a conversation I had..

Welcome again to 10types of innovation!

This time I want to talk to you about a conversation  I had with an engineering student and a marketing student. When I met them, they were arguing about the sources for an innovation; the engineer (I will call him Steve) strongly believed that the technology push innovation was the most suitable source for the customers’ needs , while the marketing student (I will call her Lisa) argued that market pull innovation was the best for the customers because it follows their trends.

 I listened silently their argumentations until Lisa asked me: “What do you think? What is the best source of innovation for you?”.

 I simply answered her: “ none of the two; there is a third source of innovation that you didn’t mentioned: the design driven innovation”.

 Before talking about the process of this third source; I explained to Steve and Lisa why their sources aren’t better than design driven. Steve’s main argument was that technology push innovation solves problems the customers have. It is true, but most of the engineers and R&D analysts care only about the problem and  don’t care about the customer during their tech push process: they spend hours and hours in their labs without considering   their final buyers.

Steve at work. Do you see some customer behind him?

“it‘s true Steve! You don’t care about the customer, while I am always concerned about his/her needs” Lisa said.

 I immediately stopped her: the market pull innovation looks for trend in the market, but the marketing studies only what the customers think they need. The market pull innovation only looks inside the customers’ categories.

Lisa and her marketing friends: following a trend is a short term innovation

The truth is that “the customers don’t know what they need, until you show it to them” (Steve Jobs).

The design driven innovation, instead, starts with customer’s aspirations, desires and values. The DD innovation don’t look at customer’s categories because  when you ask people what they want, they  lie. That’s why designers not only listen what existing or potential customers have to say, they also observe what they do and what they currently use: this is a process called ethnography. (Understanding customer need during new product development).

Ethnography helps designers to go out to customers categories and find what they really think is the” job to be done” by the product or the service.

“ok you have gone too far, what are the steps that you want to take to arrive at your product/service innovation?” Steve asked me. 

“Let me explain using the Continuum process and my personal experience. “

Everything starts with a problem that our potential customer have; for example my product innovation team and I focused our attention on a time management problem: students don’t manage their time well. After the problem statement, in the DD process, you need to focus on how your customer manage, at present, this problem and there is one only thing you have to do: data research.

The data research can be done in different ways : here it comes the ethnography that I explained you before. My project innovation team chose to interview some students at the library and to observe them in their natural “habitat”. If you are thinking about a service, instead, you should focus not only on your potential customers, but also on the stakeholders (who is “inside” the business you want to innovate).

"Ethnography: observing what the customers do and want"

The second step is the data analysis; it is important to look at present data “what is” or, as I mentioned before, “what are the jobs to be done” ,according to customers, in order to discover the opportunity area.

My service innovation project is currently analyzing raw data using the mind mapping, the journey mapping and the analogy. These frameworks are very important because they let you discover what are the real customers’ needs.  In addition we compared our data with a secondary source in order to find similarities and differences between what we have found and what the statistics said.

Journey mapping from my product innovation team 

"People need motivation to manage their time"

“People need motivation to manage their time? I have never thought about it! “ Lisa exclaimed

 “That’s because you are going out of your categories” I replied her “now Let’s come back to my experience.” After having found the POV, we started thinking about the “what if” possibilities: the imagination and our creativity started flowing and the idea came up: the HuskyBand

"Here it comes the innovation!” Steve said.

“ Not yet. There are still important steps in the design driven innovation process. Firstly you need to know “what wows”, in order terms “what would need to be true for my concept to be a good one?” (Analysis tool for research data).

The former step is the analysis of your product competitors; this is an important step because you need to know yourself, your competitors and how you differentiate from them. There are different sources where you can find information of your competitors such as Crunchbase, AngelList and Quora.

The latter is the concept testing. The concept testing is the filter that can transform your invention into an innovation; it is the testing of your new product or service into the marketplace. For the HuskyBand we have decided at first to show our product to our potential customers without the description of the product and then to explain them what was; with a new service ,instead, you should test your invention with the business staff, the technology staff and with their potential customers.

 Concept testing is necessary because it allows people to go out from their categories and it is compulsory because it avoid “false starts, wrong positioning, poor strategy and selling to the wrong people”(The concept of concept testing).

Only after concept testing, your innovation will be ready to the real market “what works” but, before that, you have to create the business model.” The business model” is how you can realize your business plan; but be careful! the business model  can make the difference between world leading success and dismail failure” (Business model canvas) .  

Check “the business model canvas” made by Alexander Osterwalder, before building one in your own way ; it will help you to fit all of your pieces together. 

“In conclusion- I told them- Research, analysis, POV, invention, competitors ,concept testing and business model: these are the ingredients that you need to use in the design driven process “what is, what if, what wows ad what works “

It seems difficult and boring, but trust me, you will get better results and you will create new meanings into the market, whether your innovation is radical or incremental”.