2016s most common innovation challenges

INNOVATION SOLUTIONS

© nils vesk 2016 1

INNOVATION - SOLUTIONS TO THE MOST CURRENT INNOVATION CHALLENGES OF 2016


© nils vesk 2016 2

Liability disclaimer

The material contained in this e-book is general and is not intended as advice on any particular matter. Nils Vesk Pty Ltd and the author expressly disclaim all and any liability to any persons whatsoever in respect of anything done by any such person in reliance, whether in whole or in part, on this e-book. Please take appropriate legal advice before acting on any information in this e-book.


© nils vesk 2016 3

Recently I surveyed over a thousand people and asked them about their current innovation challenge. From all the responses I’ve created an ebook that aims to address the 25 most common innovation challenges in a simple quick way.

Each innovation challenge topics is answered with a ‘quick tip’ that is supported by a short ‘why’ you should take a particular course of action.

While I could have written much much more for each individual challenge, we would need multiple volumes of ebooks. Instead, I encourage those who might be serious about innovation and want more in depth resources to consider my online innovation program that I’m confident enough to say would address the vast majority of these challenges. To consider the program simply visit: http://www.innovationhatch.com/

In the meantime I really hope this ebook helps you to get back on track with your innovation.

Cheers,Nils

INTRO: THE MOST CURRENT INNOVATION CHALLENGES OF 2016

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http://www.innovationhatch.com/





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Quick tip:

Create a story as to ‘why’ innovation is important.

Why? Because stories (or narratives as behaviouralists like to call them) when they evoke emotions are one the most powerful ways to instigate behavioural change.

This means we need to have a continual supply of stories that reinforce and engage in an emotional way as to ‘why’ innovation is important and stories of how innovation is already happening.

Share stories of what you want to see ‘more of’ and why it’s so important. This leads to establishing values of innovation. Tell stories of ‘observable and measurable innovation behaviours’. For example “Just this week our team invited a guest supplier in to talk about their latest process mapping procedure...”.

MOTIVATION: HOW TO MOTIVATE A TEAM TO BE INNOVATIVE

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Quick Tip:

Design around the four key phases to innovation.

Here's why: Innovation isn’t just about ideas, its about insights, prototypes and commercial projects too. Needs will always change but the phases of innovation will always remain.

Phase 1 - Investigation: This is all about discovering insights. Ensure you have a process that generate insights from your stats (eg. sales, mktg, refunds, breakdowns etc.), insights from new emerging trends, and insights into what customer needs, desires, aversions and obstructions are.

Phase 2 - Ideation: Make time to generate ideas and lots of them. Be that by setting a KPI for the no. of ideas created at each weekly mtg. Drop expectations of quality. Quality follows quantity.

Phase 3 - Iteration: Ensure you have processes to test & prototype ideas rapidly and cost effectively to minimise risk and gain certainty.

Phase 4 - Commercialisation: Treat innovation as seriously as any other part of the business by creating metrics that measure the number of ideas, insights and prototypes created each quarter. Have processes that allow innovation projects ideas to become billable projects.

PROCESS: HOW TO DESIGN AN INNOVATION PROCESS THAT SOLVES CURRENT & FUTURE BUSINESS NEEDS

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narrative Quick Tip:

When we have an innovation resistant culture we need to change the narrative of our people.

Why? People have narratives (stories) that they have made up as to why innovation and change is not good. It’s our job to change the narrative that they have in their head by showing them alternative stories as to why innovation is important.

This needs to occur on multiple levels yet it’s crucial to involve the CEO. Find examples of what is ‘desirable’ innovative behaviours already happening and share stories that express the need to repeat and emulate these behaviours. Continue to express the need for these new behaviours and continue to recognise them as they occur.

OVERCOMING RESISTANCE: COUNTER WITH THE PERSISTENCE OF A NEW NARRATIVE


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flip it Quick Tip:

‘Flipboard’ it.

Here's why: By using a ‘flipboard’ (mobile app that enables you to bring all your social media feeds together) you can follow your key influencers or ‘mover and shakers’ and have them conveniently filtered to one easy to scan place.

Hint: Have key twitter influencers as your key source as people tend to only tweet when they’ve got something important to say.

If you’re in a team divide the team up to ‘follow’ certain sectors of the industry or from beyond so that as a group you can cover all bases. Get people to share once a month as to what’s been happening.

UP TO SPEED: HOW TO KEEP UP TO SPEED IN A HIGH PRESSURE TIME POOR ENVIRONMENT


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Quick Tip:

Think of tiny habits that you can start and use.

Why? We’re so time poor that just the thought of finding 30 minutes to ‘brainstorm’ seems an impossibility. So we need to think of micro activities.

A tiny habit is one that is super short (less than a minute) that is fun to do and leads to a larger behavioural change. Here’s a good one. At each weekly mtg. Write the following question on a flip chart or white board. “What’s the most innovative product, process or service that you have come across recently beyond our industry and what made it so compelling?”

Writing this will take less than 30 seconds and as a group you might end up spending 10 minutes discussing it. Yet it will lead to the group starting to adapt new ideas from outside of your industry that you can use in yours. Think of creating as many of these tiny innovation habits as you can and the rest will follow.

DAY-TO-DAY: HOW TO INCORPORATE INNOVATION DAY TO DAY

Data gold

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Quick Tip:

Make a prototype of it before you make a project of it.

Here's why: An idea is a risky proposition until we can test it.

No one wants to fail at an innovation and prototyping allows us to test at low risk before going live with it.

Start by building a rapid conceptual prototype (somethings that takes less than 30 mins to build). Share this with people and get feed back on ‘why’ you’re doing it’, ‘what’ need, desire or aversion it deals with, ‘who’ it’s for, ‘how’ it works etc.

If the conceptual prototype is well received, develop it further - this time spend a couple of hours on it. Prototype after prototype. Start to plan the prototype, make predictions as to what you think will happen, test the prototype, record what happens and evaluate those predictions against the outcomes.

Start your next prototype plan and test again. This is how we reduce the risk and develop the idea and implement it.

EXECUTING IDEAS:HOW TO GO FROM IDEA TO IMPLEMENTATION

Data gold

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Quick Tip:

Professional innovators don’t use the word ‘failure’ they use the word ‘experimental learning’.

Here's why: Innovation is really experimentation, and the most commercial innovators of all time have seen their innovation as a series of experiments. Edison’s thousands of so called ‘failure’ light bulbs were simply experiments which told him what would not work. The professional innovator approaches innovation with the experimental mindset yet uses small experiments to reduce the risk.

In short consider what your predictions are or were for an innovation, record what actually happened and finally evaluate those predictions with the outcomes and record what you have learnt. The motto is ‘spend a little learn a lot’.

DEALING WITH FAILURE:REDEFINE WHAT THIS MEANS

Data gold

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Quick Tip:

Recognise their intelligence & brilliance.

Why? Front liners, are at the hard face of business dealing with the gripes and objections of your products, service or processes.

In reality they are a treasure trove of customer insights. Yet we treat them optional rather than as valuable. The cold hard facts are there is more money in their minds than in the boardroom. It’s your job to recognise that brilliance, importance and value. Your second job is to facilitate them so that they share and help you to action ideas around these insights.

To do this you need to help instil a new narrative that shows why that knowledge is so important and stories that share how they can and have been implemented before, whether in your organisation or in others.

Data gold

value themFRONT LINERS:ENCOURAGING THEM TO GIVE LIFE TO THEIR IDEAS



Quick Tip:

Co-create

Here’s Why:

People tend to switch off when giving feedback, this can happen because what’s been done has been done, it could have been a bad day, or they have no time to do your 50 question evaluation form.

They are however more interested in being involved in creating a better experience for themselves in the future. After all the future is much more exciting than the past.

Find ways to invite your customer to be involved in design phase of your next product or service creation. They’ll be much more engaged and excited about it and they will be much more willing to share ideas to deal with elements that didn’t hit the mark before.

STAKEHOLDERS:HOW TO ENGAGE THEM FOR FEEDBACKco-create



Quick Tip:

Look for a ‘payback’ both ways.

Here's why: While it’s great to create an innovation that adds value to your client, it’s an absolute ball to create an innovation that not only satisfies the client yet also makes life easier you and your team.

To evaluate a potential idea simply consider both the R.O.I for the client and team. Consider benefits such as:

Saves time, saves effort, reduce complexity, prevents mistakes, reduces need for refunds, increases fun, increases excitement, saves money, creates curiosity, intrigues people etc.

While not every innovation needs to contain all of these elements, the more we do address the more compelling the idea and the higher the engagement and persistence will be.

BETTER INNOVATION EVALUATION: HOW TO DETERMINE THE VALUE OF AN INNOVATION TO ENSURE PERSISTENCE AND IMPLEMENTATIONpayback



Quick Tip:

Make it understandable.

Why? Too often we fall in love with our idea to such a state that we fail to communicate an idea in a way that people can easily understand and follow.

Ideas that demand credibility have a few things going for them. They are:

Understandable - ie. they are easy to grasp and see the context in how they might be used. Language such as ‘It’s kind of like...” helps people to use association to make sense of it.

Testable - ie. Scientific credibility comes from being able to test and show results. A good idea should be the same, being able to create a plan to test it and show it works.

Valuable - ie. Demonstrating the value to the user/ customer and the value to the organisation creating it. The more thought out the business case the more credibility the idea generates.

credible

CREDIBILITY:HOW TO BUILD CREDIBILITY FOR AN IDEA



Quick Tip:

Show & tell

Here’s Why: Sounds weird but people are social by nature and they like to hear from other people. The most powerful communication and motivation currency we have is ‘story telling’.

Even if you have teams spread across the globe, nothing is more powerful to encourage collaboration than through starting with story telling of innovation.

Consider:

Starting with ‘what great innovation, product, process or service have you see recently, and what made it so good?’

Move onto sharing what new innovative behaviours people have been displaying recently and why it was useful eg. We went on a field trip to our suppliers plant last week and we learnt...

Share problems and ask for help in solving them.

DISPARATE:HOW TO INNOVATE WITH REMOTE TEAMS

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Quick Tip:

Reverse the process.

Here’s why: When we label the ‘back end’ IT team ‘back end’, then they behave that way. If we were to treat them as ‘front end’ or customer facing we would get a very different response.

Some simple ways to do this is to get the teams to give a ‘show & tell’ presentation of the mechanics that they work on.

Then ask yourself and the team to imagine what a customer would expect from this back end. List all of their expectations.

Now get the ‘back end’ team to list all of their design intentions about how this system should work and be used.

Now get the team and outsiders to list how the typical customer would interpret ‘how to use’ the system. Be realistic, assume your typical customer has no prior experience or knowledge on how to use the system. How would they interpret it?

Now compare the design intentions against the customer assumption/ interpretations. If there are discrepancies- this is where the team needs to innovate and they will also see the need to innovate.

BACK END:HOW TO GET THE ‘BACK END’ TEAMS TO INNOVATE

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Quick Tip:

Give people the ‘how to’, ‘chance to’ and ‘why to’ innovate.

Why? The main barriers to innovation lie behind each one of these.

‘Chance to’ - people rarely have the chance to innovate, this can be in the form of permission, time or resources. Give people permission, give them time and support and innovation can start.

‘How to’ - innovation does not come naturally to people, and most of us have creative thinking totally crushed through our formative schooling and education. This means we need to train our people on ‘how’ to innovate.

‘Why to’ - this is the motivation that we need to innovate. Creating a narrative as to why innovation is crucial. It’s about sharing stories that engage us emotionally as to ‘why’ we need to innovate and what that look like in our respective organisation.

BARRIERS:HOW TO BREAK DOWN INNOVATION BARRIERS

Data gold

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Quick Tip:

Seek forgiveness versus permission.

Why? People are risk averse by nature, and are unlikely to support innovation until they see it working, which they are unwilling to allow unless it has already happened. Hence the motto.

What this means in reality however is getting some quick ‘runs on the board’. We can do this by rapid prototyping to learn what can work and developing these prototypes further so that we have irrefutable evidence and proof of the success out potential innovations can have.

It’s far to easy to knock back an ‘off the cuff idea’ but very hard to knock back let alone ignore a well thought out business case that’s backed up small scale prototypes or ‘proof of concept’ projects.

Go forth and innovate!

BOTTOM UP:HOW TO CREATE INNOVATION THAT INFLUENCES FROM THE BOTTOM UP

Data gold

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Quick Tip:

90 day co-creation projects

Why? I spoke about co-creations before in how getting customers involved in designing in a new improved service is a win-win situation. This is no different, yet the challenge many government organisations have is in the time frame execution.

Most ‘time effectiveness’ experts agree that 90day projects work best because of the relative short time frame, the ability to see and experience progress in a short amount of time and to reach the end and evaluate what they have learnt as a result of it.

Rather than trying to totally reinvent the processes in place look at compartmentalising service innovation into 90 day projects. If approvals are a challenge, then create 90 day prototypes/ proof of concepts to validate the need to roll out to the public.

GOVERNMENT SERVICE: HOW TO HAVE QUICKER INNOVATION YET STILL BE ABOVE THE BOARD 90 day

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Quick Tip:

Think of innovation as a verb versus a noun.

Here’s why: Too many people talk about innovation as a noun - and they are looking for a commercial result of some kind without actually knowing what could create that end result

Innovation simply put is when we apply innovative behaviours that lead to the improvement, reinvention or invention of a product, process or service. It could be a 1% improvement or an ground breaking new methodology.

Innovation means demonstrating behaviours such as:

• Identifying pain points in the organisation• Listing out the needs, desires and aversions of a customer, team member or user.

• Suggesting ways that a process, product or service can be improved by adding or combining other activities or elements

•Maps a customer journey/ experience of a service or space.•Suggests ideas to prevent or solve customer frustrations.•Lists the predictions that will occur as a result of making a change to an existing process or implementing a new idea.

DEFINITION:HOW TO DEFINE WHAT ACTUALLY IS INNOVATIONverb vs. noun



Quick Tip:

Start by defining innovative behaviours

Why? If the behaviours are observable and measurable then they are achievable.

Some observable innovative behaviours include:

• Converts a pain point or frustration into a question• Shares research and findings about a particular problem with the team• Pins up pictures or articles of an upcoming trend that will affect organisation or customers.

• Observes a process, interaction, reaction, activity and records their observations

• Actively looks for new ideas from outside of the industry• Builds rapid conceptual prototypes of an idea to communicate with others and assess an ideas potential

• Plans social, physical or workplace experiments • Tests a product or service to see how usable, simple, logical, intuitive and foolproof it might be

• Helps to craft a story to help communicate what's remarkable about a product, process or service

•Creates templates to increase the efficiency and productivity of execution• Identifies the scale of difficulty of an idea• Identifies potential profits or costs/ time savings of a new idea

INNOVATIVE BEHAVIOURS:HOW TO CREATE INNOVATIVE BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE

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Quick tip:

Cover all 3 areas of a business - Product, Process, Service

Why? Too many make the mistake that innovation is all about product, whilst many of the most innovative organisations don’t even have a product in the real sense.

Targeting each of these 3 areas will ensure that your organisation remains commercial. If you haven’t touched a process for years, chances are it needs an innovative overhaul. If you’ve been selling the same product for years, chances are there’s a better product that will sell more, and if your service hasn’t changed then chances are there are some unhappy clients who are telling other people about their dissatisfaction.

Consider in terms of usefulness, if there is a link to...

profitability, usability, ease of use, ability to motivate customers or employees, ability to influence, ability to anticipate customer demands, increasing satisfaction, reducing failure rates or refunds, time savings, resource savings etc.

COMMERCIAL:HOW TO IDENTIFY THE MOST USEFUL AREA TO INNOVATE

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Quick Tip:

Create what people want whilst satisfying needs

Why? Every other business out there produces a product or service to satisfy a need, yet it’s the ones that go beyond the need to satisfy a desire that do better than the rest.

They don’t stop there, the products or services that have no shortage of customers, do so by having a ‘remarkable’ element to them. Whether it’s a remarkable benefit, feature, appearance or customer experience. This is what gets people to remark about and if it’s a good remark, they’ll tell others and others will buy it.

AirBnB knew that people didn’t need to stay at other people’s houses when travelling. They needed accommodation, but they wanted something affordable and that would make them feel more like a local and less like a tourist.

MARKET:HOW TO DECIDE WHAT WILL SELL?

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Quick Tip:

Make the innovative thinking a ‘doing’ activity

Why? If an organisation values doing versus thinking we need to make innovation a series of ‘doing activities’ that doesn’t feel like thinking.

For example conducting a customer profile identifying their most common needs, desires and aversions each month as a part of an account review is innovative thinking, yet it can look like a ‘doing’ activity.

It’s simply a matter of repackaging the thinking as a ‘doing’ activity and locating it in a logical place so that it feels just like a ‘doing’ activity.

THINKING VS. DOING:HOW TO ENCOURAGE INNOVATION WHEN PEOPLE VALUE DOING OVER THINKING

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Quick Tip:

Create a one page innovation assessment template

Why? Not having an open transparent defined template means personalities, personal opinions and ego’s get in the way of good ideas. A one pager should cover the key elements such as:

Key value of idea, what insight it responds to, market opportunity, ways to prototype, difficulty of execution, scale of probability, cost predictions, income potential and the sort.

The template should be designed for both the person submitting and for the assessor or approver of ideas. Making it one page makes it faster, whilst still creating enough vigour for people to consider the relevant details.

EVALUATION:HOW TO MEASURE OPPORTUNITIES & BENEFITS IN A STANDARD & TRANSPARENT WAY

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Nils Vesk is a professional designer but you won’t find him designing your office or company website. For the last 18 years Nils has been applying the process of design thinking to the business of generating and realising ideas. His clients include the worlds fastest growing companies who use Nils as an innovation architect and change catalyst for accelerating business growth through innovation.

He’s strategic but stops at number crunching, he’s mentored some of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs yet stopped at becoming a venture capitalist and his fast thinking is in higher demand than instant noodles. Of course he’s published books but more importantly he wants to collaborate with you!

To have your own innovation processes and resources at your finger tips, please consider the online innovation course that Nils has developed. For more info visit http://www.innovationhatch.com/

You can book Nils to speak at your next conference at:

+61 2 8094 [email protected]

CONTACT:ABOUT NILS VESK

aboutnils



mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Business

2016s most common innovation challenges