After a recent visit to IDEO, the renowned innovation and design firm in Silicon Valley, we had a few great “take-away” lessons which we’ve incorporated into our own product development process. To share some of the principles, we can start with a few definitions:
innovation = creation based on study and experimentation
When Empathetic Research is Required
To measure the value of any particular innovation is essential — there must be metrics valuable to the business (% registered, referral rate, conversion rate, ROI, etc.).
For development of new offerings for new users, an empathetic understanding of the audience is required. Specific questions won’t help, because the target individuals probably don’t know what they want — it hasn’t been invented yet! The process of innovative development means coming to understand the individual, and coming up with new ideas that suit their needs and emotions, not anything which is yet concrete.
This is in contrast to refinements to existing products for existing users, in which case the more traditional disciplines of quantitative research apply.
brainstorming = a semi-structured, team-based approach to rapid idea generation
Three Stages of Brainstorming
In the course of brainstorming, it is essential that “no ideas are bad”. Often it’s important to encourage wild ideas, because even the absurd can sometimes lead to a serendipitous discovery. Indeed, the absurd is more likely to open a new door. So the initial goal is to think of everything that could exist. In a later stage it will be refined into a sense of what should exist… and only in the end stages should it be decided what will exist.
So, remember these guidelines:
- observe, to become inspired
- use your inspiration to visualize possibilities
- evaluate those possibilities through prototyping
- realize outcomes through storytelling and building
prototyping = a series of refinements, of increasing fidelity
Go from “rapid” to “rough” to “right”. A very serious, but common, mistake is to spend a lot of time and money developing a prototype. Never build a high-fidelity prototype until after testing the low-fidelity version with real customers! Paper and pencil is faster than Photoshop, and Photoshop is faster than a mock-up, and a mock-up is faster than a functional product.
Good techniques include hand-drawn sketches or even a low-quality camera-phone video, just to show potential customers what it would be like to use the product. Remember, the user experience is more important than the engineering details. Don’t show “how it would be built”, show “how it would be used”.
advocates = discussion members representing each of three areas: people, technology, business
Success is at the intersection of three interests
During all stages of discussion, make sure there are advocates representing the interests of each type of stakeholder.
This process should literally be carried out with at least three people in the room (preferably more), in order that at least one person can take on each of three key roles. Naturally the sales and marketing people will tend towards representing the users, the designers and engineers will tend to monitor feasibility, and the managers will keep an eye on practicality… But assume nothing! Explicitly assign one of those three areas to each of at least three people, who will be advocates to ensure that the group doesn’t get lost in enthusiasm and forget to consider important needs of key stakeholders. It’s all too easy to overlook one area, and if any one of those three is not represented then the project will fail. A successful product is one that is designed with mindfulness towards whether it is (1) desirable, (2) buildable, and (3) makes business sense.
