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Key Themes from Front End Innovation 2018
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- 2. © 2018 private& confidential FEI 2018 KEY THEMES KEY TAKEAWAYS 2 ➫ Spend more time on the people ➫ Avoid “me too” innovation ➫ Lean into fast-cycle learning ➫ Establish focus and boundaries ➫ Uncover roadblocks at the start THEMES FROM FRONT END INNOVATION 2018 ➫ Maintain traction
- 3. © 2018 private& confidential FEI 2018 KEY THEMES3 ➫ Establish focus and boundaries A lack of focus often gets teams in trouble - and going too broad often leads to confusion. Hone your focus at the beginning and stay true to it throughout. Create simple rules to set boundaries and provide focus for each project or initiative. Avoid overfunding a problem too soon. Don’t place big bets on an idea before exploring whether or not it’s worth pursuing. Identify and frame assumptions and hypotheses early and often. CONIFER RECOMMENDS: • Opt for smaller, bite-sized design and research programs. • Run lean tests or small research programs to gut check opportunity spaces. • Apply remote research methods to small, targeted exploration and inspiration. • Consider Stakeholder Interviews and Assumptions Workshops to surface and document going-in ideas. • Host facilitated Stakeholder engagements like Summits or Safaris for stakeholders to explore problem areas through real-world audits. ➫
- 4. © 2018 private& confidential FEI 2018 KEY THEMES4 ➫ Uncover roadblocks at the start You have to know the rules in order to break them. Get to the “no” and “that won’t work” as fast as possible. Don’t let “no” kill ideas,rather use it as fuel to make ideas smarter and better. Establishing boundaries for feasibility can unlock creative ways to disrupt around or within constraints. “Accept the frustration that the assets you have might not be designed to perfectly suit your needs.” BOB DIXON, USPS CONIFER RECOMMENDS: • Embrace the potential for roadblocks at the beginning of your project. Begin kick-off with a facilitated activity to list all of the ways your team could potentially succeed as well as all potential roadblocks and challenges. • Include a cross-disciplinary team in all phases of a project, especially kick-off and ideation. Stakeholder interviews can also help you surface and fill knowledge gaps and uncover assets, resources, and barriers. • Test and socialize your concepts early and often to gather feedback through concept walk-throughs or “internal crits” to invite iteration and collaboration on prototypes and concepts before and after testing with consumers. • Avoid fostering a "kill or scale” mentality in early iteration cycles. Remind stakeholders that feedback is intended to help learn and evolve ideas to get smarter, not necessarily throw them out. • Have your vendor partners tour R&D and co-manufacturer facilities for knowledge transfer. Let them help you connect the dots of assets and restrictions so that they are innovating with all the pieces of information instead of partial knowledge. • Leverage the “Desirable, Viable and Feasible” framework for pressure-testing ideas. ➫
- 5. © 2018 private& confidential FEI 2018 KEY THEMES5 ➫ Spend more time on the people The success of a project has a lot to do with spending more time on the people - your internal project stakeholders. The right internal stakeholders can help you identify the assets, barriers and internal capabilities hidden within the company. They can also help you surface systemic pressures that surround a problem. Be intentional about how you engage with stakeholders by adapting your innovation persona to the situation and need. * FROM MIKE REHORST’S (NORTHWESTERN MUTUAL) SESSION: “THE MANY FACES OF AN INTRAPRENEUR: A CONVERSATION ON ADAPTING TO A CHANGING CORPORATE TERRAIN” The Ninja - working on limited resources and time, Ninjas capture the evidence needed for quick and swift wins The Farmer - patiently plants the seeds of insights and innovation throughout the organization - nurtures them slowly over time The Diplomat - empathetic storytellers and relationship builders who look for synergies and alliances throughout the organization The Blocker - playing a trusted defense role to creates safe spaces for innovation, thinking, reflection and risk-taking Take their quiz to find out what your main style is: uquiz.com/QTBW03 CONIFER RECOMMENDS: • Include a broad set of stakeholders to lower the risk in the long run. • Leverage your vendor partners as a tool to help you engage stakeholders throughout your project. • Compare stakeholder, consumer and end user perspectives. Visualize the complexity of these internal and external layers. • Information modeling and journey-mapping can be an invaluable way of surfacing the layers of complexity and relationships across stakeholders. ➫
- 6. © 2018 private& confidential FEI 2018 KEY THEMES6 ➫ Avoid “me too” innovation Avoid chasing the competition and red tides by looking just off the beaten path: Look to parallels - what is adjacent to your problem space? Look to proxies - what might be a suitable stand in to help you achieve your learning goal and cut costs? Look to metaphors - how might provocative metaphors or pivots help you see things differently? Look to experiential delights - instead of always solving for pain points,try finding new applications of experiential delights that work in other categories. CONIFER RECOMMENDS: • Explore parallels and proxies when you have hard-to-get or expensive data and limited budget. • Strategically select markets, audiences, products, behaviors or experiences that can be a proxy for one another while still serving your learning goals. • Leverage creative and lean research methods such as: Deprivation-Based Research, Parallel Products and Experience Audits, Internal Empathy Exercises, or learning through games to get to the heart of inspiration and insight when budgets, low incidence or feasibility gets in the way. • Reframe competitive threats as opportunities (one we like to use is “Hug a Cactus” - a metaphor about embracing discomfort). • Improve upon, leapfrog or bypass the competition by exploring adjacencies, parallels or future states. • Explore new twists, pivots and “what if?” thinking to avoid the “me too” trap. ➫
- 7. © 2018 private& confidential FEI 2018 KEY THEMES7 ➫ Lean into fast-cycle learning Sprints are the method du jour to move forward with purpose and momentum. These fast-cycle learning and making projects require acceptance of fast failure and iterative learning. Remember that no idea,product or experience survives the first pass with customers unchanged. Choose the fidelity levels for your outputs with intentionality. Let your learning goals dictate the level of fidelity in your prototypes. “The cost of doing is going down, while the cost of waiting is going up.” MAGNUS LINDKVIST “Reduce your learning cycles from months to days and triple your experiments.” KATHY FISH, P&G CONIFER RECOMMENDS: • Avoid over producing too early! Start small, and learn as you go. • Leverage digital and remote research tools to gather insights and inspiration quickly. • Inspiration audits, co-creation sessions and collaborative team design iteration sessions can help you accelerate your team’s learning and output through rapid iteration. • Since sprints are fast and furious, make sure that you have clearly defined and simple learning goals going in. • Learning goals should help you identify when sketches or foam core and fast low-fi prototypes are sufficient for your learning and investment vs. when you may be ready for a fuller-scale production. • Lean on your partners to plan, facilitate and execute these fast-moving programs - it’s hard to do it all yourself! • Block out time on stakeholders’ calendars as soon as possible. While it is hard to get 2-3 days of anyone’s time, the impact of having alignment and participation is worth it. ➫
- 8. © 2018 private& confidential FEI 2018 KEY THEMES PROVOCATION The most provocative insights challenge norms, expose contradictions, and create cross-industry connections (both real and imagined). You have to work to reframe insights away from cozy corporate boundaries. You’ll know you are on the right track when your teams start thinking and behaving differently. ENGAGEMENT The fastest, best way to maintain a project’s momentum is to ensure broad-based engagement at key points along the journey. Artfully stretch your stakeholders’ level and style of involvement to gain speed and confidence along the way. INSPIRATION If provocation gets your team moving into uncharte territories, then inspiration helps maintain that momentum and is suggestive of the possibilities ahead. Inspiration is one result of an internalized insight — usually evidenced by the powerful storie that teams tell themselves and others recruited to the cause. St 8 ➫ Maintain traction: Conifer’s 5 Forces to Maintain Traction PROVOCATION The most provocative insights challenge norms, expose contradictions, and create cross-industry connections (both real and imagined). You have to work to reframe insights away from cozy corporate boundaries. You’ll know you are on the right track when your teams start thinking and behaving differently. ENGAGEMENT The fastest, best way to maintain a project’s momentum is to ensure broad-based engagement at key points along the journey. Artfully stretch your stakeholders’ level and style of involvement to gain speed and confidence along the way. INSPIRATION If provocation gets your team moving into uncharted territories, then inspiration helps maintain that momentum and is suggestive of the possibilities ahead. Inspiration is one result of an internalized insight — usually evidenced by the powerful stories that teams tell themselves and others recruited to the cause. SOCIALIZATION Unruly, provocative, and inspirational insights at the heart of new ideas need socialization. Plan to share your process and insights broadly, extending their value by sparking unanticipated connections, reducing redundant initiatives, and paving the way for network effects. Stories: OCATION insights challenge norms, s, and create cross-industry l and imagined). You have sights away from cozy . You’ll know you are on your teams start thinking ntly. ENGAGEMENT The fastest, best way to maintain a project’s momentum is to ensure broad-based engagement at key points along the journey. Artfully stretch your stakeholders’ level and style of involvement to gain speed and confidence along the way. INSPIRATION If provocation gets your team moving into uncharted territories, then inspiration helps maintain that momentum and is suggestive of the possibilities ahead. Inspiration is one result of an internalized insight — usually evidenced by the powerful stories that teams tell themselves and others recruited to the cause. SOCIALIZATION Unruly, provocative, and inspirational insights at the heart of new ideas need socialization. Plan to share your process and insights broadly, extending their value by sparking unanticipated connections, reducing redundant initiatives, and paving the way for network effects. ITERA Ideas are plentiful and unlike powerful insight Develop systems to reta concepts and the insigh that teams can distingu problems and insight p Stories: ROVOCATION t provocative insights challenge norms, contradictions, and create cross-industry ons (both real and imagined). You have o reframe insights away from cozy e boundaries. You’ll know you are on track when your teams start thinking aving differently. ENGAGEMENT The fastest, best way to maintain a project’s momentum is to ensure broad-based engagement at key points along the journey. Artfully stretch your stakeholders’ level and style of involvement to gain speed and confidence along the way. INSPIRATION If provocation gets your team moving into uncharted territories, then inspiration helps maintain that momentum and is suggestive of the possibilities ahead. Inspiration is one result of an internalized insight — usually evidenced by the powerful stories that teams tell themselves and others recruited to the cause. SOCIALIZATION Unruly, provocative, and inspirational insights at the heart of new ideas need socialization. Plan to share your process and insights broadly, extending their value by sparking unanticipated connections, reducing redundant initiatives, and paving the way for network effects. Ideas are unlike pow Develop s concepts a that teams problems Stories: ON nge norms, oss-industry ). You have m cozy u are on thinking ENGAGEMENT The fastest, best way to maintain a project’s momentum is to ensure broad-based engagement at key points along the journey. Artfully stretch your stakeholders’ level and style of involvement to gain speed and confidence along the way. INSPIRATION If provocation gets your team moving into uncharted territories, then inspiration helps maintain that momentum and is suggestive of the possibilities ahead. Inspiration is one result of an internalized insight — usually evidenced by the powerful stories that teams tell themselves and others recruited to the cause. SOCIALIZATION Unruly, provocative, and inspirational insights at the heart of new ideas need socialization. Plan to share your process and insights broadly, extending their value by sparking unanticipated connections, reducing redundant initiatives, and paving the way for network effects. ITERATION Ideas are plentiful and relatively easy unlike powerful insights that are rare a Develop systems to retain the connecti concepts and the insights that inspired that teams can distinguish between ex problems and insight problems. Stories: ENGAGEMENT The fastest, best way to maintain a project’s momentum is to ensure broad-based engagement at key points along the journey. Artfully stretch your stakeholders’ level and style of involvement to gain speed and confidence along the way. INSPIRATION If provocation gets your team moving into uncharted territories, then inspiration helps maintain that momentum and is suggestive of the possibilities ahead. Inspiration is one result of an internalized insight — usually evidenced by the powerful stories that teams tell themselves and others recruited to the cause. SOCIALIZATION Unruly, provocative, and inspirational insights at the heart of new ideas need socialization. Plan to share your process and insights broadly, extending their value by sparking unanticipated connections, reducing redundant initiatives, and paving the way for network effects. ITERATION Ideas are plentiful and relatively easy to change, unlike powerful insights that are rare and dear. Develop systems to retain the connection between concepts and the insights that inspired them so that teams can distinguish between execution problems and insight problems. Stories: A FRAMEWORK CONIFER USES TO HELP MAXIMIZE TRACTION AND MAKE INSIGHTS ACTIONABLE ON YOUR INSIGHTS AND INNOVATION PROJECTS
- 9. © 2018 private& confidential FEI 2018 KEY THEMES9 Fashion is beautiful today and ugly tomorrow. Art is ugly today and beautiful tomorrow. MAGNUS LINDKVIST“ If you want to innovate, you have to be willing to be misunderstood for a long time. JEFF BEZOS, AMAZON “ Failure is a necessary consequence of doing something new. ED CATMULL, DISNEY “ Do 100% of your work in 80% of the time to give yourself the space to do other things. Always do the easy things first. JOHN VALENTINE, CVS HEALTH “ ➫ Memorable zingers to use around the watercoolor R&D stands for ripoff and duplicate. MAGNUS LINDKVIST “
- 10. © 2018 private& confidential PROPOSAL10 RIGHT BRAINLEFT BRAIN RESEARCH DESIGN • In-depth, ethnographic research and observation • Global market reach • Longitudinal studies • Online and remote ethnography • Blended qualitative and quantitative methods • Customer intercepts, path-to-purchase studies, shop-a-longs, and retail audits • Typologies and personas • Multiple integrated data streams such as social listening, eye- tracking, and big data for a complete picture • Generative, iterative, and evaluative design planning • Concept testing, evaluation, and rapid prototyping • Co-creation and user-focused facilitation • Design methods and concept creation such as ideation, rendering, prototyping, testing, and iterating • Storytelling and rich, visual and interactive deliverables • Customer journey mapping and information modeling Conifer is a partner to Fortune 1000 companies in research, design and innovation initiatives
- 11. THANK YOU! Sasha McCune- Director of Design sasha@coniferresearch.com