Values Sensitive Innovation

Values Sensitive Innovation
PAIN CONSULT

StrategicConcept design workshop conflicts
interventions in value

Peter Jones
Strategic Foresight & Innovation

(cc) Some rights reserved. 2011 Peter Jones

KEY ISSUES
Systemic effects of values in innovation
• Values in product & service design
• Process & Practices
• Organizational values & innovation

Identifying values / conflicts as root cause drivers
• We tend to observe effects – outcomes of choices
• Values as form of tacit knowledge “know how & why”
• Persistent, slow change cycles


Where do values tensions /
conflicts show up in everyday
products?


Apple’s iTunes Store


Exodus “Gay Cure” App


Case 2

WebMD

• What do you
notice here?
• What is the most
salient message?
• What values are
prioritized?
• How could caring
values be better
presented?


How do values actually show up?

Who says there’s a conflict?

Can we always predict a conflict?


Where & how have you
experienced a values conflict
in a product or service?
(Write down, then share in pairs for 2 min each.)


CASES IN POINT


DEFINE INNOVATION
• Significant invention with the capacity for
transformation.
• Strategic innovation sustains business strategy
through significant invention, designing new or
breakthrough products to fulfill strategic intent.
• And user intent.

• Strategic innovations can be internal too.


ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES CHANGE WITH SUCCESS
• Customer Satisfaction
• Relationships
• Stability
VALUES Exploit – Customer
Intimacy
• Focus or Direction
• Excellence
• Routine
Expand - Growth
• Independence
• Innovation
• High Risk – Reward
STRATEGY
• Vision
Explore – “Innovate or
Die”
Start-Up Growth over time Leader

(cc) Some rights reserved. 2011 Peter Jones Jones, P.H. (2002). When successful products prevent strategic innovation. DMR.

THE PARADOX
“One of the bittersweet rewards of success is, in fact,
that as companies become large, they literally lose the
capability to enter small emerging markets. Their
disability is not because of a change in the resources
within the companies — their resources typically are
vast. Rather, it is because their values change.”

Clayton Christensen (1997) The Innovator’s Dilemma.


What’s a current example of a
company fitting this pattern?


IS GOOGLE THE NEW MICROSOFT?
2011
• Killing off apps
• And Labs
VALUES • Products? Exploit – Customer Intimacy

2007 - Dozens of apps Page: All Google products fit 3
• Google Labs
• Google.org
categories:
• Acquisitions • Search ads and ad products.
Expand -•Growth
Products Acquisitions with high
consumer success: YouTube,
2001 - Universal Search Android, Chrome.
• Adwords
• 20% project time
• STRATEGY
New products like Google+ &
“Offers” (Copying winners)
Explore – “Innovate
or Die”
Start-Up Growth over time Leader

(cc) Some rights reserved. 2011 Peter Jones Jones, P.H. (2002). When successful products prevent strategic innovation. DMR.

Values Conflicts in Innovation Management Process
Process Type Official process Process in use (example)
Organizational Targeted Selection hiring Hiring decisions made from informal
Management process involving multiple interviews and manager gut feel.
functions to develop criteria
& interview.

Market Research Third-party product & Sales presentations to important
usability research customers

Product Lifecycle Cooper’s Stage-Gate process Project oversight, shoot-from-hip at
executive committee meetings

Product Management Requirements Management Product management by personal
feature lists

Project Management Work Breakdown Structure Using Microsoft Project templates
for project

Product Design Product Design management process Dictated by product manager
Development


Values Conflicts - WHY

Level of Activity Management Processes Process Values
Organizational Strategic Planning Economic effectiveness
Marketing, Market Research Brand integrity
Product Management Return on project investment
Project Portfolio Management Customer satisfaction

Project Product Lifecycle Management Efficiency
Project Management Execution

Project metrics as values:
(Scope, Schedule, Budget)

Design Established design process Design excellence
Design community practices End user satisfaction
Effectiveness and usability
Local expert practices
Professional values


Process Stage Points of Values Conflict & Resolution

Requirements Intent of requirements - customer, user, utility or profit, etc.
Definition Values Conflicts in Innovation
Social power of product owner - decision-making style, etc.
Management Process feedback continuity.
Requirements process factors: Access to users, openness to critique or
change, prototype flexibility,
Priority differences among team members.

Conceptual Definition of product, interpretation of requirements
Design Developer values can influence initial design.
Values of customer - considered in scope?
Representation of requirements priorities.

Detailed Design Interpretation differences between product mgr and designers.
Representation of functions in the user interface.
Developer “willingness” to design for difficult requirements.

Development Development management backing priorities of product.
Designed deviations from conceptual design.
User feedback messages and user interface decisions.

Testing Determination of test cases and success criteria.
Process - ability to test with user/customer representatives.

Delivery
Values conflict points in a product/service design lifecycletesting.
Approach toward alpha/beta
Approach toward cataloging customer feedback in process.
Descriptions of product/system & their relationship to release.
Marketing descriptions and propositions.

WHAT’S THE (WICKED) PROBLEM?
• Our organizations need help. We live with/ in the unlivable.
In many firms, the values of efficiency, hierarchy, central control have
reached unsustainable extremes.

• Leaders attempt change (transformation), but usually instrumental.
Zuboff, 1998 “Mommy & Daddy are not at home.”

• Business research & “design thinking” unhelpful to change
Most of this is short term, goal-oriented, not socially responsive

• Continue to see inability to learn as org cultures
The new is valorized (managers, processes)


WHAT’S (AT LEAST ONE) “ANSWER?”

Socializing …

an organic process that diffuses artifacts &
activities throughout an organization, creating a
web of connections that supports sustainable
organizational practices.

See also: Lateral, horizontal, evangelizing


ORGANIZATION AS PLATFORM
FOR EVOLVING PRACTICES

Strategy, Vision: Direction

Processes:
Org routines in production

(Processes are what the firm recognizes)

Practices:
How things are done, where innovations
emerge. Some grow into processes.

Mintzberg “The Structuring of Organizations”

A CASE STUDY
• Large ($2B) retail systems provider
• Spent >5 years developing “best practices”
• Planned a “revolutionary” product (with customers & tests)
• Tech evolved, & design changed over 5 yrs
• Development team sequestered - (to “innovate”)
Kept the project secret from rest of the company - until ready to are:
The governing Values of Model I release

• Corporate Persona Achieve the purpose as the actor defines it
Win, do not lose
100+ year old Fortune 500, Product lines, Traditional hierarchy
Suppress negative feelings
Emphasize rationality
Internally competitive, Argyris “Model I” org
Primary Strategies are:
Control environment and task unilaterally
Protect self and others unilaterally

PROCESSES INSTITUTIONALIZED
• Original UX process had failed
• UX goals, deliverables, feedback “pre-framed”
By product & marketing management
No latitude to share fuzzy, emergent findings from field

• Repeatable, measurable, defined routines
• Process view assumes portable “plug & play,” (IBM RUP)
• Consistent training of all using process
• Lines of authority & expertise form (quickly)
• Imported processes rarely sustainable
• And processes work against knowledge & growth.

AFTER THIS FAILED IN MARKET …
• Company reorganized UX as a small team
• With a small budget – Consultant + 2 staff
To develop prototypes & practices for interim product

• “Best practices” replaced by actual user feedback
• Developed new practices & shared results openly
(Model II, double-loop, mental models)
• Structuration of new practices
• Hopeful speculation: As socialization worked here, it
may work in any Model I firm.

SOCIALIZATION LIFECYCLE
Marketing Product
Marketing Product

SW Dev
SW Dev
Project A Project A

Design
Design
Management
Management
Consultant
Consultant
1. No UX competency.
Initial team formed for project. 2. Project connects team across departments.

text

Marketing Product Project B

SW Dev

UX Group
Project A
Design
Management
Project C
Consultant

3. Project produces artifacts, starts sharing 4. Demand increases: Skill building,
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resources laterally to other recruiting, & management follows.

PRACTICES IN A PROCESS WORLD
• Practice development is often disrupted by well-meaning
intervention of management
Imposing best practices & “repeatable processes.”

• New processes institutionalized by management are “brittle,”
compete for resources & standing

• Direct learning & competency development at the front lines
become strategic competencies that grow the firm and
sustain its competitive position. (Penrose resource theory of firm)


PRACTICES SOCIALIZED
• Build an organic demand & interest in the (UX) practice.
Consult laterally to other projects as capacity builds.

• Collaborate with managers and other roles to integrate
practice into business processes.
This ensures takeup by meeting common needs across lines / processes

• Provide awareness sessions, discussion, & education as
needed to fit resources to the process.
Assessment and renewal, staffing, building competency.


“IMPROV DESIGN” IN THE ORG LAB

Participation enacted in organization differently over time

For rare, knowledge-based skillsets such as UX, design, research, or internal startups
Leverages available resources with expert support (to plan, generate prototypes, etc.)
Projects serves as autonomous testbeds, allowing refinement of practice until “sharing readiness”


CONCLUSIONS
• Socialization a macro-method for participatory
organizational practice design : Values shifting
Values shifts occur from resilient cultural changes, trust, over time

• Leverages weak ties & generates strong demand
among resources in an org network.
Develop “functionally similar” processes (e.g. UX) from unique, tailored knowledge

• Follows a resource-based view of strategy:
A firm grows from its unique competencies, not copyable processes.
Competitive base formed from unique use of knowledge


Values Sensitive Innovation

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