lack of adequate infrastructure, and
  5. Restriction of innovation action.

Think Tanks

In their research, the authors found that innovation constraint symptoms were driven by four primary causes.  These include lack of skills or motivation, and operational or strategic limitations within the organization.  As a solution, the authors describe a think tank to open the organization to creative problem-solving.  

An innovation think tank involves several elements.  First, a neutral, reserved space must be provided for the team members to practice their craft.  The space should provide appropriate resources, such as literature references and materials for experimentation, as well as individual desks for “heads-down” quiet time.  Often with today’s focus on collaboration, open office plans neglect the opportunity for quiet time that technical experts need to study and analyze complex problems.  A think tank can provide both reserved and collaborative spaces for expert team members working on an innovation project. 

Collaboration is a crucial element of success for any NPD endeavor.  However, while open office spaces encourage trust-building and social interactions, a project focus can be lacking.  The think tank model instead encourages facilitated networking to “foster communication and exchange” (Chapter 4, PDMA Essentials 3, pg. 72).  Networking and collaboration in the think tank are focused on problem-solving more than just establishing new relationships. 

In their extensive in practical research, the authors found that the think tank was a valuable tool for managing challenging innovation work, especially in the early stages of NPD projects.

Advisory Boards

An advisory board is a little different than a think tank.  The think tank is focused on internal processes and expanding the idea set of staff solving specific innovation challenges.  Advisory boards, on the other hand, look externally to identify customer needs and to seek collaboration for individual problems. 

In a customer advisory board, a panel of lead users convene on a regular basis to offer feedback to a company regarding its products and services.  The lead users and customers who either purchase large volumes or who use the products in unique ways.  The key to a successful customer advisory board is trust among the users and the firm.  NPD teams expect to gain insights on customer needs and to gain understanding of feature improvements through the dialogue of a customer advisory board. 

Professional advisory boards convene to help individuals advance their own goals.  There are a lot of examples of industry advisory boards and small business development advisory boards.  An industry advisory board is typically composed of company executives who lead and manage firms that manufacture or service products within the given category.  For example, a housing advisory board might meet regularly to discuss future needs based on the current labor market, and environmental issues.  Companies participate in industry advisory boards to learn what the future might hold, and to share common industry concerns.  Sometimes these industry advisory boards endorse or lobby for government regulations to benefit their industry. 

Small business advisory boards are usually run by a trained facilitator who guides the members through the formation and growth steps for a business.  The benefit of the facilitator of the facilitation is that the participants, who are newbies, can utilize the facilitator’s experience and guidance to frame their own decisions.  Another advantage of the small business advisory board is that all of the members are facing similar challenges at the same time, so they can share and learn from one another.  Knowing where to find an affordable web designer and which local financial institutions are friendly to small businesses is invaluable to these participants. 

Master Mind  

A master mind group is another category of think tanks or advisory boards and is founded for similar reasons:  to share industry knowledge, to brainstorm solutions to specific challenges, and to grow a business.  The key difference between a master mind group and a general advisory board is that each member of the master mind group is expected to actively participate in each session.  Master mind group members will be in the so-called “hot seat” for about 10 to 15 minutes during each meeting to share their challenges, much like a customer advisory board.  However, in the master mind group, the other members will immediately share ideas from their own experiences to address the issue, like is done in an industry or small business advisory board.  Thus, master mind groups have the benefit of members both giving and receiving help to achieve goals. 

Using a Think Tank or Advisory Board

Both think tanks and advisory boards offer a lot of advantages and benefits for innovation professionals.  Increased collaboration is a key outcome of the shared knowledge and experiences that group members bring.  Support and accountability to achieve goals is another important result.  And, finally, enhanced customer interactions to understand needs and challenges drive success. 

If you plan to implement a think tank or advisory board, be prepared to spend significant time planning the structure and necessary participation of group members.  If not, a single failure can doom the effort for all time.  You may want to hire a trained facilitator that can coach and support team members on their journey.  Be you sure that everyone involved treats this space and time for innovation as sacred without disruption of day-to-day activities. 

Learn More

To learn more about a specific think take example, please read Chapter 4 of PDMA Essentials 3.  There is a lot of information on the internet (of course) about industry advisory boards and small business development groups as well.  And if you are interested in accelerating your innovation success please join our open master mind group utilizing Design Thinking tools to tackle life’s biggest challenges.  You can learn more about the Life Design Master Mind in a free webinar held on 16 or 18 April 2019.  Register here for the webinar and click here to learn more about the Life Design Master Mind group.

For other questions about building successful teams for product development, I can be reached at info@simple-pdh.com or area code 281, 280-8717.  I love helping individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their highest innovation goals!

© Simple-PDH.com

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

Study.  Learn.  Earn.  Simple.

What Does Diversity Mean for Innovation?

Innovation often means success or failure for a company.  Organizations need to create new products and services to maintain relevance in the marketplace.  Customers and other stakeholders view innovation as driving new features and functionalities that ultimately support profitability for a firm.

Just as customers and clients are diverse, innovation teams need to be diverse.  An interesting paper in the Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM, Vol. 35, 2018) describes four different categories of diversity related to new product development (NPD).  And it may surprise you that what we typically consider as measures of diversity can actually hinder innovation team effectiveness.

Job-Related Diversity

in their paper, Weiss et al., define “job-related” and “not job-related diversity”.  In the first category are team member differences regarding education, work experience, and organizational functions.  In contrast, not job-related diversity includes demographics, geographies, and value systems. Much of the general literature on teamwork has focused on not job-related diversity; however, research on creativity and innovation has examined job-related diversity to a greater degree.

Surface versus Deep Levels of Diversity

Diversity traits are also categorized by the ease with which another individual can view or discern them.  For example, demographic diversity is a surface characteristic since we can usually discern age, gender, or race easily.  Likewise, education and organizational function are readily determined for most team members and is often part of socialization, forming a team, or standard team-building activities.  

Deep diversity traits, on the other hand, require interaction in relationship with another party to be fully revealed.  And in some work situations, a person’s closely held values may be strictly guarded and not revealed to others.  These characteristics include personality and preferred working styles such as openness to experience, degree of introversion/extroversion, or level of power and achievement.  Deep personal values are not job-related yet strongly impact how an individual behaves and interacts with other team members.

Deep job-related traits include cognitive diversity and interaction styles such as knowledge, skills, and thinking and communication styles.  A brief encounter or low-level working relationship cannot reveal deep job-related diversity characteristics.  However, on an innovation team with open and honest dialogue, these deep diversity traits, such as thinking and communication styles, may be revealed over time.

Which Traits Lead to Innovation

According to the review by Weiss et al., surface level, not job-related diversity traits can hinder innovation productivity.  People may immediately form stereotypes when thrown together into a team composed of people based on demographics alone, for example.  Here, the differences outweigh the benefits and people will drift toward others more like themselves.   This can lead to intra-team conflicts since there may be a lack of goal or purpose for the diversity of the team toward a working relationship.

For benefits of diversity to be captured, innovation teams need to build on job-related diversity more than just surface characteristics.  While geographic diversity (a surface trait that is not job-related) can enhance local market understanding for an innovation team, job-related diversity plays a larger role in team productivity.  Cross-functional teams face challenges in communication due to jargon, terminology, and norms.  If not addressed properly, diversity in function can actually harm the efficiency and productivity of an innovation team.  However, when team purpose, knowledge sharing, and conflict management processes are established through training and application, team collaboration is supported.

Of course, this doesn’t surprise me.  In my chapter on Virtual Team Models in PDMA Essentials 3, I describe key practices for the team leader to reinforce the common purpose of the team, communication methodologies, and tools for knowledge sharing that enhance gaps for dispersed teams.  It is only with deliberate attention to, and understanding of, individual and cultural differences that a team can build a cohesive group working style to achieve innovation success.  

Working Styles

Finally, much work has been done to help individuals raise their self-awareness in working styles.  The DiSC® assessment, for instance, allows people to learn about their preferred working style and to test interactions with team members of different working styles.  Of course, when dealing with a deep, job-related diversity trait, team members must learn to trust one another, compromise, and forgive mistakes.  Another great starting point for innovation teams is the Team Dimensions Profile which looks at the team members’ focus on possibility versus reality and the desire to interact or analyze.  The Team Dimensions Profile then shows the distribution of working styles to build communication, collaboration, and conflict management strategies that improve innovation outcomes.

Why is Diversity Important to Innovation?

Innovation relies on satisfying customers with different wants and needs.  Marketing messages must balance functional characteristics of a product with the emotional needs of end-users.  An NPD team with diverse perspectives can best identify with the broadest set of customer needs and is well-suited to designing and developing products for the highest levels of customer satisfaction.  

Yet, as researchers have learned, team diversity is not just an observable surface trait.  An effective innovation team must tackle diversity from a deep level of job-related traits such as knowledge, skills, and working styles.  Understanding our differences allows us to generate communication patterns that yield improved efficiency and productivity for innovation.

Learn More

I love to help innovation team succeed.  If you want to learn more about the Team Dimensions Profile, view a sample report, or learn more about Workplace DiSC, please contact me at info@globalnpsolutions.com.  I’m also offering a 15% discount on a standard bundle of Design Thinking and Agile NPD courses for the 22nd to 24th of April 2019.  Use code “bundle” at checkout.  Design Thinking provides a fabulous set of tools to increase diversity in communication with your end customer in mind.

If you want to learn more about developing a strong virtual team, you need to register for one of the Virtual Team Model courses right away!  Some other tools for leaders of innovation teams include the Situational Team Leadership group activity and assessing the creativity of your team with a Team Dimensions Profile.  Contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or 281-280-8717 for more information on innovation, project management, and leadership training or coaching.  I love helping individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their highest innovation goals!

Stop by and Say “Hi”

Are you attending the Texas Open Innovation Conference in Houston on 28 March?  I’d love to chat with you.  Also, I am speaking on open innovation and design thinking at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Spring Meeting in New Orleans on 1 April (Management Division).  And, I’ll be at the Bay Area SHRM Conference on 4 April 2019 in Friendswood, Texas.  And, get ready for the PDMA conference in Orlando in November!  I’ll be sponsoring a booth at the conference and would love to meet you in person!

© Simple-PDH.com

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

Study.  Learn.  Earn.  Simple.

This was first published on the blog at www.Simple-PDH.com. o

What Dogs Teach Us About Leadership

A sled dog at rest

Joey is a dog.  Not just any dog, but an elite sled dog who participates in the famous Iditarod race across Alaska.  The race covers 1,000 miles and commemorates an historic sled dog run to bring medicine to the people of Alaska.  Mushers, the humans who drive the sled, win both fame and fortune at the Iditarod.

Nicolas Petit is one of the world’s top mushers.  Unfortunately, he got stuck in a blizzard last year and came in second.  This year, he was several miles ahead of all other competitors – a huge lead in this sport with legendary and vigorous competition to win.  But, then, something happened and Petit watched his 5-hour lead evaporate.

Teamwork

Sled dogs are trained to work as part of an integrated team.  Each dog has an assigned role whether it is in the lead or it is a power role to pull.  The dogs are trained to work in pairs and with the dogs ahead and behind them as well.  When you witness a dog sled race or demonstration, you see cooperation and companionship.

High-performing teams also demonstrate cooperation and companionship.  In the business world, we call this “collaboration”.  Collaboration allows a team to produce more than the sum of its individual parts.  Creativity and innovation accelerate in collaborative environments because each idea builds and expands on those concepts that came before it.  Most people report increased job satisfaction when working in a collaborative team setting.

Collaboration for Virtual Teams

Virtual teams are a special subset of working teams.  In a dispersed team, most group members are located at different places, sometimes in different countries and often in different time zones.  Virtual team members communicate primarily through electronic means and have little, if any, contact.

Innovation is believed to be enhanced by face-to-face collaboration.  The speed of new ideas coming to the table can be accelerated in a F2F environment, and co-located team members have an easier time building trust among themselves.  Yet, dispersed teams can outperform co-located teams when they are structured appropriately.

In the virtual team model (VTM, PDMA Essentials Volume 3), we present six elements of team structure that are critically important for innovation success with dispersed team members.  Of these elements, setting and reinforcing the common purpose is a priority for team leaders.  The common purpose unites team members with different individual personalities, work styles, and cultural norms.  Purpose explains the mission, vision, and values of the team and leads to improved cohesion.

With new product development (NPD), the purpose to improve customer’s lives and increase the quality of products is a unifying message.  Virtual teams bring an advantage to NPD in that local representation on the team yields a globally-attractive product.  Moreover, because team members bring varied cultural perspectives to the innovation work, creativity can be higher than in a F2F team.  You can learn more about the virtual team model here (training tools) or you can download a paper on the VTM here.

Leadership

Sled dog teams have more than one leader.  And of course, this complicates matters significantly.  We all know that working in a matrix organization introduces challenges that are not present in functional or project-oriented structures.  A matrix organization is defined by staff members of having more than one boss; typically, a functional supervisor and a project director.  A sled dog follows the musher’s direction and also follows the lead dog, for example.

Leaders motivate and inspire team members.  I love to help leaders become more effective so that their teams can innovate at a higher level.  It is important for leaders to recognize the varied working styles of each individual team member, and to match responsibilities and roles with people’s capacities and performance.  Situational Team Leadership model is a tool that managers can use to improve teamwork and output for NPD teams.  Contact me at teresa@globalnpsolutions.com if you want to learn more about adapting teams and leadership styles with a Situational Team Leadership activity.

Situational Team Leadership(TM) Model

Situational team leadership focuses on an individual’s demonstrated skills and pairs these competencies with motivation and willingness to learn.  Early in a team member’s assignment, s/he may be new to the task and lack confidence in an ability to complete certain activities.  The team leader offers a directive style to manage this team member’s work, to support and encourage learning and growth.

As people’s skill sets grow and their confidence in task completion increases, the leader will offer different styles to encourage continued learning.  These include coaching, supporting, and delegating.  It is important for leaders to accurately assess – through conversation and observation – how well an individual is adopting new practices to build higher performance skills.  Above all, a leader must be encouraging and tolerant, especially in innovation where failure often leads directly to knowledge creation.

Back to Joey

So, you’re probably still wondering about Joey and his musher, Nicolas Petit.  In this story, we observe a demonstration of poor leadership and in act of solidarity or team cohesion.  Petit yelled at Joey.  And then, the whole team stopped.  The dogs were well-fed and healthy but refused to go on after Petit yelled at Joey.  I don’t know the entire set of circumstances that led to the musher scolding his dog, but I do understand the consequences.

When leaders scold team members with negative verbiage in public or in private, the employee loses trust and confidence.  This is even worse in a virtual team were cultures and norms of communication vary widely.  Broken trust is extremely difficult to repair, even more so for complex human team members.

A better approach (as compared to public shouting) is to offer private coaching to the team member whose performance is suffering.  A leader can offer a Performance Improvement Plan that focuses on short-term goals, commitment to the team’s purpose, and shared responsibility to change behaviors and learning patterns.  A leader cannot impose these objectives on another team member because self-awareness is key to lasting transformation.

People cannot be bought with a handful of tasty biscuits or raw meat.  Hard work is required for a lagging team member to get back up and race again.  But, when one team member shows his commitment to improving team performance, the others will also come along, just like sled dogs at the Iditarod.

Learn More

If you want to learn more about developing a strong virtual team, you need to register for one of the Virtual Team Model courses right away!  Some other tools for leaders of innovation teams include the Situational Team Leadership group activity and assessing the creativity of your team with a Team Dimensions Profile.  Contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or 281-280-8717 for more information on innovation, project management, and leadership training or coaching.  I love helping individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their highest innovation goals!

Stop by and Say “Hi”

Are you attending the Texas Open Innovation Conference in Houston on 28 March?  I’d love to chat with you.  Also, I am speaking on open innovation and design thinking at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Spring Meeting in New Orleans on 1 April (Management Division).  And, I’ll be at the Bay Area SHRM Conference on 4 April 2019 in Friendswood, Texas.

Stop by and say “hi”

Finally, successful leadership depends on a variety of perspectives for the team, the product, and the customer.  We are holding a special workshop on Agile NPD on 23 & 24 April 2019 in Houston, Texas, USA.  Register here for the 2-day Agile NPD workshop and save on a full 3-day experience including a one-day pre-workshop course on Design Thinking.  Use code “bundle” at checkout and save 15% on both courses (standard registration). 

© Simple-PDH.com

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

Study.  Learn.  Earn.  Simple.

Doing Things Differently

The other day my husband went to the optometrist to get his vision checked and to order a new supply of contact lenses.  Because they dilated his eyes, I ended up driving his car on a series of errands that day.  Of course, I needed to adjust the seat since I’m shorter than he is, and I adjusted the mirrors as well.

Doctor Checking Patient’s Eyes

Later, that same week, my husband drove us to my church since we could not attend our church on Sunday morning.  He parked in a different place that I usually do and when we left, he took a different exit, requiring a U-turn (instead of a left turn) to return home.

We both were given different perspectives of routine tasks we do, tasks that are almost automatic.  And, of course, there’s no right answer or perfect parking place.  In fact, for people working as innovation leaders, it is actually very important to do things differently.

The Creativity Rut

Companies often become complacent in their success.  When a firm is young, all the staff works extra hard to bring the dream to life.  If it takes nights until midnight and entire weekends to print and package instructions for product usage, no one blinks an eye.  A founding team knows their hard work is what leads to success.

Yet after a company has a few market successes, it’s easy to get a bit lazy.  When we are at a high-point in the product life cycle – selling above the competition and garnering word-of-mouth referrals – it is easy to assume that we should keep on going on the same path.  Unfortunately, it is the repeated processes of small product improvements that lead to market erosion.  Advanced competitors will take advantage of a crowded marketplace full of “me-too” products.

Furthermore, as companies grow, they tend to put in place more systems and policies to minimize risk and maximize quality.  All of these factors lead to a creativity rut in which product development practitioners are rewarded for incremental improvements, and investment in radical ideas is limited.

Design Thinking to Do Things Differently

One way to break out of the creativity rut is to use customers in the design and development process.  I’ve observed many firms become afraid of leaking “confidential” information, so they move new product design and development into a restricted R&D department.  They can get lots of patents on new technologies, but they struggle to convert that technical know-how into customer desire.

All successful new product development (NPD) systems involve the customer, frequently and throughout the product development life cycle.  To do things differently, and to see a different perspective, you can implement a design thinking framework.

Discover

In the Discover phase of design thinking, NPD teams closely observe customers.  How do they use products today?  What challenges do customers face in solving problems?  What workarounds are in place to make something work better or more efficiently?

Several tools, like the customer journey map and customer empathy map, are available in design thinking to help elucidate customer needs.  Traditional market research tools, like surveys, focus groups, and interviewing, also help an NPD team identify the extent of a market need.

Define

The Define stage is tremendously important in any project.  Too often, we like to jump to the “fun” part of a project – solving the problem.  Yet, if we don’t carefully define the problem, we won’t know if we have solved it or if we have even addressed the right problem.

Design thinking offers a whole set of prioritization tools and models to help an NPD team characterize customer needs identified in the Discover stage.  While you don’t want to overemphasize financial outcomes, product solutions must be profitable, so this metric is included as part of the Define stage.  However, you can use a scoring metric that estimates and compares costs and benefits of potential product solutions rather than doing a full-blown NPV analysis.  In the early stages of product development, you want to see things differently and accept change.

Create

While there is often a lot of recycle between the Discover and Define stages to ensure an accurate understanding of customer needs, there’s no substitute for building and testing prototypes.  In the Create stage of the design thinking framework, the NPD team – along with the customer – will brainstorm as many potential ideas as possible to solve the problem.  This is definitely a phase where you want to see and do things differently!

For example, instead of booking airlines, hotels, rental cars, and admission tickets through separate companies, Expedia, Kayak and other websites let you book a whole trip at once.  The developers saw and did things differently, based upon what customers wanted and what they showed as obstacles on their customer journey maps.  Eliminating steps is a great way to do things differently and improve the customer experience.

Test

Testing in design thinking often involves prototyping.  Prototypes might be built for only a few features or as a mock-up of the whole product or service.  What’s crucial is to learn what customers like and don’t like.  And the best way to do that is to give them something different to try.

It turns out that the seat position in my husband’s car was programmed to match his key fob.  So, after his normal vision returned, the seat moved backward to the preferred position for someone with long legs.  Unfortunately, the mirrors were tied to the car’s memory, so we learned, by testing, that they had to be manually reset.  While it was only a small inconvenience, vehicle manufacturers can build this feature in to delight customers and offer a product advantage over competitors.

As an aside, my new car has a feature for automatically folding side mirrors.  But this feature is only available in Canada.  A design thinking approach to new product development might just reveal that American customers desire auto-folding mirrors as much as Canadians.  I will continue to puzzle over how this feature design was decided!

Use Design Thinking to Do Things Differently

Continually seeing things the same way can limit our creativity.  An internally-focused, risk-averse approach to innovation leaves product design at the whim of competitors and will lead to market erosion.  On the other hand, involving customers in the design and development process of new products and services yields a satisfying experience for them.  Design thinking brings value-added tools to the new product development process that increase the focus on customer needs and user involvement so that products are launched faster and better.

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I am speaking on open innovation and design thinking at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Spring Meeting in New Orleans on 1 April (Management Division).  Coupling these tools with flexible design, you can ensure that customer satisfaction is the primary outcome of any new product development effort.

Do you want to see things differently?  We are holding a special workshop on Agile NPD on 23 & 24 April 2019 in Houston, Texas, USA.  Register here for the 2-day Agile NPD workshop and save on a full 3-day experience including a one-day pre-workshop course on Design Thinking.  Use code “bundle” at checkout and save 15% on both courses.  Contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or 281-280-8717 for more information on innovation, project management, and leadership training or coaching.  I love helping individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their highest innovation goals!

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Spiral Development for NPD Projects

New products are the lifeblood of any organization.  You can’t stand still, or you will quickly be overcome by the competition.  Customers not only expect, but indeed they demand, that products and product lines are frequently refreshed and revitalized.  Brands that fail to do so end up with financial issues and serious questions about their viability, like Sears and Payless Shoe Source.

How do successful companies maintain relevancy and prominence in a globally competitive and ever-changing marketplace?  Designing new products that delight customers and generate long-term revenue is a surefire bet to success.  Businesses also need to manage operations with processes like Six Sigma, yet continued growth and increased market share rely upon periodic new product launches to expand product lines and meet customer needs.

NPD Processes

New product development (NPD) processes are significantly broader than those of Six Sigma or traditional project management.  NPD starts with the organization’s mission and creatively builds customer demand through the product life cycle.  Conventional NPD processes are called “waterfall” since the steps in the design and development of a new product fall in a given order and cascade from one to another.  The most commonly instituted waterfall NPD process was developed by Bob Cooper and is a staged and gated system.

Traditional Staged and Gated NPD Process

In a classic staged and gated NPD process, work is done in stages and project decisions are made at gates.  The system design is optimized for risk management in whicheach stage of work requires greater investment than the previous one.  Gate decisions are made by cross-functional management teams of higher rank as the project moves forward.

There are many benefits to a traditional staged and gated NPD process.  First, the system is designed to proactively manage financial and market risk.  If the work in a particular stage does not provide the new product concept, then a “No” gate decision will halt further development.  In this way, risk is minimized.  Another strong benefit of a staged and gated NPD system is that the work required for each stage is clearly delineated, and NPD team members understand gate requirements in advance and in detail.

However, as implemented, many organizations fail to take advantage of the full capability of a staged and gated NPD system.  Cooper intended for frequent customer interactions and that both customer needs and customer satisfaction would receive positive marks in order for a new product project o advance at a gate decision to the next stage.  Instead, many firms fail to involve the customer once the initial project charter is drafted.  Moreover, many gatekeepers err to measuring past progress rather than validating the effectiveness of future project plans.  (See Gatekeeper Training to read more about this topic.)

Spiral NPD

To counteract the negative implementations of a traditional staged and gated NPC process, a Spiral NPD Process has been designed by Bob Cooper and associates as an update to the original water system.  In a spiral process, increased iteration is introduced to each stage of work.  These increments incorporate rapid testing and customer feedback, much like a sprint in an agile project management framework.

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Spirals allow the work of a stage to be broken into smaller, more manageable chunks.  These iterations also encourage NPD team members to test ideas, concepts, and prototypes with customers to gain their feedback.  Steps within a stage cycle through Build-Test-Feedback-Revise functions in order to ensure the product under design will meet customer needs.

Other areas in which Spiral NPD adopts agile practices include the daily stand-up meeting and sprint retrospectives.  The daily stand-up meeting encourages NPD team communication and collaboration via a quick. 15-minute meeting.  Typically, the dedicated team members gather in their designated work area (often called a “war room”) to briefly outline their efforts and challenges.  Each person addresses only three questions and detailed discussions are taken offline and with only the parties directly impacted by this issue.

  1. What did I accomplish yesterday?
  2. What do I plan to do today?
  3. Do I have any challenges to completing my work?

Benefits of Spiral NPD

Using a hybrid agile-staged and gated system for innovation, such as Spiral NPD, can accelerate product development.  With its iterative customer feedback loops, Spiral NPD is more responsive to customer needs.  In addition, Spiral NPD enhances the productivity of the NPD team and of the organization as people work on the right things at the right time.  Feature, product, and business objectives are better prioritized since the voice of the customer is intimately woven throughout each new product development cycle.

Implementing Spiral NPD

In my observations, the biggest challenge for organizations transitioning from a traditional waterfall planning process to an adaptive innovation ecosystem, is a change in culture.  Management no longer dictates top-down directives and project leaders no longer set out aggressive schedules and budgets.  Instead, NPD team members are self-organizing and self-directing.  The NPD team itself will decide how to work each iteration and stage in the product development life cycle.  The sprint retrospective drives learning and behavior change immediately into the next Build-Test-Feedback-Revise cycle.  Project managers also transition into servant leader roles, adopting transformative skills to drive change and flexibility focused on customer expectations.

Learn More

To learn more about Spiral NPD, we are holding a special workshop on Agile NPD on 23 & 24 April 2019 in Houston, Texas, USA.  Register here for the 2-day Agile NPD workshop and save on a full 3-day experience including a one-day pre-workshop course on Design Thinking.  Use code “bundle” at checkout and save 15% on both courses.  Contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or 281-280-8717 for more information on innovation, project management, and leadership training or coaching.  I love helping individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their highest innovation goals!

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Agile in New Product Development

For some time now, agile project management methods have been a hot topic.  The agile philosophy emerged in 2001 as a group of software developers tried to find a better way to launch completed products.  Until then, they had struggled with severely delayed schedules and rampant budget overruns.

So, what is magical about agile?  Really, there is nothing mysterious or bewitching about the agile approach.  Instead, the philosophy encourages a development framework that forces a team back to the fundamentals of new product project management.  And in innovation, those fundamentals are the customers and their needs.

The Agile Philosophy

The agile philosophy is built on a set of four values that favor customer interaction and activity over planning and contract negotiation (agilemanifesto.org).  Traditional project management frameworks, including the staged-and-gated decision process in new product development (NPD), can become document-heavy.  Especially large and risk-averse organizations tend toward adding processes, procedures, and policies to reduce project failures.

Instead of adding documentation to a project plan, the agile methodology adds more communication and testing.  The research to create more detailed plans does indeed make the team more aware of project risks, but it does nothing to actually address those uncertainties.  Brainstorming alternatives to implement IF a risk is triggered is a good practice but testing those alternative solutions in a trial will reveal the best answer in a clear and unconditional manner.

Thus, agile supports close customer interactions, lots of prototype testing, cross-functional (vs. sequential) project tasks, and collaborative communication.  These values are foundational in a successful NPD program, especially if the team is targeting a radical or disruptive innovation.  This is why software products served as an early demonstration of agile implementation.

It is very difficult to document the various cases in which a software tool will be used before the code is written.  It’s also next-to-impossible to know which features customers will use and how they will use them.  Agile allows the development team to build and test to generate information rather than preparing plans with assumed requirements.

As an example, my favorite hobby is scrapbooking, and I make greeting cards for friends and family.  In fact, if I skip a holiday, they are still asking for a handmade card.  I have been subscribing to a scrapbook/card-making magazine for several years to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and to find inspiring, creative ideas from other artists.  I like to take copies of the magazine with me on trips as it is easy to thumb through while in queues or at the airport or in the evening at a hotel.

The publisher began putting a one-page ad into the magazine a couple of years ago about developing a mobile app.  The mobile app would let you view the card photos on your phone or tablet.  Now, keep in mind that the full magazine content includes photos of cards, supply lists, vendor information, and instructions to duplicate the art exactly.

Unfortunately, the publisher moved forward to develop their mobile app without consulting readers (customers).  They spent a lot of money to develop the new product (the app), but it is not differentiated from other, free sources of photos of greeting cards.  In designing a mobile app, the publisher moved away from what made their print magazine special (supply lists, instructions, and grouping of product examples).  I found out recently that the publisher is out of business – losing their base product (magazine) at the cost of a new product (the app) built without customer input.

How Do You Implement Agile in NPD?

Because agile methodologies were originally designed for software, companies working with tangible products sometimes question whether the approach is right for them.  The answer is a resounding, “Yes!”  Remember that the agile framework for project management is a return to fundamentals – what do customers need and is what we are designing meet their needs?

Some of the core principles within agile are very easy to implement.  For example, the idea of rapid prototyping to gain real customer feedback is a step that any NPD team can incorporate to any process immediately.  Talking to and observing customer when they use your product or try to solve a particular problem is inexpensive and drives the agile value of customer interactions.

Other aspects of agile are more difficult to put in place at a firm.  In particular, the agile framework changes the culture of the NPD team and changes the way we do design and development work.  First, teams will learn how to work together collaboratively rather than doing R&D, engineering, or marketing work in sequential silos.  Next, the development effort proceeds much faster – in sprints – with the concepts of time-boxing and delivery of working features at the forefront.  Finally, old forms and templates, and especially directive management, are replaced with transparent and interactive measures of project status.

Scrum

Scrum is the most common implementation of the agile philosophy in new product development.  Scrum utilizes short, but intense, work periods that create usable deliverables.  For example, while a software project might product a few lines of tested code at the completion of a 1-week sprint, an NPD team may product a full customer journey map at the conclusion of a month-long sprint.  Neither deliverable yields a fully integrated working product, but each sub-system is completed and ready-to-go in a short period of time.  Each deliverable is independently tested and validated with customers.

In addition, Scrum utilizes three important roles in implementation.  First, the product owner represents the voice of customer.  This ensures the close interaction with both customer and business needs throughout the life of the NPD project.  The Scrum Master is not a traditional project management but acts to facilitate work and communication among team members and business interfaces. 

Finally, the Scrum team is a cross-functional, collaborative group that does the work of the project.  They remain focused on the project throughout the development cycle.  This team is small enough to make critical product design decisions and is diverse enough to address product development issues across the engineering, operations, and sales spectrum.

Agile NPD

Agile has moved beyond a hot topic to a way of life for many companies.  By re-focusing on the fundamentals of new product development, an agile project management approach can speed time-to-market and increase the quality of the products launched.  Moreover, the very nature of an agile approach to NPD drives more creative and disruptive innovations.

Learn More

To learn more about agile in new product development, we are holding a special workshop on Agile NPD on 23 & 24 April 2019 in Houston, Texas, USA.  Register here for the 2-day Agile NPD workshop and save on a full 3-day experience including a pre-workshop course on Design Thinking.  Use code “bundle” at checkout and save 15% on both courses.  Contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or 281-280-8717 for more information on innovation, project management, and leadership training or coaching.  I love helping individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their highest innovation goals!

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Happiness and Innovation Work

Recently, I listened to two different business-oriented podcasts on happiness.  The first one discussed happiness as a form of contentment, while the second one addressed how we can better manage our time in exchange for happiness.  Working more hours was not an element of happiness (of course) yet working better and providing for others through our work did lead to greater degrees of happiness, according to these experts.

Happy kids with their hands up outdoors

Moreover, happiness is a part of our work as new product development practitioners and project managers.  Our new product designs are successful when the features and attributes product feelings of happiness in our customers.  And with the wealth of our society today at large, we are often seeking happiness as consumers more than we desire simple, functional solutions.

What is Happiness?

Dictionary.com defines happiness as “the state of being happy,” and happy is defined as “delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing.”  This implies that happiness is a transitory mood as much as it is a continuous state of mind.  I feel happy when I learn new tools for my favorite hobby, and I feel happy when I’m on vacation with my husband.

I prefer the term content over happy.  Dictionary.com defines contentment as “satisfaction, ease of mind”.  This definition feels more long-term and deep to the soul.  Contentment may be reflected as a sense of happiness and joy, a feeling that others can see and know that you are satisfied with your life circumstances.

Each of us has our own definition of happiness, contentment, and satisfaction.  We know when we have these feelings, whether they are in-the-moment or are deep and in our souls.  And, if you’re like most human beings, you want more happiness, deeper contentment, and greater satisfaction.

The Role of Innovators

As innovators and new product development practitioners, our role is to bring products and services to people so they can increase their happiness.  This might be done by simplifying their lives, minimizing steps to complete a task, or bringing leisure to their lives.  Understanding our customers’ motivation is paramount in designing and developing satisfying new products and services.

For example, innovations that decrease the time consumers spend doing household chores can free their time to pursue activities that bring them happiness and contentment.  Products and service like flushable toilet cleaning pads, home grocery delivery, and robot vacuums all help us accomplish dreaded tasks quickly and easily.  Then, we can invest our time in more satisfying activities.

Innovators can identify new product features and services by observing customers.  Observation and ethnographic research are important tools for new product development practitioners to fully understand customer needs.  Interviewing consumers during or after task completion can help identify their pain points.  For instance, a person would express a pain point of taking a dripping toilet brush or rag to a storage area after scrubbing the commode.  The flushable toilet pads eliminate that pain point for customers.  Minimizing both the time and mess involved in an undesirable, but necessary, chore can increase a consumer’s happiness. 

You can start to brainstorm ideas for products and services by asking customers what makes them happy and what tasks they really dread.  On what tasks do they spend their time when they’d really rather be doing something else?  What are chores that have to done on the weekend when they’d rather spend time with family and friends?  Answers to these questions can guide you and provide insight to identifying valuable customer pain points.  Then, you can begin to design products and services to address these pain points and usage issues.  Innovation must start with the problem first!

Increasing Happiness with Innovation

Not all innovations automatically increase our happiness.  New product developers must watch out in designing products with lots of features and products that are all-encompassing solutions.  Too many features and options can make a product or service too complicated and many people will choose to continue with their current solution rather than spend time learning how to use a new product.  It is frustrating to exchange precious time to master a product with many features when the consumer only needs a few, basic functions.

Construction worker with machines at the background looking happy

As we consider our own happiness and contentment, we can also consider what makes our customers happy and satisfied.  I think this is what makes innovation such an engaging and dynamic career path. We get to help others save time and solve problems, and in doing so, we find self-satisfaction and contentment.

Learn More

If you want to learn more about designing and building products and services for happy customers, please join me in an innovation best practices workshop.  Prepare for your New Product Development Professional (NPDP) certification with self-study, facilitated online, or classroom courses.  You will immediately impact the success of your innovation efforts by iden3tifying strategies and tools to bring happiness to your customers.  Feel free to contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or 281-280-8717 for more information on innovation, project management, and leadership training or coaching.  I love helping individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their highest innovation goals!

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Visualizing NPD Solutions

Successful new product development (NPD) links many perspectives from the end-user or customer, designers, manufacturers, and marketers.  No single entity can develop a new product solution that meets customer needs and profit objectives by itself.  Yet, incorporating and balancing these various viewpoints is often a challenge for innovators.

Design Thinking

A set of tools that have become popular in the last few years are those in design thinking.  Design thinking is a creative problem-solving approach that systematically expands the potential ideas to address a given customer need.  The following figure illustrates the design thinking model.

In discovery, an NPD team uses tools like observation and ethnographic research to study potential problems.  Customers are an integral part of the design thinking model because they show the NDP team how they approach problems today and which solutions, or workarounds, they employ to address those issues.  The discovery phase of innovation is tremendously important since it sets the stage for all subsequent phases of work. 

In the define phase, the NPD team uses design thinking tools to clarify the problem.  While there might have been several challenges and customer needs noted in the discovery phase, carefully defining the problem is crucial to solving it.  We recommend the ITEM Method of Problem-Solving in which the problem statement is initiated, tuned, evaluated and measured.  The ITEM Method can be used as a standalone problem-solving tool or as a subset of tools within the design thinking framework.

Once the NPD team feels they have a concise customer need defined, the team will move to solution generation phases of work.  This includes creating lots of potential solutions and testing them quickly.  Rapid prototype testing is an important tool for innovation so that poor concepts can be eliminated.  Moreover, customers are involved in the solution generation process in successful innovation ventures.  You can include end-users and consumers in brainstorming sessions and certainly they should be included in evaluating prototypes. 

Visualizing Solutions

In his book, “Product Design and Innovation,” Carlos Rodriguez identifies three types of analytical thinking within the framework of design.  These strategic viewpoints can help an innovation team expand their solution sets to successfully identify options to address customer needs.

Deductive Reasoning

In the first category of problem-solving tools, deductive logic is used to test product solutions.  In deductive testing, we already know the expected outcome or result, and we are measuring whether the new product will deliver that value.  This type of problem-solving uses the argument of “if-then” and accepts conclusions justified by the hypothesis.

For example, deductive logic is applied to an automotive innovation.  The hypothesis is that “consumers want faster cars.”  Design thinking tools and the ITEM Method of problem-solving identify ways to increase acceleration through engine and transmission improvements.  Deductive testing then proposes that “if the engine has more horsepower, then the car will accelerate faster.”  Note that deductive testing is easily measured and describes “what” the design features do.

Inductive Reasoning

Inductive logic will extrapolate beyond the measurable deductive testing.  Instead of designing around the “what” of the innovation, NPD teams use inductive testing to evaluate “how” to accomplish a product solution.  This necessitates a broader viewpoint of the customer problem and back tracks from the solve stages of the design thinking framework to the identify stages.

For instance, instead of jumping to designing a faster car, inductive new product development will as the question of “how can people travel faster”.  In this case, the solution space is expanded from faster cars to high-speed rail, airplanes, and maybe even a hyperloop.  Inductive reasoning will generate more potential solutions using brainstorming and promotes solutions strategies beyond a given product feature.

Abductive Reasoning

Finally, abductive reasoning drives disruptive innovation by exploring both the “what” and “how” of a solution space.  In this context, we are focused on delivering the most customer value by utilizing skills and competencies of a cross-functional NPD team that includes the customer.  Abductive problem-solving in NPD includes design activities like observation, creating customer journey logs, and customer empathy maps. 

Continuing our example of faster travel, abductive design will go back to the discover stage of the design thinking model to identify the true customer problem.  We ask:  “Why does she want to travel faster?” and “What does he accomplish with faster travel?”  The answers may lead to NPD solutions that are disruptive or radical.

In our example, wd find that people want faster business travel so they can minimize time spent away from home and family.  This leads to a product solution that has nothing to do with the person leaving home – instead, we implement a telecommuting option and hold a virtual meeting via webinar.

Visualizing NPD Solutions

Design thinking tools offer a broad approach to new product development that helps identify the best solution for customer problems.  Using deductive testing in design and development, we can improve product features and characteristics.  This helps maintain and sustain a product or brand through the maturity stages in the product life cycle.

NPD teams can use inductive design to broaden the scope of the problem.  Rather than assuming an improvement of an existing product, inductive testing challenges the NPD team to design alternative approaches to solve the customers’ problems.  Inductive testing involves design thinking tools like rapid prototyping and concept testing to ensure that customer needs are met.

Finally, radical and disruptive innovation can be achieved when the innovation team steps back to observe customers’ problems with the broadest perspective.  Instead of improving existing product solutions or creating tangential new products, abductive reasoning allows the NPD team to craft delightful and unique products and services that truly address end-user challenges.

Learn More

Feel free to contact me for more information design thinking.  I can be reached at info@simple-pdh.com or 281-280-8717.  I love helping individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their highest innovation goals!

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A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

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