Innovation
The story of the process of a process in 3 parts
Seed, Prototype, & Incubation
James Haliburton
Concept Lead & Head of Innovation @ TAT

but first...

TAT – THE ASTONISHING TRIBE
Founded in Sweden 2002
• 150 employees
Presence
• Offices in Korea, Sweden and USA
• Macnica Networks, partner in Japan
Customers
• Working with leading mobile OEM:s, leading operators, automotive
segment and internet suppliers
• Some offical customers are Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, S60,
Google, T-Mobile and Orange.
Proven technology
• Installed base >250 million devices worldwide
• This year in >10% of all mobile phones
• and 20% of all touchscreen mobile phones
Long track-record within UIs
• Been in the UI Business since the first colour displays

Design ♥ Technology

TAT – OFFERING OVERVIEW
TAT Products TAT Services
Technology
Technology
Evaluation Design Concept
Design Concept
Evaluation
Prototype
Prototype
Product Support Offering
Offering
TAT Academy Expert Services
Expert Services
Professional
Services

TAT Design Offer
 We can take a project from start to final implementation
 Iterative UI Development in close co-operation with customer
 UI Design of an entire device
 Expert services within specific areas

Part 1 SEEDING - fall ’07
The good ole days

Innovation is a buzz word.
Easy to talk about and easy to understand importance
But so difficult to do.
Startups and others with nothing to lose are innovative and create
things from thin air, but big corporations and established bodies
struggle.

Innovation is a hassle!
•Insignificant revenue
•High Risk
•Might even cannibalize on the current products
•Lost Focus - time that could be spent on optimizing todays
company!
•When the ideas are “young” they are of course immature and
not all questions are answered
•Scrutinization often kills the idea. At the same time we know
that it is important and that we need to innovate - so what to
do?

Acquire
•Most common method today
•Acquisition of external ideas or innovators
•Company a vessel to hold this new idea as well as the
old business.
Create an “Innovation Department”
•Usually named R&D, which is separated both
physically, and in terms of organization and what to
focus on. This has the mentioned advantages, but also
some disadvantages, namely;
•the distance focus on business and making money
usually.
•Wandering around the corridors with a cup of coffee
as if they had all the time in the world.

TAT decided in August 2007 to formalize how we innovate
and create an innovation process, because we felt we had
done it, but we had lost touch with our roots and were just
polishing the current products to shine.
Hampus Jakobsson, one of the founders, got the task at hand and
started to find resources both internally and externally to set this
up.
I came in shortly after to help establish the process.

Goal: “with minimal investment, create as much value as
possible for TAT by finding relevant new products or ideas that
would address TAT’s current customers or similar actors needs”.
So not to incrementally improve TAT’s products and not to open
up new markets with TAT’s existing products.

What about staffing?

What about staffing?

Wild West of mobile.
We got an espresso machine and fueled 3 months
of ideas and research
but we also started building a process

Facilitating Innovation
Idea Seeds
( nd idea)
Sketching
(de ne idea)
Prototyping
(test it)
Incubation
(make it)
TAT
(deliver it)
TAT Project
Thesis Work First Meeting
Concept De nition
Idea Burst
Con uence
Paper Prototypes Re-Identify Champion
Is there a NABC?
TAT Individual
In Person Value Propostion(s)
Paper Scenarios / Use Cases ev iew / De ned NABC
Concep tion R
Project Mgt ned t dua
Identifying Champion Gra
e
External Source
D
Prototyping Testing Plan
n lo p
atio
Tenk Process
u ro
al ty
Incubator
ev
pi
Value Proposition Formed By-Product Value
ng
Recruitment
testing
Presentations
Workshops
testing
Ide Shared Knowledge
a S ee Papers
ds
I de
External Contacts
aS
ed
e
s
n
tio
de
a
ve z
lop ali
ment/stab
Idea Seeds
Idea Seeds

idea seed template
Name:
Date:
TITLE:____________________________________________________________
TAGLINE:_________________________________________________________ Sum up the concept in
an easy to remember
tagline.
DESCRIPTION:_____________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________ Describe your concept.
Is it a service,
__________________________________________________________________ application, something
else? Include what it
__________________________________________________________________
does, and how it should
__________________________________________________________________ be implemented.
NEED/PROBLEM:___________________________________________________
Who needs this and
__________________________________________________________________ why? Highlight what
problem you are solving.
__________________________________________________________________
SCENARIO:________________________________________________________ If possible, give an
example of the concept
__________________________________________________________________ in use.
__________________________________________________________________
Some concepts are best
PICTURE / STORYBOARD: described in a sketch or
picture.
List the benefits to the
users, TAT, and/or
BENEFITS DRAWBACKS customer that this idea
provides.
What are the
drawbacks? Will it be
expensive? Does it take
a long time to use? Will
the user have to learn to
use a new interface?
What do people use
COMPETITION / ALTERNATIVES:______________________________________ now to solve the
problem? What other
__________________________________________________________________ options might they have
__________________________________________________________________ in the future?
State what this concept
WHAT IT!S NOT:____________________________________________________
is definitely not!
__________________________________________________________________

IDEA FACILITATION
Transfer your idea to someone else
First questions ...
WHO
HOW
WHAT

IDEA FACILITATION
Transfer your idea to someone else
First questions ...
WHO (makes it, uses it, sells it)
HOW (to make it, to use it, to sell it)
WHAT (is it, is the point, does it do)

CO
NS
UM
ER
EX
PE
RI
EN
CE
PASSION
TE
MARKET FIT
CH
NI
CA
LF
EA
SIB
ILI
TY

6
MARKET FIT
CO
TY
NS
ILI
PASSION
SIB
UM
ER
EA
6
LF
EX
8
CA
PE
RI
NI
EN
CH
CE
TE

6
MARKET FIT
CO
TY
NS
ILI
PASSION
SIB
UM
1
ER
EA
6
LF
EX
8
CA
PE
RI
NI
EN
CH
CE
TE

Part 2 PROTOTYPING - spring ’08
Crystalizing the process

NABC

NABC
need
approach
benefits:cost
competition/alternatives

MARKET FIT
CO
TY
NS
ILI
PASSION
IB
U
ME
AS
Converging the prototype
R
FE
EX
L
CA
PE
RI
I
HN
EN
C
CE
TE

This is how “p_disabled” looks. !
“To lower its frequenzy maybe some
graphical design should be made to
ensure users ends up here as little
as possible in this demo.”
Distribution of key presses.
“Maybe this pop-up should disappear
on any click, not just the back button?”

ROLES - The Innovation Relay Race
Entrepreneurs
Idea Seeder
Idea Champion
Thesis Workers
Leaders
Project Leader
Project team
Basket Leader
Managers
Weekly Steering Group (Stakeholders in the idea - sales,
marketing, engineers, designers)
Basket Group (Mgt.) - What ideas should we come up
with
Product Management

Entrepreneurs -> Leaders ->Managers
seeds -> prototypes -> incubation
Process Steering - Heads of innovation

VALUE
... we were creating all sorts.
Time to deliver.

Part 3 INCUBATING
- autumn ‘08

Part 3 INCUBATING - autumn ’08
Or how I learned to love Sales & Marketing

Prototypes to Incubated Products
Analytics
LIME
Physics Engines
Content & Services Development
...

Sales & Marketing can sell thought
leadership and differentiation!
Baskets transformed into sales strategy
Ideas are cheap - give them away and people will give
you money to make them

Be Agile in your bandwidth
When times are tough you will have to change roles
quickly
Take this time to create a roadmap

The Value of Waiting
Product Management starts to see value
Sketches & Prototypes need the market to catch up
“Market Fit” is the slowest to judge.

Gravity to incremental innovation
Your smart innovative people will be in demand!
Thesis workers -Not just cheap work - Passionate
invention!
Open (kind of) Innovation is Important!
Partners - Choose partners whose interests align with
yours

SUMMARY
Important to sketch & build the process - not copy one
Transfer and record the idea
Market Fit, Technical Feasibility, Consumer Experience
& Passion
NABC
Have a structure for the relay race
Where other values than products?
Create & Deliver New Value
References & Inspiration
Bill Buxton - Sketching User Experience
Innovation (SRI)
Agile Software Development