This document provides an overview of new models for purpose-driven innovation in knowledge work. It discusses challenges that industries face from disruptive innovation and the need for experimentation and customer focus. The document introduces concepts like Lean Startup, customer development processes, minimum viable products, Lean UX, design thinking, and emphasizes the importance of understanding customer needs through research. It provides guidance on running small, tight experiments to test assumptions and learn, rather than focusing on premature optimization or scaling.

1. WILL EVANS // NORTH AMERICA // SUMMER 2016
NEW MODELS
of purpose-driven innovation in knowledge work

2. Every exploration is an
appropriation.
“
– ROLAND BARTHES
”

3. LET’S START
WITH AN EXERCISE

4. LET’S START
WITH AN EXERCISE
Which is timed!

5. The central threat to the legal industry has
been put into motion by the power of
disruptive innovation. The theory of disruptive
innovation explains why it is so difficult for
organizations to sustain success over time.
“
- CLAYTON CHRISTENSEN
”

6. WHAT CHALLENGES HAVE WE FACED?

7. A = What your job
description says
B = What you can do
AA
B

8. Apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis,
individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge
emerges only through invention and re-
invention, through the restless, impatient,
continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue
in the world, with the world, and with each other.
- Paulo Freire
“
”

9. Lean Startup

10. A post-positivist apologetics of a “movement”.
WHAT IS LEAN STARTUP?*
* Lean Startup ≠ Lean

12. ASSERTIONS OF LEAN STARTUP
• Entrepreneurs are everywhere
• Entrepreneurship is a form of Management
• Cycle: Build-Measure-Learn
• Validated Learnings

13. 7 KEYS TO LEAN STARTUP
1. Uncover your customers’ pain points through research
2. Invalidate your assumptions
3. Formulate hypotheses
4. Collaborative ideation
5. Experiments, NOT solutions
6. Learning isn’t failure
7. Amplify what works

14. The problem with many projects is that you spend months or
years doing research, writing requirements, designing and
building products and services…
and discover no customer cares.

15. Life is too short to
build something
nobody wants.
“
- ASH MAURYA
”

16. IT STARTED WITH A QUESTION
If startups fail from a lack of customers not
product development failure…
Then why do we have:
• A process for product development?
• No process for customer development?

17. TRADITIONAL PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

18. TRADITIONAL PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
DEFINE DESIGN DEVELOPMENT DEPLOYMENT
Very little
learning
Some
learning
Most learning
happens here

19. “A Startup is a human institution
designed to deliver a product or
service under conditions of
extreme uncertainty”
– Eric Ries
A startup is a human
institution designed to deliver
a product or service under
conditions of extreme
uncertainty.
“
- ERIC RIES
”

22. Waste is any human activity which absorbs
resources, but creates no value.
- James P. Womack & Daniel T. Jones
* Lean Startup ≠ Lean

23. If you can’t describe
what you are doing as a
process, you don’t know
what you’re doing.
“
- EDWARDS DEMING
”

24. LeanStartup*Cycle
* Lean Startup ≠ Lean

25. THE CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT
PROCESS

26. THE CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT
PROCESS
in other words…

27. THE CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT
PROCESS

28. THE EARLYVANGELIST
1. Has a problem
2. Is aware of having a problem
3. Has been actively looking for a solution
4. Has put together a solution out of piece parts
5. Has or can acquire a budget

29. HIGH OCCURRENCE
LOW OCCURRENCE
LOW PAIN HIGH PAIN
High Frequency
High Pain
High Frequency
low Pain
Low Frequency
High Pain
Low Frequency
low Pain

30. HIGH OCCURRENCE
LOW OCCURRENCE
LOW PAIN HIGH PAIN
High Frequency
High Pain
High Frequency
low Pain
Low Frequency
High Pain
Low Frequency
low Pain

31. REMEMBER
Your sole objective is to learn.

32. 1. Clearly articulate & test your assumptions about
the customer
2. “Get out of the building”
3. Small cycles
4. Experiments
5. Iterate based on what you learned.
6. Don’t invest in anything that isn’t validated
HOW TO DO IT: LEAN STARTUP META-RULES

33. “AProductRoadmapisaseriesofuntested
hypothesesbasedonunvalidatedassumptions
plottedintoanuncertainfuturebaringlittle
resemblanceto,orcoherencewith,reality."
- WILL EVANS

34. Minimum Viable Product
A MOST MISUNDERSTOOD TERM IN SOFTWARE
MINIMAL VIABLE PRODUCT
A Most Misunderstood Term in Software

35. WHAT IS AN MVP?
The minimum amount of effort you have to do to complete exactly
one turn of the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop.

36. SPEED, FOCUS, LEARNING
Speed
FocusLearning
CHASING
YOUR TAIL
PREMATURE
OPTIMAZATION
RUNNING OUT
OF RESOURCES
THE OPTIMAL
LEARNING LOOP

37. Your team should maximize for:
Focus Learnings
While Minimizing:
Cycle Time

39. 4 KINDS OF MVP
EXPLORATION
An interaction with the customer that focuses on investigation of his or her
problems to understand past behavior and see if it is top of mind.
PITCH
An interaction with the customer that attempt to sell the product to a
customer in exchange for some form of currency: time, money, or work.
CONCIERGE
Delivering the product as a service to the customer to see if the delivery
matches the customer’s expectations.
PROTOTYPE (OR FEATURE FAKE)
A small, testable model whose sole purpose is to get feedback from a
customer.

40. In order to reduce waste and speed up learning, you
need to pare down your prototypes so that all you have
left is the essence of your product:
The MVP.

41. YOUR MVP SHOULD BE LIKE
A GREAT REDUCTION SAUCE
concentrated, intense, and flavorful

42. MVPs
PRODUCTFIDELITY
COVERAGE
(NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS)
Low
many
High
Few
(Size = effort and feedback cycle length)
Interview
Paper
Sketch
Paper
Mockup
Concierge MVP
A/B Testing
The Product
Software
Prototype
Ad-Words
Campaign
Video

43. STEPS TO MVP
• Start with a single customer
• Start with the Number One Problem
• Eliminate nice-to-haves & don’t-needs
• Repeat Step 3 for your Number Two & Number 3 Problems
• Consider other customer requests – prioritize them as well
• Charge from day one (if you can)
• Focus on learning, not optimization or scaling

45. Lean UX

46. LeanUXCycle

48. THE LEANUX KATA
• Who is the customer?
• What is their problem?
• What do you know and how do you know it?
• What are your assumptions? How will you test
them?
• What have you learned and what should you learn
next?
• What is your very next experiment?
• How will you measure it?

49. WHAT IS UX DESIGN?

50. User experience is about how you
design solutions and services that
solve real human needs…

51. • Articulated context
• Focus on people, not technology
• Centered on customer’s needs, goals, desires
• Clear hierarchy of information and tasks
• Focus on simplicity; reduce visual complexity
• Provide strong information scent
• Use constraints appropriately
• Make actions reversible
• Provide meaningful feedback
PRINCIPLES OF UX

52. • Products and services must serve people
• Respect all ways in which value is delivered to customers
• Use technology intelligently to serve the customer experience
Notice that none of these principles are anchored in a specific medium or
modality of interation.
VARIANT

53. Design Thinking

54. Designers make explicit their sense-making and
framing as they attempt to make meaning out of
research through modeling.

55. A problem well stated is mostly solved.
The problem is stating a problem
well is really hard.

56. WHERE IS DESIGN INNOVATION?
Technology
feasibility
Business
viability
Human Values
usability, desirability
Design
Innovation

57. Design:
CONSTRAINTS
BREAKTHROUGH
X
BETTER
SOLUTION
X
PROBLEM

58. EXPLOITATION VS EXPLORATION

59. DIVERGE CONVERGE
Create Choices Make Choices

60. KNOWLEDGE FUNNEL

61. KNOWLEDGE FUNNEL

62. Our real goal, then, is not so much
fulfilling manifest needs by
creating a speedier printer or a
more ergonomic keyboard; that’s
the job of designers. It is helping
people to articulate the latent
needs they may not even know they
have, and this is the challenge of
design thinkers.
- TIM BROWN
“
”

63. FRAMING
SensemakingandProblemSetting

64. A frame is, simplistically, a point
of view; often, and particularly in
technical situations, this point of
view is deemed “irrelevant” or
“biasing” because it implicitly
references a non-objective way of
considering a situation or idea.
But a frame – while certainly
subjective and often biasing – is of
critical use to the designer, as it is
something that is shaped over the
long-term aggregation of thoughts
and experiences.
- JON KOLKO
“
”

65. LEAN STARTUP BERRY-PICKING MODEL

66. Whenever we propose a
solution to a problem, we
ought to try as hard as we
can to overthrow our
solution, rather than
defend it.
- Karl Popper

67. SENSEMAKING

68. SCHEIN’S 3 LEVELS OF CULTURE
What you see and
hear
ARTEFACTS
ESPOUSED
VALUES
SHARED, TACIT
ASSUMPTIONS
“Culture theatre”
+ Situational
Forces
Actual essence of
culture
GENERATES

69. PROCESS
2
3
EXPLORE
PROBLEMS
PROBLEM
SETTING
LEARN
SUCCESS
PAIN
1
SELECT
Continuous Improvement
PROBLEM
FRAMING
PROBLEM
DISCOVERY
EXPLORE
CONCEPTS
EXPERIMENT
LEARN

70. DOUBLE DIAMOND
Exploration
We have problems
What is the context?
Who is impacted?
Where is the value?
Ideation
I have an opportunity for design
How do I make sense of the data?
What are our options?
What experiments could I run?
Experimentation
I have an innovative solution
What is the smallest experiment
I could run?
How will we know things are
getting better?
How do I scale the solution?

71. DOUBLE DIAMOND
ACTIVITY
Phase
EXPLORE
Research
SELECT
Synthesis
EXPERIMENT
Ideation
SELECT & SCALE
Execution
A
Solving the right problems Solving problems the right way
WE KNOW
Should Be
WE GUESS
Could Be
B

72. LEANUX MANTRA
Repeat after me:
Iamnotthecustomer.
Only by talking with customers can we uncover people’s pains,
needs, and goals, in their context.
72

73. *73
Understanding context involves being-there.

74. MALKOVICH BIAS
The tendency to believe
that everyone uses
technologythe same way
you do.

75. HOW MUCH RESEARCH?
75
CUSTOMERS
INSIGHTS0 lots
12

76. A RESEARCH HEURISTIC
76
The most striking point of
this curve is that zero
customers yields zero
insights!
CUSTOMERS
INSIGHTS0 lots
12

77. GOOBING (GET OUT OF THE BUILDING)
77
Insights about your customers,
their needs, pains, and goals,
was never discovered reading a
powerpoint at your desk.
You have to get out and talk to
people.
Wheretheydothework.

78. BEFORE RESEARCH
78
• Articulate context, market, segment
• Identify who you are interviewing
• Craft a topic map for your interviews
• Write down your prompts

79. 9 KEYS TO CUSTOMER RESEARCH
79
1. One interview at a time
2. Always pair interview (if you can)
3. Introduce yourself
4. Record the conversation
5. Ask general, open-ended questions to get people talking
6. Then ask, “Tell me about the last time you…”
7. Listen more than you talk
8. Separate behavior from narrative (people lie)
9. Be careful of anchoring

80. GUIDELINES
80
• It’s about empathizing.
• Listen, even when people go off topic.
• Context is king – document it, and make sure the context of
research maps to the problem being explored.
• Start from the assumption that everything you know is wrong.

81. YOU NEED TO GATHER...
81
1. Factual information
2. Behavior
3. Pain
4. Goals
You can document this on the persona board as well as ….
photos, video, audio, journals…. document everything.

82. • Tell me about…
• How do you…
• What are your thoughts on…
• Could you elaborate on…
• Give some examples of…
• Tell me about the last time you…
OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS START WITH...
82

83. DO
• Take notes
• Smile
• Ask open-ended questions
• Get their story
• Shut up and listen
DON’T
• Talk about your product
• Ask about future behavior
• Sell
• Ask leading questions
• Talk much
SOME PROTIPS
83

84. 7 THINGS TO
CONSIDER

85. 7 STEPS
1. Uncover people’s needs and goals
2. Formulate hypotheses
3. Question your assumptions
4. Collaborate to generate ideas
5. Run small, tight experiments
6. Learning isn’t failure
7. Amplify what works

86. My propositions serve as
elucidations in the following way:
anyone who understands me
eventually recognizes them as
nonsensical, when he has used
them - as steps - to climb beyond
them.
He must, so to speak, throw away
the ladder after he has climbed up
it.
“
– LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
”

87. Will Evans
ChiefDesignOfficer,
SemanticFoundry
will@semanticfoundry.com
THANKS