Lateral Thinking is using your creative and imaginative thinking to arrive at the best possible solution. Most of companies the today create products without this and there are some best companies who create a product with lateral thinking. The companies who apply lateral thinking to crate a product leads the market than the ones without lateral thinking but far more features. So how can we create a product with lateral thinking?

1.
BY
UMAKANT
JANI
TIPS FOR
APPLYING
LATERAL
THINKING IN
PRODUCT DESIGN
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5

2.
5 TIPS FOR
LATERAL
THINKING IN
PRODUCT DESIGN
Lateral Thinking is using your creative
and imaginative thinking to arrive at
the best possible solution. Most of
companies the today create products
without this and there are some best
companies who create a product with
lateral thinking. The companies who
apply lateral thinking to crate a
product leads the market than the
ones without lateral thinking but far
more features. So how can we create a
product with lateral thinking?
In his book ‘Smartcuts: How Hackers,
Innovators, and Icons Accelerate
Success’ Shane Snow writes this story
about lateral thinking;
Pretend you are driving a car in the
middle of a thunderstorm and you
happen upon three people on the side
of the road.
1. A frail old woman, who looks on the
verge of collapse.
2. Another is a friend who once saved
your life.
3. The other is the romantic interest of
your dreams, and this is a once-in-
a-lifetime opportunity to meet her/
him.
You have only one other seat in the
car.
Who do you pick up?
There’s a good reason to choose any of
the three.
4. The old woman needs help.
5. The friend deserves your payback.
6. And clearly, a happy future with the
woman/man of your dreams will
have an enormous long-term
impact on your life.
So, who should you pick?

3.
The old woman, of course.
Then, give the car keys to your
friend, and stay behind with the
romantic interest to wait for
the bus!”
This dilemma is an exercise in lateral thinking. It’s the kind of puzzle in which
the most elegant solution is revealed only when you attack it sideways. New
ideas emerge when you question the assumptions upon which a problem is
based.
Were you surprised that the path
to the most success in that
scenario involved stepping
outside and getting rain soaked?
That’s life and thats the reality of how you get to your dreams. You have to
come out of your comfort zone to get what you really want. So how can you
use this lateral thinking in your companies product design, projects, and also
in your life.
Solution

4.
1.Always ask “10X Better” questions for your product:
1. What if this has to be ten times better? — this is a forcing question for getting you
out of box.
2. What if I had to do it for 10X (100 times) chaper? — so much cheaper that you can’t
cut cost anymore, cant make more cheaper. You have to fundamentaly rethink it.
3. How would someone in other industry will look at this problem? — how would a
ballet dancer would look at this problem? how would a sports person would look at
this problem? How would a poor guy who is in hunger for days would think about
this problem?
The best example to understand this is how Apple makes its iPhone which is 10 times
better than the previous phone, not 10% better. And there are other smartphones with
more feature then iPhone is not considered as the good enough phone.
Always Think Of 10 Times
Better Not 10 Percent
Better
10X>
10%

5.
2.You know the difference between the pessimist and optimist? When the opportunity
knocks the door pessimist complains about the noise, where optimist open the door,
sometimes with a knife (just in case!).
Therefore always keep an assumption solution.
Pretend that you’re trapped in a magical room with only two exits. Through the first exit
is a room made from a giant magnifying glass, and the blazing hot sun will fry you to
death. Through the second door is a room with fire-breathing dragon. Which do you go
through?
First door, of course. Simply wait until the sun goes down.
So here are your assumptions:
1. You want to get out of the room
2. You have to choose one of the two options
3. You have to do something now to get out alive
4. Room one will kill you no matter what (or it seems for time being)
5. Room two will kill you no matter what
Make a list of assumptions and make sure to eliminate the ones which doesn’t fit your
logic. Now you can also come up with how can you kill the dragon with sun by turning
the magnifying glass (without the sun killing you, of course).
Keep Space For
Assumptions Always By
Your Side
INVISIBLE >
VISIBLE

6.
3.Think about this business model:
In Mumbai, there is a group that runs of its kind ‘insurance’ service for ticket-less travel
on local trains. Now, considering that millions of passengers travel in these locals
everyday, the probability of getting caught is quite less. This is how their ‘Business
Model’ is operated. The traveler pays a very small monthly fees to this group. It is about
1/10th of the going rate for a monthly railway pass. This way the traveler never buys a
ticket and audaciously keeps traveling in the trains. If he somehow he gets caught, he
does not argue. He casually pays the fine, goes to his agent, hands over the receipt and
simply gets reimbursed. A clear win-win situation. Well, except the Indian Railways of
course!
I don’t know if this story is true, nor do I support this insurance group. However, you
have to wow for their business model.
They have created a market
which wasn’t inside the box.
DISRUPTIO
Do Not Think Out-Side-
The-Box,
Get Rid of The Box

7.
4.
Consider this;
One day a lion went on the hunt for gazelles. The lion believed that his might, roar and
magnificent physique where enough to stun the gazelles,to petrify them and lead them
right into his open jaws. He was wrong. The gazelles where quick on their feet, and quite
easily outran the king of the beasts. The lion used status quo thinking. Why wouldn’t the
loudest the most reputed, the most known individuals not score big ones every time?
Maybe the gazelle relearned running routes through the safari and disrupted the lion’s
usual run-of-the-mill hunt.
Most of the companies goes in making products
with all the features than making the right
feature. Before adding a feature ask if you’d 5
people who brought your product, will 4 of
them use this feature? If not, remove or put in
next few years sprint to—do list.
LESS > MORE
Have The Right Feature
Than Having
The All Features

8.
5.Three years ago in an conference at Infosys I’d said to the crowd,
“Change is The New Constant”,
and at that time I didn’t knew it would be so true, and would become my way of life in
2016.
When the above story of ‘Lion and Gazelle’ was discussed in my aviation school, my
instructor shared lives one of finest philosophies. “No matter if you are king lion or brave
gazelle. You have to keep running.” he said, “If the lion doesn’t run he dies of hunger. If
gazelle doesn’t, he is on the lunch plate. So both of them have to keep running.”
So is true for your business today. You have to
keep innovating. And change is the only way.
Just keep running. Because, even if you are on
the right track, you will get to run over if you
just sit there.
Keep Running.
Keep
Changing.
RUN

9. Note: this post is inspired from and dedicated to Shane Show. After reading his book “Smartcuts: How Hackers,
Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success” I got inspired to stitch this post. I would recommend his book to
everyone from a school kid to an entrepreneur.