Some pointers that I've got are:
1. The art of criticism
2. Individual reflection
3. Sparring partners
4. Radical circles
5. Outsiders
On The art of criticism
- Whether for products, services, processes, or business models, two levels of innovation are possible: improvements and new directions
- Improvements are novel solutions that better satisfy existing definitions of value. Whether incremental or radical, they address problems that are already widely recognised in the marketplace.
- In contrasts, new directions arise from reinterpreting the problems worth addressing. They redefine what customers value.
- In order to find an exploit the opportunities made possible by big changes in technology or society, we need to explicitly question assumptions about what is good or valuable and what is not - and then, through reflection, come up with a new lens to examine innovation ideas. Such questioning and reflection characterise the art of criticism.
On Individual reflection
- Ask members of the group to spend time thinking about one or more proposals for products or services or business models. To ensure that they would focus on new directions rather than mere improvements, give them a strict directive: Solutions should be based on brand-new concepts of value. To make the new direction explicit, each proposal should contain an arrow indicating the change from the existing value proposition to the proposed one.
- This approach differs from popular innovation methods in several way.
- First, the staff are not asked to start with the insights of customers or other outsiders. They start with their own. We all sense changes in our environment, and we all have hunches, both conscious and subconscious, about how the world might become better. We often keep these personal hypotheses private. So, get the members to make their hypotheses explicit. Once made explicit and then challenged, those intuitions would become precious raw materials for creating new visions. And the process would combat the natural tendency of individuals to let their subconscious intuitions affect how they perceive the insights of others. This enables the leader to more clearly see and objectively consider visions that would ultimately have been proposed to him.
- Second, everyone reflect alone rather than as a team. This allowed people to dig deep into their own insights and not dilute or withhold them, as they might in a group brainstorming session. It gave each person freedom to perform the task as he or she saw fit - relying on a particular analytical framework, on data, or simply on intuition.
- Third, people have longer time for reflection, such as one month. They are expected to keep performing their regular jobs, but the time was sufficient for each individual to sketch out thoughts, let them percolate for a few days, and then refine them and add new ones. This is especially important for coming up with provocative or outlandish hypotheses - those that are often so blurred in the early stages that they can be quickly dismissed.
On Sparring partners
- In the second step each person subjects his or her vision to the criticism of a trusted peer. The peer acts like a sparring partner, providing a protected environment in which the person can dare to share a wild or half baked hypothesis without being dismissed.
- How can you find a sparring partner who shares your general vision? You needn't have had a previous relationship. Nor must companies rely on serendipity. The odds can be improved with a sort of speed dating process whereby people with similar visions can find each other and agree to work together to polish their ideas. After step one, in which individuals reflect independently on possible directions, invite them to a meeting and ask them to briefly illustrate their ideas, which can be posted on a wall. Then have each person choose another's idea that he or she would like to explore. If more than one person chooses the same direction, ask them to a second and if necessary, a third choice.
On Radical circles
- In step three these promising hypotheses are subjected to deeper criticism through discussion in a group of 10 to 20 people who have envisioned other new directions. Its purpose is not to decide which hypotheses are right or wrong; it is to judge why and how they are different, what important underlying insights might have been overlooked, and whether a value proposition even more formidable than all the hypotheses might be found.
- This exercise, which can be held in an intense two or three day workshop or over the course of four weeks, needs to be conducted carefully so that it is constructive, not destructive. Clashes should push people to dig deeper and identify more innovative spaces, and shouldn't constrain thinking or compromise good ideas.
- The circle should include people with a variety of background, perspectives and personalities.
- You can keep the process positive and creative by having the radical circle focus initially on where everyone believes the company should not go and who its enemies are. Often members can converge more easily on what they dislike than on what they like, and a common enemy is a powerful incentive to come together and articulate a new direction.
- Then contrasts the visions and try to combine them, two at a time. Are there places where they overlap? Are there strong elements of the individual visions that didn't occur to others?
On Outsiders
- A radical circle may converge on one or a few possible directions, which should then be subjected to the criticism of outsiders - step four. Remember that, unlike open innovation approaches, involving outsiders is not intended to generate new ideas. Rather, it is meant to raise good questions - to challenge the innovative direction you propose in order to help you strengthen it. In addition to targeted users, outsiders should include experts from far flung fields with novel perspectives. Their ability to find meaning in trends that might not occur to the product's users.
Yours,
Something Small Thinking Big
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