design thinking

What to Do When Waiting

Posted on 09.26.19

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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How Consultants Use Design Thinking

Posted on 09.19.19

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

Posted on 05.16.19

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.

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

Posted on 04.18.19

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.

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

Identify the problem
Define the problem statement
Generate potential solutions
Test solutions
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.

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

Posted on 04.04.19

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):

Lack of internal cooperation,
Lack of external cooperation,
Shortcomings in goal-setting,
Lack of adequate infrastructure, and
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!

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

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Doing Things Differently

Posted on 03.07.19

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.

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.

Learn More

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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Visualizing NPD Solutions

Posted on 01.24.19

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!

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

5 Most Effective Skills Innovators Need

Posted on 10.11.18

When I tell people that I work in innovation management, I am often asked what product I make. Of course, with my hobbies, I make lots and lots of scrapbooks and greeting cards. But, in my business serve my clients more than I create products. I want to create knowledge and skills for individuals and businesses to take their innovation programs to the next level. Innovation management is more about learning a continuous improvement process than it is about making “things”.

One of the most rewarding features of my job is to watch an individual or a company develop their own mastery of innovation. There are five critical skills that innovation managers and new product development (NPD) practitioners need to be effective and to build sustaining innovation programs.

#1-Know the Fundamentals

In sports, music, or theater, participants practice drills on the fundamentals. Quarterbacks catch the ball from the center and pass it, over and over again during the week and during the off-season. Pianists play scales, repeatedly, to provide nimble fingers and practice for a concert in B-flat or F-major. In theater, voice coaches train actors and actresses in delivery as they practice raising and lowering their pitch to build suspense for the performance.

NPD practitioners also need to practice the fundamentals. Too often, we assume we know what customers want since we assume the project goal is to add features and functionality to the product. Assumptions are performing, without the practice, and that can be a disaster!

Instead, innovation managers need to ensure that the NPD effort is based n fundamental customer needs. NPD teams must understand the basic challenge or problem that a customer is trying to solve. Those customer expectations are matched, one-to-one, with NPD project goals in successful innovation.

For example, a friend of mine had five dogs. She would launder their blankets and bedding, then undergo a cleaning process for her washing machine. A purely product-centric view of her challenge would be to make the bleach bottle easier to pour. Yet, digging into the core need, new products have been released to clean and disinfect the washing machine by running a normal load. Successful NPD teams focus on the core customer need and seek fundamental understanding.

#2 – Identify and Manage Barriers to Innovation

Innovation introduces change. That’s why it is such a fun field in which to work. Yet, change presents a tug-of-war for most people. We are excited to try something new while at the same time, we are unsure if the risk is worth it. Resistance to change is one barrier to innovation.

During conversations with existing and potential customer, innovation teams will identify any barriers or constraints to new product development. I recommend creating a handful of personas, or generic customer profiles to help envision the barriers to innovation. In this way, the NPD team can “query” the persona during product design and development to validate concepts, features, and functionalities.

For example, one persona may be a family with a lot of pets, like my friend. Another persona may be a family with kids that play sports and have very dirty clothes needing daily laundering. And yet another persona may be a single person living in an apartment who rarely needs to do laundry. The NPD team uses these personas to understand resistance or constraints in the product design, since the challenges of each are unique.

#3 – Plan, Execute, and Be Flexible

There has been a ton of debate in recent years about the best project management methodology for innovation efforts. Phased and gated processes rose in glory to be dissed by proponents of agile. Many companies then jumped onto the agile bandwagon to find products still failing in the marketplace.

What’s most important in successful innovation is to plan your work (including customer observation, testing, and validation), execute to the plan, and be flexible (be agile) as needed. NPD managers and CIOs (Chief Innovation Officers) should be trained as exceptional leaders first, and then, in the particular NPD processes for project management.

Successful leaders often have coaches or master mind groups to share ideas and to learn best practices. Transformational leaders understand the importance of customer inputs and balance these needs with operational demands in manufacturing and distribution. Innovation leaders are flexible and adapt to each situation to continuously develop team members and to improve the innovation management process itself.

#4 – Collaborate with Everybody

Another aspect of successful innovation is learning how to collaborate effectively. Collaboration is not a one-way customer interview or survey, and it is not assigning and directing tasks to NPD team members. Instead, collaboration builds on the skills and needs of everyone involved in the project, both internally and externally.

Employees working in NPD are often motivated by learning. This desire to learn can be capitalized by linking NPD team members with target customers to develop a customer journey map and to gain specific market feedback. Technical folks learn and develop collaboration skills working directly with customers. Likewise, sales and marketing personnel grow in knowledge by collaborating with technical designers to groom features and attributes for a new product.

And, we don’t want to leave out the customer as a resource. Customer collaboration means observing, questioning, and testing. You may meet the customer in the environment where s/he is using the product or service, or you may invite the customer to your facility. What’s crucial for innovation success is a long-term, interactive relationship with both external and internal customers.

#5 – Evaluate and Measure Success

In peer coaching, I am constantly reminded that success has not a singular definition. One person views success as a launching a new business, while another views success as selling their enterprise.

Each innovation project has a set of measures that define success. The metrics ought to be aligned with the organization’s mission, vision, and values. And the success metrics must be agreed by the NPD team upfront.

For instance, one NPD project used sales volume and market penetration as measures of success. Sales volume is a readily acquired number – how many units were sold? Digging deeper you can also gain additional insight into the value of the new product by calculating the ratio of manufactured items and sales price (profit margin).

Market penetration gave the NPD team another measure of success with their target customers and a measure to compare against competition. Market penetration provides the percentage of branded products sold versus the entire set of products and product solutions available. “We sold 63% of single use washing machine packs; our nearest competitor controls 20% of the market.”

If innovation success metrics don’t align with the project plans and goals, it’s time to make a change, including further conversations and collaborations with customers.

Necessary Skills for Innovators

Improved speed-to-market and increased return on investment (ROI) depend on the successful initiation and execution of NPD projects. Successful innovation managers practice, refine, and excel with all five key skills. The first of these competencies is maintaining customer contact to gain insights regarding market challenges and problems. This is a foundational innovation skill.

Next, innovators and NPD teams must identify constraints and barriers to developing products and services that delight the customers. These barriers may be internal processes or a customer’s willingness to invest in a new product solution. This leads to the innovation skill set of planning, implementing, and adapting. No project management system is perfect and successful innovators are flexible in how a project meets its goals to deliver exceptional products to a target market.

Fourth, collaboration is a skill that successful NPD managers use in developing their teams, the new product, and customer relationships. Collaboration requires an open line of communication, empathy, and favors doing something rather than talking about it.

And, finally, innovation success is measures to verify value delivery and to learn. Metrics for each project are different, but are always objective, leading to more effective decisions.

Learn More

There are two ways to learn more about leadership skills for innovation. First, New Product Development Professional (NPDP) certification addresses best practices in innovation from devising a business strategy to idea generation and to market research for product concept testing. Second, CIOs, NPD leaders, and R&D managers who are committed to taking their innovation program to the next level must participate in the Innovation Master Mind (IMM). IMM is a 6-month peer coaching group that allows you to extend your NPD knowledge beyond NPDP certification and to collaborate with other CIOs and innovation managers. You will realize improved efficiency and growth from our Life Design Master Mind (LDMM), IMM, or through NPDP certification which entails a deep dive into strategy and NPD processes, including design thinking. Feel free to contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or 281-280-8717. At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications. You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Do You Have an Innovation Blueprint?

Posted on 09.27.18

My gym has recently undergone a facelift. The owner had the lobby tiled and painted with a modern look, bought new furniture, and replaced all the towels. He also had the workout rooms painted to coordinate with the equipment colors and ordered new weights and equipment for the free-weight area.

I happened to be at the gym when they brought in the new Nautilus equipment for the free weight area. There was a team of eight guys to assemble and install the new equipment, and to move and rearrange the equipment that was retained.

What totally surprised me was the lack of a plan for an equipment lay-out. The lead installer had his guys start setting up equipment in the middle of the room. The owner explained how she’d like a different placement of the equipment, but the installer told her it needed an 8-ft clearance for the accessories.

Meanwhile, the helpers continued to take out old equipment and assemble new equipment in whatever place they thought was appropriate. In the end, the television (which is continuously tuned to a sports channel) is blocked from view in about 75% of the free weight area. Clearance between pieces of equipment is irregular and to access one of the free weight racks, you have to walk behind a 4-ft high partition directly under the television, dodging the accessories sticking out from the Nautilus equipment. At least then you can check the scores…

It was apparent to me that there was absolutely no plan for the equipment. No room lay-out with a sketch of an equipment arrangement existed. The entire installation was done ad hoc and without input from personal trainers as to the logical flow of equipment in the room.

The Problem with Ideas

It was a great idea to replace aging equipment with new equipment. It’s likely the capital cost will offset the maintenance costs. New gym weights and machines may attract new members leading to increased profit for the owners.

The problem was that the idea was half-baked. The gym owner ordered equipment without a plan to lay it out or to install it. Most importantly, the voice of the customer was neglected. I don’t want to work out on a Sunday afternoon if I can’t follow the football game!

Does your innovation program have a lot of ideas that fail to materialize into actionable plans? I know a lot of organizations believe that they are “innovating” if they hold a brainstorming session and generate 100 or 200 new ideas in the course of a day. That’s great, but how do you know they will fit? Ideas have to fit your business model and address needs from the voice of the customer, just as the equipment has to fit in the gym’s weight room.

Creating a Blueprint

If I had been the gym owner, I would have taken graph paper at a scale of one square equaling 1-sq ft and sketched the room – a rectangular shape with the width of the room a little shorter than the length of the room. I would have next graphed and cut out the footprint of each piece of equipment. The bench press needs a footprint of 4×4 ft, for example, and the seated leg press needs a space of about 4-ft x 6-ft. I would have shuffled around the models of equipment and checked with a trainer to see if the flow made sense. Is it okay to have all the lower body machines next to one another? Can everyone see the television from each station? Are the free weights accessible for people on the mat or on the benches?

In innovation, we also make blueprints of our ideas. We often use tools from design thinking to ensure we understand customer needs. Instead of shuffling cut-outs of equipment on graph paper, we share prototypes with potential customers to test the “lay-out” of our products. What do they think of the different features? Is the form complementary to the function? What’s missing? Which function is just too much?

We formally call this exercise product concept testing because we are validating various concepts with potential customers. A key output of the product concept test is to clearly understand customer needs and their emotional reactions to the various ideas for a new product. We want to eliminate the bad ideas at this stage – like not being able to see the tv while you’re lifting weights.

Further, an important result of product concepts tests is to understand which functions are crucial to a customer. These are the ones that draw intense emotion, such as “I couldn’t live without it.” Or, “Well, that’s okay, but…” Qualitative responses to features in a product prototype lead the new product development (NPD) team to the deepest insights about a new product. Build this, add that, eliminate those.

How to Make an Innovation Blueprint

In mapping the best layout of gym equipment, we can expect a lot of trial and error. Putting the bench press too close to the fly machine may introduce a usability issue. Putting the rowing station too close to the free weights rack can cause a clearance issue for users. Likewise, making a product too complicated with too many features or too many functions can cause adoption issues.

We must test multiple concepts with potential customers to fully understand their needs and challenges. Sometimes what looks like a good solution might not be validated in testing. It is okay to fail a product concept test and far less expensive to sketch a new plan than make adjustments after the product is commercialized.

Learn More

There are two ways to learn more about creating an innovation blueprint. First, New Product Development Professional (NPDP) certification addresses best practices in innovation from devising a business strategy to idea generation and to market research for product concept testing. Second, CIOs, NPD leaders, and R&D managers who are committed to taking their innovation program to the next level must participate in the Innovation Master Mind (IMM). IMM is a 6-month peer coaching group that allows you to extend your NPD knowledge beyond NPDP certification and to collaborate with other CIOs and innovation managers. You will realize improved efficiency and growth from LDMM, IMM, or through NPDP certification which entails a deep dive into strategy and NPD processes, including design thinking. Feel free to contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or 281-280-8717. At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications. You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Design Thinking for Innovation

Posted on 09.20.18

I recently read an article in which the author proposed that design thinking was nothing new and simply repackaged a known set of tools. While I can agree somewhat with the author’s perspective on tools, I cannot agree that design thinking for innovation fits with the status quo. Design thinking proves a unique perspective for innovation and new product development (NPD) that is often missed with more systematic, institutionalized processes.

What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is a collaborative and creative problem-solving methodology utilizing customer empathy to drive innovation. The design thinking process is very simple: identify the problem and solve the problem. However, the steps to identify the problem (discover and define) are iterative as are the steps to solve the problem (create and test). It is important to cycle between the “identify” and “solve” steps to ensure the right customer challenge is being addressed with a user-friendly solution.

Design thinking uses several tools throughout this simple process to help innovators and NPD practitioners understand and build empathy for the end-user. Some of these tools include:

Personas,
Customer journey maps,
Customer empathy maps,
Brainstorming,
Brainwriting,
Concept testing, and
Rapid prototyping.

What is Innovation?

While design thinking provides a methodology, framework, and a set of tools to identify and solve customer problems, it is not innovation by itself. Innovation is an act of creating and introducing something new or different to a marketplace in which consumers exchange their hard-earned dollars for a product, service, or application that gives them some benefit.

Thus, innovations are different than inventions since utilization of the features is more important than the recognition of the possibilities. Most innovations deliver a profit to a company; though, some government agencies and non-profit organizations pursue innovation to increase productivity or efficiency without a profit motive.

Innovations can improve or enhance existing products, services, or applications. Process improvements that remove manufacturing or distribution bottlenecks are innovations, and even processes and systems that improve innovation itself are considered innovations. Typically, we think of innovations as adding features or functionalities to new products. Other common innovations involve the introduction of new products or services that use new technology.

For example, the ability to scan various hotels and pricing through a smartphone app is an innovation because it utilizes new technology to deliver a new service and brings a profit to the parent company. Individual consumers are happy to exchange money (directly or indirectly) for the app because it offers them a benefit of convenience and cost-savings in booking a hotel room.

Design Thinking to Improve Innovation

Unfortunately, too many companies simply jump to the “creating” part of innovation without truly understanding customer needs. Failed products and service litter the R&D and marketing histories of most firms. Why does this happen?

In presuming a customer’s problem and devising a technical solution with a rigorous, institutionalized NPD process, many firms end up failing. Innovation success is built on understanding customer needs and desires. And this is where design thinking offers a unique perspective to NPD.

Recall that design thinking is a collaborative problem-solving method relying on empathy to design and develop innovative solutions. Empathy is different than observation. Empathy involves walking in someone else’s shoes to gain a holistic understanding in experiencing their problems. Once you have empathy, you “own” the problem, and you are vested in the right solution.

For example, nursing students are often taught empathy for their elderly patients by wearing vision-restricting goggles, bulky gloves, and over-sized shoes. These odd clothing items help future nurses empathize with their patients because they have actually experienced what it feels like to have a challenge in seeing, handling items, and walking. NPD practitioners can use these same tools to better understand challenges of the elderly across a wide spectrum and to develop novel products and services for this target market.

Design thinking also helps to ensure that innovators solve the right problem. Rather than assuming an elderly person has difficulty opening a pill bottle, an empathic developer might identify the problem as the number of different pills that the elderly patient must take. Crating a solution to the administration of many prescriptions is very different than creating an easy-to-open pill bottle.

Innovation Needs Design Thinking

While many of the tools of design thinking have been known for years, innovators cannot ignore this new approach to product development. With a cross-functional focus on the customer and in developing deep empathy for his/her challenges, NPD practitioners can unlock the right problems to solve. Innovations that discover and define customer problems and that create and test solutions by collaborating with the customer are the most successful. Innovators using design thinking are more successful in meeting customer needs and can launch products faster.

To Learn More

To learn how to apply design thinking to enrich innovation, please join us in Life Design Master Mind (LDMM), Innovation Master Mind (IMM), or New Product Development Professional (NPDP) certification. LDMM is designed for your personal growth by applying design thinking tools to finding the next step in life. IMM is a 6-month peer coaching group that allows you to extend your NPD knowledge beyond NPDP certification and to collaborate with other CIOs and innovation managers. You will realize improved efficiency and growth from LDMM, IMM, or through NPDP certification which entails a deep dive into strategy and NPD processes, including design thinking. Feel free to contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or 281-280-8717. At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications. You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC