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design thinking

Can Nerds Serve the Customer?

I’m a self-admitting nerd.  My educational background is in engineering and I enjoy learning how things fit together.  I love to watch movies, but I never know the names of actors or actresses.  I fail miserably at the literature questions in Trivial Pursuit™. 

Yet, I love math, logic, and reasoning.  In recent years my fondness to “figure out how things work” has become a study of people, leaders, and teams.  Successful innovation teams have a different culture than others. 

A friend and colleague mentioned that her son was studying mechanical engineering.  She encouraged him to take a Design Thinking class so he could learn about human-centered design.  I agree wholeheartedly with her!  Engineers have an isolated educational experience driven by high-level calculus an intense theory of physics.  Of course, accountants, sociologists, and architects also have educational experiences driven by depth of knowledge, rather than breadth.

So, can nerds learn to serve the customer?

The Customer

First, we have to take a step back.  Any free economy functions to produce goods and services that generate profit for the seller.  Buyers pay a price for goods and services that give them utility and functionality at their own perceived value.  The buyer (or customer) seeks a benefit in purchasing a product that is greater than the price they pay.  Moreover, the price that the buyer pays must include a margin of profit for the producer.  If not, the producer will cease to offer those goods or services. 

A seller learns what to sell by studying customers and markets.  Customers are the key element in designing and developing new products.  My friend was very astute to encourage her son to broaden his studies beyond engineering.  New Product Development Professionals (NPDP) blend the unique skills of technology understanding, market perception, and product knowledge to successfully innovate profitable goods and services. 

Engineers, like other innovation leaders, have an intense curiosity about how things work.  Yes, we are nerds because we enjoy tinkering and troubleshooting.  So, trying to solve a customer’s problem by designing a new widget is exactly a perfect fit!

Design Thinking

Again, my friend gave her son a huge gift toward his employability by encouraging him to supplement engineering classes with Design Thinking.  Design Thinking is both a process and a set of tools.  From the process perspective, Design Thinking teaches us to collaborate with fellow nerds, customers, and any function that will help solve the problem.  From the tools point of view, Design Thinking gives us templates and techniques to elicit even the most obscure unarticulated customer needs. 

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At the core of Design Thinking is empathy – an understanding of the feelings, thoughts, and attitudes of another person.  In the case of product development, the product development engineers build empathy for the customers by interviewing, shadowing, and observing their interactions with the product.  When we understand the struggle that a customer has to open a package or assemble the parts, we improve the features and functions of that product. 

For example, IKEA includes a small (cheap) hex wrench with its ready-to-assemble furniture (such as a bookshelf).  The packaging is small (a benefit to customers and transportation) but only nerds have a full tool chest available to assemble a bookshelf.  So, for most folks, the cheap hex wrench is a huge time-saver.  Parts are clearly labeled and the visual instruction sheet from IKEA gives simple directions to assemble the parts using the tools (hex wrench) provided.  Both the seller and buyer benefit – higher profit margins and enhanced perception of the product’s value. 

Image from Creative Commons

Engineers and Design Thinking

Yes, nerds can serve the customer!  Engineers are great at trouble-shooting and finding creative solutions to problems.  Augmenting our technical training with customer empathy creates a superhero innovation leader. 

If you don’t know the basic tools and process of design thinking, that’s okay.  Register here for an interactive, online workshop, led by a full-fledged nerd. 

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Regaining Creativity

It’s sometimes difficult to remember while we are filling out forms, responding to bureaucracy, and going about our daily routine, but we are all creative and innovative beings.  Each of us has good ideas, sometimes great ideas.  And each of us can generate unique and novel ways to address customer needs and to troubleshoot problems. 

Why is Creativity Lost?

Kids have lots of creativity.  They color outside the lines and make cats purple.  They imagine themselves as swash-buckling pirates and as famous movie stars.  My friend, Karen, and I used to act out our favorite books in our backyards with no props at all.  The walnut tree served as the deserted island and our dolls were the orphaned children.  We understood the story and, well, we just had fun! 

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Then, our parents and teachers taught us that we needed to stay inside the lines, cats are never purple, and it was more important to do chores then pretend to be surviving on coconuts and palm leaves in a snow-covered backyard in Idaho. 

Learning is very, very important and without understanding how mathematics and science work, we cannot become engineers, scientists, or project managers.  We must learn the right way to solve an algebra problem and we need to know the correct answers.  As chemical engineers, the safety of our co-workers and communities relies on us calculating the right answers and using the right formulas. 

Yet, another piece of finding the right answer uses our creative problem-solving skills.  And many of us have relegated creativity to the back burner.  We don’t have time to “play” and we don’t want to look dumb by not coming up with “the right” answer. 

Build Creativity through Experimentation

Edison is famous for saying he didn’t discover how to make a light bulb.  He had, instead, found 10,000 ways to not make a light bulb.  As innovation and engineering professionals, we strive for creativity through experimentation.  We learn, just as Edison did, by failing.  Each failure tells us what won’t work, but each failure also frames a hypothesis for the next experiment. 

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We often go about experimentation by changing one variable at a time.  This can take a long time to find a novel answer to a problem, yet it provides accurate and detailed data and information about the problem.  We should also experiment with “outside the box” solutions.  These are problem solutions that come from other industries or analogies from radically different systems. 

Legend has it that the inventor of Velcro watched a lizard climb the side of the building and wondered about its sticky feet.  Another industry legend illustrates that rotating vessels with brushes used for oil spill clean-ups came from the observation that sea otters’ fur was highly absorptive.  Applying a biological analogy to a static process can unleash creative hypotheses.  And we can test these ideas in a controlled way to learn from failure. 

Creativity Exercises

it’s hard to be creative by ourselves.  We need to share ideas – sometimes crazy ideas – with others to generate better ideas.  Often, just looking at a problem from a different perspective can stimulate creativity.  A simple exercise to help you focus on new concepts is to drive to work by a different route.  You will observe different landmarks and patterns.  Strike up a conversation with a stranger in the queue at the supermarket.  Who knows?  You might leave with a new recipe. 

At work, seek out the opinions and impressions with those you don’t normally share assignments.  Learn what challenges face the structural and electrical engineers, IT and HR professionals, and supply chain specialists.  Talk to technicians about their workflows.  All of these unusual conversations will give you creative fodder for solving the next problem when it arises.  Download a handout on creativity here.

Creativity is Lifelong Learning

Anyone who has followed my blog for any time knows that I’m a huge believer in lifelong learning.  Of course, as an experienced and safety conscious process engineer, I know that there are “right” answers.  We cannot defy the laws of gravity or of thermodynamics.  We know that a material balance is fixed by the laws of nature. 

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However, when we experiment and lose our fear of judgment, we can test hypotheses to find better and more creative ways to solve problems.  We can share a stream between systems that need heating and cooling in a plant to save water and energy.  We can push chemical reactions to increase efficiency and reduce material usage with the clever application of temperature, pressure, or catalyst.  Whatever your field of expertise, look for new ways to do things, especially by trying an approach that comes from a biological system or another industry. 

What can you do, today, to create a novel hypothesis and test it to learn?

Learn More

Check out my presentation on creativity and design thinking with the Houston ATD chapter here.   Register for our online workshop 29 and 30 March 2021 here.   Contact me at info@simple-pdh.com if you want to implement effective tools for innovation team communications.

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Wagile Tools

For several weeks, we have been posting about the Wagile innovation process. 

Wagile is a hybrid new product development (NPD) process that brings together the best of waterfall (“w‑”)project management systems with Agile systems used for software development (“‑agile”).  The outcome is an innovation process that has a deep focus on customer needs while managing risk (investment) through a disciplined approach. 

Product Innovation Tools

Most innovation processes include checklists of what has to be done and when.  In a traditional staged-and-gated process, the business case must be completed in order to pass a certain gate.  Market testing must be completed before going to market with a new product, etc.  (Read more about product innovation tools here.)

Likewise, Scrum specifies a checklist of features (known as the “product backlog”) to complete during a sprint.  Sprints are short periods of time in which the project team works on the list of tasks provided by the business.  Tasks that are not finished in the prescribed two- to four-week period are added to the “sprint backlog” and rollover to the next sprint – akin to a never ending “To Do” list. 

What’s missing in both the traditional waterfall and Agile processes is the “How To.”  Of course, every project is unique and different.  The fun and beauty of working in innovation is the variety and diversity of tasks, activities, and projects.  Yet, each time we encounter a new situation, we can (and should) follow a given process to understand the situation (such as risk analysis) and to design solutions.  In Wagile, we deploy a set of innovation tools to tackle the “how to” of each stage of work. 

Wagile Stages and Gates

Wagile Stages and Wagile Gates are designed to involve the customer.  After all, no innovation is valuable unless it meets a need in the marketplace and is saleable.  Wagile tools use Design Thinking methods to gather customer insights and couple those inputs with measurable decision and performance standards.  As a reminder the Wagile Stages and Gates are indicated here. 

  • 1:  Opportunity Identification (Idea Gate)
  • 2:  Business Case (Functional Gate)
  • 3:  Technology Development (Technology Gate)
  • 4:  Scale-Up (Constructability Gate)
  • 5:  Production (Launch Gate)

Design Thinking Tools

To learn more about Design Thinking tools, read our previous post Tools for Product Innovation based on the work of Carlos Rodriguez (Delaware State University).  Design Thinking is a customer-focused methodology to creatively and collaboratively solve customer problems.  We involve the customer in defining problems and in creating solutions.  We work collaboratively with cross-functional teams, both internally and externally.  We ask questions and we listen. 

Early in the Wagile product innovation process, we use observation and interviewing to gather customer insights.  The Design Thinking tools of customer empathy map and customer journey map are deployed in Stage 1 (Opportunity Identification) to discover and define the customer problem.  Download information on these tools here.  An important outcome of the tools and activities in this stage is to determine if the gain for the customer is greater than the pain of acquiring and learning a new product. 

An Example

I try to maintain a high level of fitness.  I swim, bike, and lift weights.  Recently, my husband got me a new Fitbit that allows me to track all exercises instead of just counting steps.  It’s very convenient as I only have to select the correct icon, push start, and then press finish for each activity.  And if I forget, the device automatically senses that I am cycling instead of running and tracks the calories burned. 

However, I do not wear my new Fitbit when I go swimming.  The pain is greater than the gain.  Since swimming is still under the arbitrary restrictions of corona-panic, the pool is only open for 45 minutes at a time.  My existing swim tracker records the number of laps, strokes per lap, efficiency, and calories burned.  I would incur a transaction cost (lost time in the water) to calibrate my swim watch with the Fitbit.  Right now, I view that cost as higher than the benefit (one device for all activities).  Your customers will also weigh costs and benefits as they consider purchasing a new or updated upgraded product. 

Design Tools in Wagile

Each stage in Wagile is defined to include specific tools to evaluate cost/benefit of an innovation.  Design Thinking tools take the perspective of the customer.  Later stages in Wagile use financial assessment tools (coupled with customer satisfaction measures) to determine cost/benefit from the company’s perspective.  Remember organizations are in business to make money and deliver value to shareholders.  Join me on 11 November for a Wagile tutorial and learn to apply Design Thinking tools in your innovation process!  Register here. 

Learn More

  • Check out where I’m speaking next (click here) and book me for your next event.
  • Get your copy of The Innovation ANSWER Book available at Amazon (now available on Kindle).
  • Vote on the cover of my next book, The Innovation QUESTION Book here.
  • Reference the new PDMA Body of Knowledge, available at Amazon.
  • Get your NPDP Certification!  Join our October online class (Thursdays) following the brand new, 2nd edition PDMA Body of Knowledge.  REGISTER HERE!

About Me

I am inspired by writing, teaching, and speaking at great professional events.  I tackle life with an infusion of rigor, zeal, and faith.   It brings me joy to help you build innovation leaders.  Teresa Jurgens-Kowal is an experienced innovation professional with a passion for lifelong learning with a PhD in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Computer and Information Decision Making.  My credentials include PE (State of Louisiana), NPDP, PMP®, and CPEM, and I am a DiSC® certified facilitator.  Contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or area code 281 + phone 787-3979 for more information on coaching for entrepreneurs and innovators.

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A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

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What is Emotional Design?

Watch the ultra-short video and then read on for full details.

I am a DiSC-certified facilitator.  There are four primary work styles:  “D” for dominance, “i” for influence, “S” for steadiness, and “C” for conscientiousness.  My own work style is CD, meaning I prefer to focus on data to make a decision and I will generally take action quickly once I have the data analysis in hand. 

People with “i” and “S” work styles tend to focus more on the needs of other people and will make decisions based on emotion even with little or no data.  And while people with strong “C” and “D” work styles might puzzle over such behaviors, as product innovation professionals, we all know that customers make decisions based on emotion (to some degree or another). 

That’s why the theory and practice of Emotional Design is important. 

Emotional Design

Emotional design is part of specifying product requirements within the product design process.  You can learn more about the overall product design process in another post (click here).  Designers use the emotions that customers associate with product usage to identify and prioritize product features.  When customers express positive emotions about a product, they tend to demonstrate more trust and loyalty to a specific product or brand.  This often results in increased revenue. 

Three Types of Emotional Design Information

Emotional design is based on the level of emotion and how individuals process information.  We call thee levels:  visceral, behavioral, and reflective.  Let’s take a quick look at what these mean to product innovation. 

Visceral Emotional Design

According to Dictionary.com, visceral means “characterized by … instinct rather than intellect”.  This is our “animal brain” taking charge.  We process certain emotions using a low level of basic motor skills and senses.  So, visceral design is associated with physical senses, like the aesthetics or color of a product. 

Consider, for example, a red sports car.  It appeals to our basic senses and emotions because the styling is generally pleasing and implies speed (something that humans have craved throughout all time).  Red as a color, in most societies, is associated with power.  Therefore, on a visceral level, a red sports car represents a strong emotional design. 

Behavioral Emotional Design

At a mid-level of emotional design are customers’ responses to an innovation according to memory and learning.  Thus, the behavioral level of emotional design emphasizes the functionality and usability of a product. 

Let’s use the red sports car as an example again.  Many sports cars use a manual transmission to increase performance and to give the driver more control.  However, very few Americans know how to drive a manual transmission.  In order to be satisfied with the design, they would need to learn a new behavior.  Yet, a car enthusiast already knows the skill of driving a stick shift and finds the design even more appealing. 

Reflective Emotional Design

Finally, the highest level of emotional design is related to self-identity.  The reflective level deals with feelings and emotions that determine understanding, reasoning, and interpretation.  A wealthy bachelor feels that the red sports car reflects his personality.  It is an extension of his “self” by showing power, strength, and speed.  On the other hand, a mom with five kids would view the sports car as frivolous and not serving her important tasks of driving to school and soccer practice. 

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Why is Emotional Design Important?

As indicated, customers rarely buy a product based on data sheets and specifications alone.  Emotion – whether explicit or subconscious – plays a role in all of our purchases.  I’m not a fan of the color brown, personally, and I prefer bright colors for clothes and home decorations.  My visceral emotions drive me away from earth tones.  These are deep internal perceptions that have no explanation but are in parts of my subconscious brain (or soul).

Yet, I love learning new things.  For my hobbies, I will test and buy products that I think will make my life easier or tasks quicker to finish.  I am seeking functionalities for to improve behaviors.  I want to use products and services that are easy. 

What complicates product innovation at the behavioral and reflective levels is differentiating between a desire to learn and the status quo.  Oftentimes, new products that add simplicity or convenience for a customer require a level of learning or new behaviors that require too much change.  Customers will only accept a new level of features when the learning curve is a low hurdle. 

Lastly, products that make us feel good are those that can command a price premium.  (More information on pricing strategies is found here.)  Experiences and luxury items appeal to our personal sense of self and identity.  Reflective emotional design builds emotions and personality into product development.  While basic aesthetics and form can be tested for broad market acceptance, reflective design often focuses on narrower target customer segments who share similar values.  You may want to consider a segmentation strategy when your product innovation depends on reflective emotional design. 

Learn More

  • Check out where I’m speaking next (click here). You can book me for speaking by contacting me directly or through Innovation Women.
  • Get your copy of The Innovation ANSWER Book.  Available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle version.
  • Reference the new PDMA Body of Knowledge, available at Amazon.
  • Do you know your strategy?  Is it time to narrow your focus or expand to serve more customers?  Join me for the two-part Reset Your Strategy workshop on 18 and 20 August.  Register here – special discounts for the unemployed.

© Simple-PDH.com

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

Study.       Learn.       Earn.       Simple.

About Me

I am inspired by writing, teaching, and coaching.  I tackle life with an infusion of rigor, zeal, and faith.   It brings me joy to help you build innovation leaders.  Teresa Jurgens-Kowal is an experienced innovation professional with a passion for lifelong learning with a PhD in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Computer and Information Decision Making.  My credentials include PE (State of Louisiana), NPDP, PMP®, and CPEM, and I am a DiSC® certified facilitator.  Contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or area code 281 + phone 787-3979 for more information on coaching for entrepreneurs and innovators.

Product Design Process

New products do not magically appear overnight.  Despite our collective image of a lone scientist working over a smoldering beaker of neon-colored fluid, most innovations are born of a rigorous process.  In fact, studies show that firms with flexible product design processes generate repeatable new product success more than their competitors who approach innovation in an ad-hoc manner. 

Watch the short overview video and then read the full blog for details.

Often called the new product development (NPD) process or product innovation process, a product design process takes the innovation team on a journey.  We must first identify what strategic needs our customers have, what problems trouble them, and how we can help them solve those problems efficiently.  The product design process delivers both steps to advance innovation as well as a set of tools to understand and quantify customer needs. 

Steps in The Product Design Process

Most product development processes focus on the deliverables.  In Stage X, you must have a fully fleshed-out business case.  At Phase Y, you need to have built a functional prototype.  What’s different about the product design process is that it focuses on actions that lead new product innovation from rigorous ideas to commercial products. 

Step 1 – Ideation

Ideation is a creative process to generate, develop, and communicate new ideas.  It involves searching for customer problems and defining the problem space.  The two categories of tools deployed in ideation are divergent thinking and convergent thinking. 

Divergent thinking tools seek to expand the question and derive alternate concepts.  Sometimes we misinterpret a customer’s problem through our own biases (please see the blog on Optimism Bias).  Other times, we jump to solutions without considering the whole scope of the problem.  This can make products overly complex while they do not satisfy customers most basic needs.  Consider the long list of micro-print included with prescription drugs.  The warnings might be justified, but an 80-year old patient with macular degeneration cannot possibly determine appropriate dosage. 

In convergent thinking, we take the creative ideas and solutions generated by cross-functional teams and collate them.  The purpose of this step in the design process is to find common themes or concepts that will address large market segments so that we can move forward in the product design process.  It is impossible – and fraught with risk and expense – to pursue all ideas. 

Step 2 – Concept Design

Concept design introduces clarity and alignment for the product.  It provides a way to explain what the product will do, how it will function, and how it will solve the customer’s problem.  Often the concept design is a simple narrative description or sketch.  This yields high-level feedback from customers to validate that the problem definition is correct.  When organizations skip this step, they end up designing and selling products that only almost solve a customer’s problem.  Unfortunately, this leaves a big gap for competition to fill with a better product that satisfies customer needs with better quality. 

Step 3 – Embodiment

As a product moves from concept design into more detailed design, a product innovation team accounts for technical and economic feasibility.  Customers will exchange hard earned money for products that offer convenience, simplification, or luxury experiences.  The embodiment of the product must balance the features and attributes of the design against cost of manufacturing and, ultimately, the selling price. 

Conjoint analysis is a common tool used at this stage of the product design process.  This tool allows customers to rank and prioritize a select set of features against prices.  The outcome of a conjoint analysis provides the product innovation team with a list of the most important features that must be included in a final product.  Results of the study are important since it links desired features and quality levels with willingness to pay. 

Step 4 – Draft Product Specifications

At this point in the design process, the “what” and “why” of the product are well defined.  The next step is to determine “how”.  The initial product specifications lay out physical dimensions and manufacturability.  A key tool in this phase is D4X, or Design for X, where X may represent assembly, maintenance, or usability. 

The expected outcome of the draft product design specification stage is to quantify and clarify the product design.  Communication of the purpose of the product, quality levels of individual features, and the cost/benefit of the product are also important outcomes.  Since the next stage is determining final product development and manufacturing methods, the draft product design specifications should be complete and reflect all key characteristics that the product must deliver. 

Step 5 – Detailed Design

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A primary tool in the detailed design process is QFD (Quality Function Deployment).  This methodology converts the draft design specifications into specific manufacturing and engineering criteria.  In other words, QFD translates the customer needs into measurable requirements.  QFD is a sophisticated tool with matching, prioritization, and scaling of customer needs, competitive responses, and design attributes, combined with cost to create engineering metrics for new product manufacturing.  QFD originated in the automotive industry and uses a graphic called the House of Quality.  (Read more in the blog post Innovation Tools:  What is QFD?)

Step 6 – Final Production

Sometimes called “Fabrication and Assembly”, the last step in the design process for new product development is manufacturing and producing the product.  This includes prototype testing, market testing, and systems integration.  Prototype testing ensures that the product works as it was designed to work and meets customer needs.  Companies should test a variety of prototypes from those with just a few relevant features (e.g. the minimally viable product, MVP) to a high-fidelity working prototype.  It is less expensive to modify the manufacturing and distribution process is before finalizing specifications and production moves to large scale.  

The Product Design Process

The product design process does not replace a traditional or emergent project management process (like Stage-Gate® or Scrum).  Instead, product design lies parallel to the project management decisions.  Product design forces enhanced communication and interaction with customers resulting in better overall product designs and reception in the marketplace.  While we have only briefly touched on some of the important product design tools here, you can read about them in depth in the comprehensive text, Product Design and Innovation by Carlos Rodriguez.  He includes a lot of very thorough examples to lead you through the entire product design process. 

How Do You Use Product Design?

Every industry, company, and product is different.  You may know your market well, so that a new product simply needs limited design and testing.  Or you may be developing brand new technology and need to conduct extensive testing with potential and existing customers to ensure strategic alignment.  In this case, you will want to explore more of the product design phases and tools with more depth. 

The most important part of any product innovation processes to ensure strategic business alignment.  Developing product strategy precedes the product design process.  Start with our Reset Your Strategy workshop in August 2020.  Pre-register here.  Contact me at info@globalnpsolutions.com for more information. 

© Simple-PDH.com

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

Study.       Learn.       Earn.       Simple.

About Me

I am inspired by writing, teaching, and coaching.  I tackle life with an infusion of rigor, zeal, and faith.   It brings me joy to help you build innovation leaders.  Teresa Jurgens-Kowal is an experienced innovation professional with a passion for lifelong learning with a PhD in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Computer and Information Decision Making.  My credentials include PE (State of Louisiana), NPDP, PMP®, and CPEM, and I am a DiSC® certified facilitator.  Contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or area code 281 + phone 787-3979 for more information on coaching for entrepreneurs and innovators.

What to Do When Waiting

When I was in grad school at the University of Washington in Seattle, I did not own a car.  I took the bus to campus and home to my apartment in the Northgate mall area.  While I was on the bus, I would read journal articles related to my research project.  It was great to have 20 minutes of uninterrupted time to concentrate on science. 

Recently, my husband and I took a two-week vacation to Scotland.  We used public transit and I spent a lot of time on the train recording our stories in my travel journal.  A lot of trains and buses have Wi-Fi and I noticed a lot of people texting or looking at Facebook on their phones.  Few people were reading or chatting.

Read on or watch the 40-second video summary.

Waiting Time

We spend a lot of time in our lives waiting.  Whether we are on the bus or train commuting or we are in a queue at the store, we often face idle time.  Most of us today grab our phones and surf the internet or text friends.  We fill the waiting time with non-value adding activities.

Now, I’m going to ask you to do an experiment.  Close your eyes and think back 10 years.  A decade ago, only a few of us had smartphones and there really was not Facebook.  What did you do when you were waiting? 

Maybe you chatted with the person in line ahead of you and learned the news of your community.  Maybe you let your mind wander and you came up with creative ideas.  Or maybe you spent that time planning strategic actions for your job or business.  Maybe the waiting time just gave you a chance to catch your breath and relax for a few minutes out of a busy day.

Creativity in Waiting

When you have little to occupy your mind and your thoughts wander, creativity sparks.  The subconscious mind is constantly working on our problems and challenges, and it is when we relax that those creative ideas can germinate.  That’s one reason why people claim to get good ideas in the shower.  So far, there is no technology distracting us in the bathroom – yet! 

So, I’ll ask you to try another experiment.  The next time you are waiting – on a bus or in a queue – resist your phone.  Just breathe and observe what’s around you.  Watch people and their patterns of behavior.  Consider the simple solutions that surround you while you’re waiting:  an automatic bus ticket machine, the cash drawer opening and locking, and candy bars stacked near the checkout at the grocery store.  Is there a simple, creative solution for your challenge?  Can you borrow one of these ideas? 

Strategic Waiting

Sometimes we need to concentrate on a specific problem.  Waiting time is another opportunity to generate strategic solutions.  Sitting at your computer, you’ve got files and emails calling for your attention.  But when you’re waiting, you literally have free time with no distractions or interruptions. 

While you are next waiting, resist your phone and consider your biggest strategic problem.  Now, challenge yourself to come up with three ideas to implement that would solve that problem.  While you are waiting, envision exactly how you will execute each plan, who you will need to help you, and what the end result looks like.  If you need to research something, plan to do it later.  You must resist your phone to brainstorm a strategic plan.

How to Use Waiting Time

All of us have waiting time whether it is during our commute or in queues at stores.  Instead of filling the time with quick and easy gossip on Facebook, use your time to find creative and strategic solutions to innovation challenges.  Resist your phone and try to generate at least three new ideas and three action plans for implementation.  You’ll be surprised with how much you can accomplish in 10 minutes! 

Learn About Design Thinking

The techniques of generating three creative ideas and three specific strategic plans are tools from Design Thinking.  Design thinking is a creative and collaborative problem-solving approach for identifying customer needs and designing solutions from an empathetic viewpoint.  You can apply Design Thinking tools to new product development and innovation and to your own life or business challenges.  Sign up here for a free, 60 minute Q&A webinar (21 Oct 2019 at noon CDT) on Life Design.  I’ll be sharing more tools from Design Thinking at the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC) conference on 6 October in Dallas, TX.  Stop by and say “hi”.  I’d love to hear how you are generating creative and strategic solutions during your waiting times!

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Study.       Learn.       Earn.       Simple.

How Consultants Use Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a collaborative and creative approach to problem solving built on empathy for the customer.  We use a variety of tools, techniques, and methods to apply design thinking in innovation processes.  It is successful in new product development (NPD) because design thinking focuses on the customers’ needs and understanding from their perspective – of issues or challenges. 

Traditionally, design was an afterthought in product development.  Designers were called at the final stages to make a product or its package “look pretty”.  Today, however, design thinking integrates aesthetics, functionality, and production throughout the innovation process – from ideation to commercialization. 

I was recently asked, since design thinking is so successful in helping innovators meet goals, can it be applied in other situations?  The answer is a definitive YES!  Design thinking helps teachers and trainers, consultants, and small business owners. 

Design Thinking and Teaching

As any teacher knows, students are all different.  Trainers and facilitators base learners with different needs and capabilities.  Students and participants learn differently too.  Some gain knowledge from listening to a lecture, others by viewing content visually, and many learn by experience. 

Design thinking offers several tools that are specially geared toward the various modes of learning.  The design thinking tools and techniques engage multiple senses so participants can hear, see, touch, and engagd in the learning process. 

For example, an affinity diagram is a simple tool for categorizing ideas and innovation.  But you can use the same concept for learners to categorize vocabulary words, engineering processes, or biological concepts. 

Design Thinking and Consultants

Business and management consultants can use design thinking tools to help frame problems and to guide teams to optimize solutions.  For example, senior marketing experts in a firm often consult with individual NPD project teams.  Understanding the customer’s journey can frame the development process as well as the marketing campaign.  A customer journey map shows how various personas become aware of a product need, make a selection, buy and use the product,  and dispose or service it after use. 

External business consultants can also use the customer journey map to describe engagement with the team, senior management, and other key stakeholders.  For projects involving product or quality improvements (like Six Sigma), design thinking tools complement the quantitative data with qualitative evaluations.  Understanding how people feel about certain solutions builds rapport and support for total quality management. 

Design Thinking and Small Business

Owning and operating a small business is both rewarding and challenging.  Small business owners must maintain a pipeline of new products and new customers, all while managing day-to-day operations.  In many ways, the small business owner has more challenges than an innovation team seeking disruptive technology!

In order to understand and meet customer needs, small business owners use surveys and CRM systems to understand traffic to their shops.  Yet, data alone cannot predict transit attitudes that impact business conditions.  Small business owners can apply design thinking tools to better understand their customers and to grow their reach. 

One tool that helps identify customer needs and builds understanding is the customer empathy map.  Here, you put yourself into the shoes of your customer and gain perspective on what problems they face, how it makes them feel, what messages they see and hear, and what are the pain points and benefits of existing products and services.  Repeating the exercise for each of your target market segments helps the small business owner to identify the best way to help their customers have better lives. 

Using Design Thinking

Design thinking offers a great set of tools and techniques that help product development practitioners, teachers, trainers, consultants, and small business owners to better understand customers, clients, and end-users.  Empathy is at the heart of design thinking so that you deliver products and services that truly meet customer needs and make them happy. 

Many of the design thinking tools utilize all our senses to hear, see, and touch artifacts that bring data to life.  Design thinking draws on collaborative problem-solving, recognizing that the best ideas are nurtured by a group of people with different experiences and viewpoints.  Finally, design thinking is it creative process, often starting with a blank sheet of paper and no preconceived notions of products or customer behaviors. 

Learn More

If you are a management consultant or small business owner struggling to identify customers and solutions, you need to join the Life Design Master Mind group.  In Life Design Master Mind, we use design thinking applied to life and investigate how to achieve our best purpose, what steps to take in the next phase of life, and how to help those around us.  Join me on 21 October 2019 at noon CDT (1 pm EDT/10 am PDT) for a Q&A webinar and Life Design Master Mind pilot.  Register now!

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Design Thinking Tools

Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting to the South Texas Section of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (STS AIChE) for the professional development hour.  I love to help people learn how to solve problems more creatively, so we discussed and practiced several different design thinking tools for innovation.  My thanks to Babak Rafienia (pictured here with me) for his high-level organizational skills, despite torrential rains and flooding in Houston on the night of the event.

Design Thinking Model

Design thinking is a collaborative and creative problem-solving methodology that helps individuals and teams find the best solutions by focusing on customer empathy.  The model is simple – two steps – identify the problem and solve the problem. 

However, we do iterate between a Discovery Stage and Define Stage to correctly identify the problem, and we cycle between creating multiple solution alternatives and evaluating them in the solving phase.  No new product development (NPD) team should ever go to the lab without clarifying a customer’s problem.  It is fun to invent new things, yet unless there is a market need for the technical solution, developers are just playing. 

Discovery

In the discovery stage we use tools like a customer journey map and a customer empathy map.  These design thinking tools help us to understand how consumers know that they have a problem, what they think and feel about the problem, and how they identify product and service solutions.  The customer journey map also involves following end-users past the point of purchase to understand how they feel about the product during use and at the end of its life cycle. 

Define

The define stage of design thinking clarifies the customer’s needs into a simple statement.  At the STS AIChE meeting, we practiced defining problems using noun/verb matching.  This tool increases collaboration and also encourages creative solutions.  It’s important to differentiate between complaints and problem statements.  You may never make a whiner happy, but you can design product solutions that address clear and simple problem statements. 

Example Affinity Diagram

Create

A fun and useful design thinking activity for an NPD team is to collect the problem statements from the define phase and categorize them using a mind map or affinity diagram.  In our practice exercise at STS AIChE, we used the example of disrupting airline travel by employing a variety of design thinking tools, including customer journey maps and noun/verb matching.  Our affinity diagram showed some key categories of improving the waiting areas before boarding a flight and enhancing seating on the airplane itself.  The next step (Evaluate Phase) would be to generate and test simple prototypes of say, larger and lighter standing seats (one idea from our session). 

Design Thinking Tools

You can use design thinking tools to address a lot of different situations and problems.  The benefit of design thinking tools is that they are fast and easy to use, they build collaboration, and enhance creativity.  You focus on the end-user’s needs from a qualitative perspective ensuring that you build empathy for the customer. 

Act now

Our discount rate for Life Design Master Mind ends on 17 May 2019.  In Life Design Master Mind, you will learn how to apply design thinking tools to your own situation – whether that is growing the skills of your NPD team or to making a decision to go back to school or change jobs.  Give me a call at area code 281 phone 280-8717 if you want to review the Life Design Master Mind Q&A webinar recording from April.  Sign up here for Life Design Master Mind 17 May 2019 to get the upfront discount! 

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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!

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