Clearworks Insights to Innovation: A Real World Case Study

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION, MEMORIAL HOSPITAL OF SOUTH BEND, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Intersession 1: Innovation Service PartnersInsights to Ideation: A Real World Case Study

Jennifer Cuthill

2WELCOME

INSIGHTS TO IDEATION:A Real World Case Study

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• Since 2002• Innovation and new product

development• Using customer insights from

ideation through launch• Sample innovation projects:

o Establishing innovation processo Facilitating ideation workshopso Gathering customer insights to drive

innovation

• Industry agnostic• Business and consumer products,

services, and experiences

WHO IS CLEARWORKS?

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We will cover:• How to use customer insights as a basis for

ideation• Customer insights techniques• Ideation techniques that can be used with

customers to generate ideas• Ideation techniques that leverage the

insights for internal ideation

GOALS FOR TODAY’S SESSION

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Our case study involves:• Large technology company• Struggling to fill its innovation pipeline and

generate new product and service ideas• Targeting their small business segment

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYBackground

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Our client’s primary objective:

Generate numerous new ideas around solutions targeting small business customers

Step 1: Focus the challenge

Identified Focus: Identify back office solutions that solve for customer challenges

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYThe Business Challenge

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Develop a customized approach to meet the specific objectives/challenge for this project:• Fill the funnel of ideas using a combination

of customer ideation and internal stakeholder ideation

• To fuel internal ideation, use customer insights

Customer Ideation + Internal Ideation Fueled by Customer Insights =

Funnel of New Ideas

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYThe Approach

8REAL WORLD CASE STUDYClearworks Insights Toolkit

Shopalongs

Eye Tracking

Customer SummitsDigital Ethnographies

Focus Groups

Journey Mapping

In-Home Ethnographies

Digital DiariesOnline Communities

Remote Usability

Shelf Optimization Tests

In-Depth Interviews

Geolocation Surveys

Insight Games

Mobile Research

Customer Experience Design

Usability Lab Testing

Online Surveys

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Customer Summits can take numerous forms, but what we did….• In-person moderated workshop• Included interactive exercises, large and

small group discussions, breakout sessions• Held at a nice hotel to facilitate creativity• Session Length: 3 hours hours• # of participants: 15-20 per city; 2 cities• # of summits: 1 east coast, one west coast

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYCustomer Summits

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Customer Summits have numerous benefits:• Opportunity to gather in person input and

feedback on customer gaps and challenges• Dig deeper into day to day pain points• In-person allows for interactive exercises

for generating customer ideas• Customers share experiences and generate

rich dialogue

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYCustomer Summit - Reasons for Selection

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• Participants prior to summits were invited to an online platform

• Diary-style format allowed them to record their activities and thoughts day-to-day

• Customers were prompted by a series of exercises

• Responded via video, photos, screen capture and text

• Mobile capabilities allowed for in the moment capture

• Self-recorded events provided rich insights - able to gain access to otherwise inaccessible aspects of a customer’s life

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYDigital Diaries

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Digital Diaries have numerous benefits:• Immerse customer in the topic; made it top

of mind for them going into the Customer Summits

• Allow for individual input and feedback• Capture customers where they work• Enable client to observe customer

thoughts and behavior firsthand through the use of video and photos

• Video and other artifacts fueled the internal ideation session

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYDigital Diaries - Reasons for Selection

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In general:• Prompted participants to complete

a series of five exercises over the period of a week

Sample exercise:• “Back Office Headaches” - When

thinking about your back office systems, tools and processes what issues or current solutions cause you the biggest headache each week? Document your challenges each day.

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYDigital Diaries - How They Were Used

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In general:• Consider the ideation challenge• Leverage an innovation “toolkit”

from a variety of sources• Variety of exercises allows us to

address that challenge from multiple directions

• Develop exercises that are creative and engaging

• Use toolkit exercises as is, modify them as it makes sense, or create our own

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYCustomer Summits - How They Were Used

15REAL WORLD CASE STUDYCustomer Summits – Sample Agenda

Time Topic

2:00-2:15 Welcome and Introductions2:15-2:45 Rapid Ideation Warm-Up Exercise2:45-3:30 Map It! Exercise3:30-3:45 BREAK3:45-4:15 Crystal Ball Exercise4:15-4:45 Group Readouts and Discussion4:45-5:00 Closing

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“Map It” Exercise:

Purpose: • Understand back office issues and challenges and how

they are being handled today

What is Needed:• Flip chart paper, pens

How It Works: • Split participants into small groups• In the center of their flip have them draw a circle and

label it Back Office• Have them use circles to map out the back office

infrastructure elements in their company • Have them use lines from each circle to identify

challenges, gaps and issues as they relate to that particular piece of the back office

• Ask them to indicate solutions or workarounds today

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYCustomer Summits - Session Exercises

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“Map It” Exercise Debrief:• Moderator walks the team through their

map, probing around challenges, pain points, what they like and don’t like

• Ask where the group had commonalities and differences

• All of this provides good feedback for the internal team to think about where solutions could layer into this map


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“Crystal Ball” Exercise:

Purpose: • Understand what the ideal back office environment

would look like

What is Needed:• Crystal Ball print out, pens, colorful Post-It notes, ribbon,

stickers, other art supplies

How It Works: • Split participants into small groups• Each team is given a blank crystal ball and other supplies• Ask them to imagine that they are looking into a crystal

ball where they can see the future where all of their back office challenges have been solved; the picture represents their ideal back office environment


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“Crystal Ball” Exercise Debrief:Moderator asks the team probing questions about the crystal ball:• Why did you draw this?• What does that do for you?• Why would it work this way for you?

• Crystal balls and output/feedback are used internally to ideate around solutions and services that have the desired ideal state/outcome


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• Customer quotes • Video highlight reel• Workbook of customer

ideas• Feedback on pain points,

challenges, gaps, headaches

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYOutput from Digital Diaries & Customer Summits

+ =

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This internal ideation session structure:• Moderated in-person internal workshop• Team of 25 cross-functional stakeholders• Includes interactive exercises, large and

small group discussions, breakout sessions• Session Length: 1 full day

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYInternal Ideation Session

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Ideation Sessions have numerous benefits:• Generate a large volume of new ideas with

a cross functional internal team• Opportunity to familiarize the cross

functional team with the insights generated from customer research (Online Diaries + Customer Summits)

• Use research as a primary launching pad for ideation

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYInternal Ideation Session - Reasons for Selection

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Ideation Sessions are customized to the client and their objectives:• Developed comprehensive agenda for the

session, including insights review and a series of 5 interactive exercises

• Used insights as a starting point for further ideation to generate lots and lots of ideas

• Used quick, warm-up ideation exercises to get the group’s creative juices flowing

• Used exercises from our innovation “toolkit” to generate ideas

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYInternal Ideation Session - How It Was Used

24Artifact Gallery:• Create an “exhibit” with

artifacts from customer research, including:– Customer quotes– Customer diaries– Key research takeaways– Output from ideation exercises

• The team “tours” the exhibit and looks at all of the artifacts

• The team is encouraged to take notes during the tour and jot down thoughts about:– What is most surprising? – What did you not know before?

REAL WORLD CASE STUDYInternal Ideation Session - Immersion In Study Insights

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Video Highlight Reel:• A collection of relevant customer quotes

and highlights from the Customer Summits• Includes clips from large group discussion,

breakout sessions, and interactive exercises• Synthesized key takeaways• Playing the reel at the start of the Internal

Session helps bring the research to life for the team


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Participant Workbook:• One workbook per team member• Workbook includes:

– Customer research highlights– Session agenda– Ideation exercises and instructions– Space for notes

• Team uses their workbooks throughout the day as part of the ideation exercises, or to note any interesting observations that might be used to spark some creativity


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“10 in 10” Exercise: 10 Ideas in 10 minutes

Purpose: • Use customer insights to fuel innovation ideas

What is Needed:• Participant workbook, flip chart paper, pens

How It Works: • Team takes a “tour” of the Artifact Gallery to look at

all of the artifacts that came out of the Customer Summits

• After the tour, split the team into smaller groups• Ask each group to come up with 10 ideas to address

the ideation challenge, based on the observations made during their “tour”

• Ideas can be a solution, service, feature, or product


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“Mix It Up” Exercise:

Purpose: • Generate new ideas by remixing attributes of an existing

idea or combining key words related to the opportunity

What is Needed:• A stack of Mix It Up cards

How It Works: • Split the participants into small groups• Provide 4 stacks of cards to each group• Each stack has one of the following types of words:

– Customer Pain Point– Adjective– Trend – Solution Type

• Ask each group to mix up the stacks of cards, and create different combinations to come up with ideas


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A well-designed internal ideation produces:• Stakeholder buy-in to the customer

insights and feedback• Stakeholders identify interesting and

surprising insights they didn’t know before• Participants learn five new ideation

techniques• Generate a volume of new ideas internally

to supplement output from the Customer Summits

• Team is excited and energized to take their 150+ ideas to the next level


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We covered:• How to use customer insights as a basis for

ideation• Customer insights techniques• Ideation techniques that can be used with

customers to generate ideas• Ideation techniques that leverage the

insights for internal ideation

HERE’S WHAT WE DID TODAY

31IN CONCLUSION…

INSIGHTS TO IDEATION:A Real World Case Study

32FOR MORE INFORMATION…

For any questions about today’s session, please contact Jennifer Cuthill

[email protected]

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION, MEMORIAL HOSPITAL OF SOUTH BEND, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

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