Tathagat Varma
VP, Strategic Process Innovations
[24]7 Innovation Labs
The Joys
of
Designing
Agile
Solutions
for
New-Age
Problems

Discussion Topics
New Product
Development
(“NPD”)
What’s
new?
Why it
sucks?
How to
make it
joyful…

How it all started?

With the advent of mass production …

then somewhere down the line…

…and now!

• Task: Visualize your
creative / innovation /
new product development
process
• Time: 2 min
• Tip: Keep it simple

Does it look like this?
http://www.polaine.com/playpen/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/creative_process.png

Or, like this?
http://revisionlab.wordpress.com/that-squiggle-of-the-design-process/

Why is NPD such fun 
Problem: Design
an effective lighting
solution for
Dharavi homes.

Problem: How to
help farmers get
best prices for their
products?

and a world of exciting new ideas…

New Product Development: Old vs New
Old NPD
Developed markets
Industrial Enterprises
Large R&D $$$s
$(Technology) >> $(People)
Closed Innovation
Technology-driven
Forecast based Production
Long gestation period
Top 3 / Land grab
Mostly Commercial
Slow upgrade cycle
New NPD
Saturated + emerging markets
Knowledge-based enterprises
Small Startup $s (and ¢)
$(Technology) << $(People)
Open Innovation
User needs-driven
Feedback based Design
Short experimentations
Long tail / Zero Billion $
Often Social Innovations
Fast upgrade cycle

Our Charter?
Build
next Gen
Faster,
Better,
Cheaper…
mousetrap!!!

Our challenge…
Design,
Develop and
Deliver
Successful
Products
and Services
Continuous
Innovation
• UX
• Features
• Performance
Deliver at
Speed
• TTM
• Support
• Upgrades
Manage Total
Costs
• Idea to Launch
• Sell „Free‟
• Protect investment
Images: http://www.appcelerator.com/products/, http://www.ccfninsurance.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/costs.jpg

Our Odds…
http://www.stage-gate.com/resources_stage-gate_latestresearch.php

Many reasons, but my 2¢…
Uncalibrated assumptions
about the constantly
changing opportunity,
market, products and
customer needs
Stealth mode mindset that
gives no opportunity to get
early real-world feedback
for course correction
Poor collaboration
among internal
stakeholders leading to
conflicts, delays in
decision-making and
execution, duplication of
efforts and diffusion of
responsibility, among
others
Premature Scaling up
too soon before all aspects
of opportunity, market,
products and customer
needs have been validated

Sample these beauties…

How to make it better?
There’s a
way to do it
better…
Find it.
Thomas Edison

What are we trying to solve?

How about the scientific method…
“a method or procedure
that has characterized
natural science since
the 17th century,
consisting in systematic
observation,
measurement, and
experiment, and the
formulation, testing,
and modification of
hypotheses”
http://www.moisiadis.com/creation_science/Scientific%20Method%20edited.JPG

Would it solve all problems?
The scientific method is a pattern of
problem-solving behavior employed
in finding out the nature of what
exists, whereas the design method is
a pattern of behavior employed in
inventing things of value which do
not yet exists. Science is analytic,
design is constructive.” (Gregory,
1966)

…and how does our product
development process look like?
“The Stage-Gate system assumes that the proposed strategy is the right strategy; the
problem is that except in the case of incremental innovations, the right
strategy cannot be completely known in advance. The Stage-Gate system is not
suited to the task of assessing innovations whose purpose is to build new growth
businesses, but most companies continue to follow it simply because they see no
alternative.”
Clayton Christensen, “The Innovator’s Dilemma”

Does Agile help?...yes, but…
http://www.infoq.com/resource/news/2008/01/iterating-and-incrementing/en/resources/Patton_Incremental_Iterative_MnaLisa.jpg
What if you didn’t
know if you wanted a
painting, a sculpture or
a mousetrap, a
Monalisa or a Facebook
or a Porsche?
How would you
design and
develop
something the
world hasn’t
known yet?

So, what else can we do?

Learn from children!

How Children Learn?
Holt observed hundreds of children and came to an
interesting conclusion. He found that the best
learners are also the ones that are having the
most fun. The best learners are the ones that like
to play with the noise around them.
Play doesn’t work if it isn’t fun, which means that
learning in times of chaos and change will tend to
work best when it is fun as well. Play minus fun
equals labor, which doesn’t have the same
learning benefits.
http://news.noahraford.com/?p=203

Customer Development

GET OUT OF THE BUILDING…

Minimize
TOTAL time
through the
loop
Instead of making complex plans
that are based on a lot of
assumptions, you can make
constant adjustments with a
steering wheel call the Build-
Measure-Learn feedback loops.
Through this process of steering,
we can learn when and if it’s time
to make a sharp turn called a pivot
or whether we should persevere
along the current path
The MVP is that version of a new
product which allows a team to
collect the maximum amount of
validated learning about
customers with the least effort or
development time. The MVP lacks
many features that may prove
essential later on.
MVP is not a minimal product!

Validated Learning
• Validated learning about customers is the measure of progress in a Lean
Startup – not lines of working code or achieving product development
milestones.
• Process in which one learns by trying out an initial idea and then
measuring it to validate the effect. Each test of an idea is single iteration in
a larger process of many iterations whereby something is learnt and the
lessons applied to the succeeding tests.[1]
• Typical steps in validated learning:
– Specify a goal
– Specify a metric that represents the goal
– Act to achieve the goal
– Analyze the metric - did you get closer to the goal?
– Improve and try again

Pivot

In the end, it‟s about “Double-loop
Learning”

To conclude…
Solving a problem
makes us happy 
Happy minds are
better learners
Continuous
feedback amplifies
learning
Experimentation is
a great way to
solve problems
and get feedback

References and Pictures
• Cover slide: http://velojoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ARIAL_PATTERN_LG.jpg
• http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/04/procrastination.aspx
• http://www.nbcnews.com/id/16580741/ns/health-mental_health/t/if-you-procrastinate-dont-
put-reading/
• http://sidsavara.com/personal-productivity/procrastination/procrastination-survey-results
• http://www.usereffect.com/topic/how-to-solve-any-problem
• http://www.diegm.uniud.it/create/games.htm
• http://www.glencoe.com/sec/busadmin/entre/teacher/creative/stimulate/exer8.htm
• http://hbr.org/2008/06/design-thinking/
• http://www.slideshare.net/akhella/design-thinking-for-startups-1971227
• http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/04/04/is-there-a-single-example-of-a-company-that-
started-in-stealth-mode-and-launched-to-success/
• http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1015091/The-New-Science-of-Product
• http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2011/07/12/why-good-products-fail-and-what-you-can-do-
about-it/
• http://www.marketingnewproduct.com/why-new-products-fail/
• http://www.theproduct.com/marketing/product_failure.htm
• http://hbr.org/2011/04/why-most-product-launches-fail/
• http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/98834-12-apple-products-that-failed
• http://www.baddesigns.com/
• http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2006/03/the_zero_billio.html
• http://news.noahraford.com/?p=203
• http://www.khoslaventures.com/design-thinking/

And remember…in the end, there is no
such thing as a „problem‟ 
http://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/BusinessAnalystHumor/tabid/218/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1742/Problem_Solving_Process_for_Business_Analysts.aspx

Thanks…
http://managewell.net
http://twitter.com/tathagatvarma
http://slideshare.net/managewell