Design Innovation Process

A generic innovation process can be mapped on two dimensions - Real to Abstract and Understand to Make. We observe and learn from the real world. We create abstractions and mental models to reframe what we learned in new ways. We explore new concepts before we evaluate them and implement them in the real world.

Theses modes of activity (not steps) help us switch between modes in a non-linear way as we go through the innovation process. The process is also iterative, going through one or more modes in cycles, rather than as a direct sequential push.

Sense Intent

Know Context

Know People

Frame Insights

Explore Concepts

Frame Solutions

Realize Offering

Under each of the seven modes we take on a set of mindsets to think through our specific goals. For example, when we are in the "Explore Concepts" mode, our mindsets might be on "challenging assumptions" or "narrating stories about the future". These mindsets drive our activities while we use specific methods like "Ideation Session" or "Opportunity Map".

Early on in the process we are in this mode of figuring out where to start. Before jumping straight into a project we take a pause and consider the changing world around us. We look at all the changes happening in business, technology, society, culture, policy, and others. We gather the latest happenings, cutting edge developments, and latest news. We study the trends that can affect our topic area. We look at the overall effects of these changes. All these offer us a way to reframe our initial problem and look for new innovation opportunities. It helps us think of an initial intent about where we should be moving.

In "Know Context" we study the context -- the circumstances or events that affect the environment in which our innovation offerings (products, services, experiences, brands etc.) exist or could exist. We study how our offerings perform in the market. We focus on offerings that are similar to ours and see how they perform. We study our organization. We look at all the competitors and their evolving strategies. We learn about our organization's relationship to our complementors in the industry. We find out if government policies and regulations have an effect on our innovation topic. Broadly, in this mode, we pay attention to what is transforming our innovation context including society, environment, industry, technology, business, culture, politics, and economics.

In this mode our goal is to understand people (end-users and other stakeholders) and their interactions with everything during their daily lives. In this mode traditional market research techniques are most useful when a new offering is already defined. But to explore a person's unmet or unspoken needs we must have more powerful methods and tools. We use observational and ethnographic research methods to learn about people in ways that are different from interviews or focus group studies. A key objective in this mode is to extract the most valuable insights from our observations. An "insight" here is defined as an interesting revelation or learning that emerges out of observing people's actual behavior. Insight is an interpretation of what is observed, and is often the result of asking the question "why?"

After conducting research, the next step is to bring structure to what has been found and learned from the previous modes. We sort, cluster, and organize the data gathered in the previous three modes and begin to find important patterns. We analyze contextual data and view patterns that point to untapped market opportunities or niches. Finding insights and patterns that repeatedly emerge from multiple analyses of data is beneficial. Therefore in this mode we use a mix of different kinds of methods in order to gain multiple perspective of the context for a fuller understanding. Guidelines or principles that are generated in this mode help us move to the modes for exploring concepts and framing solutions.

In this mode we do structured brainstorming to identify opportunities and to explore new concepts. We use the insights and principles framed earlier as the starting places to generate concepts. We ensure that fresh and bold ideas are generated through collaborative sessions. Team members build on each other's concepts while carefully postponing critical evaluation. Further, by basing our concepts on the results from previous modes, we ensure that the concepts are defensible and grounded in reality. Concepts for products, services, communications, environments, brands, business models, and others are typically explored in this mode. Even at this early stage of exploration, we construct rough prototypes, either to focus team discussions or to get early user or client feedback.

In this mode, we build on the large set of concepts that have been developed earlier by combining them to form systems of concepts, named "Solutions". We evaluate concepts and identify the ones that bring the most value to stakeholders (primarily users and businesses). The most valuable concepts are combined into systems of concepts that work together well and reinforce each other's value. We also evaluate concepts based on their compatibilities to help form holistic solutions. We ensure that the concepts and solutions are organized into useful categories and hierarchies. We iteratively prototype solutions, and test them in reality. In this mode descriptions of solutions are turned into depictions to give the team, the users and the client(s) a visceral sense of "what could be."

Once potential solutions are framed and prototypes tested, they need to be evaluated to move to implementation. In this mode, we ensure that the solutions are purposefully built around people's experiences and can provide real value. It is also important to make sure these solutions add economic value for the organizations producing them. Once we establish high-value solutions, implementation plans follow. For this, design and business innovators collaborate to define viable strategic directions. We create roadmaps to show the speculated progression of solutions in distinct phases. These roadmaps are shared with the stakeholders, showing everyone involved the steps necessary to implement the solution. A business case is prepared for prompting further action with clearly defined and specific initiatives the organization will follow to facilitate implementation.