From Ideation to Activation through Design Led Innovation

From Ideation to

ActivationDesign Led Innovation

29.3.2017

@e3_belfastmet

Click to edit Master title style


Our Goals Today

What is changing for small businesses in this era of

Digital Transformation.

Where should you be focussing your search for

innovation.

Supporting your idea generation - how Design Thinking

can help you drive the creative process to innovate

and activate your idea.

The funding and supports that are available at Belfast

Met to help you innovate.


Innovation has always been a differentiator



2017 2018 2020

SALES

Growth Aligned Pipeline


What’s changing for

Small Businesses?


There will be more

technological

innovation in the next

10 years than in the

last 100 years. It will

be a much more

competitive world.






“70% of firms know they are

facing “digital disruption” in the

next two years. Irish firms are

ill-prepared to navigate the big

technology changes coming

their way and only a few have

a plan in place to cope with

‘digital disruption’.”

“70% of firms know they are facing

“digital disruption” in the next two years.

Irish firms are ill-prepared to navigate

the big technology changes coming their

way.”


We are entering an

era where social and

creative skills will be

paramount and the

development of

novel ideas will be

essential.





SALES COSTS


Digital has changed the Sales channel


Click to edit Master title style“The Internet of Everything

will affect every aspect of our

lives in increasingly

seamless ways. Success in

the Third Wave of the

Internet will be driven by

platforms & partnerships. ”


Digital is changing the Costs channel




Where are the innovation opportunities for

small businesses

If the digital channel

doesn’t account for

50% of your pipeline

you are at risk of

disintermediation.

Value is

added

through

design led

innovation

If digital fulfillment

doesn’t account for 50%

of your operations then

you are at risk of

disintermediation.

Digital

Channel

to

Maximise

Sales

Digital

Fulfillment

(non-value

add) to

Minimise

Costs


Design Led Innovation

Design School @

Stanford model


EMPATHISE

Understand

IDEATE

Idea

Generation

DEFINE

Sensemaking

TEST

PROTOTYPE


STEP 1 - EMPATHISE

EMPATHISE

To create meaningful innovations, you need

to know your users and care about their lives.


What is the Empathise step?

● The core of a human-centered design

process.

● The best solutions come out of the best

insights into human behavior.

● To design for your target market, you must

gain empathy for who they are and what is

important to them.

● Enables you to uncover insights.

● Provide direction to create innovative

solutions. EMPATHISE


How to Empathise

1. Observe

2. Engage

3. Watch & Listen

EMPATHISE


How to Empathise - Observe

1. View users and their behavior in

the context of their lives and work.

2. Powerful realisations come from

noticing a disconnect between

what someone says and what

he/she does.

3. Others come from a work-around

someone has created but he/she

may not even think to mention in

conversation. EMPATHISE


How to Empathise - Engage

● Interviewing but it should really feel

more like a conversation.

● Elicit stories from the people you

talk to, and always ask “Why?” to

uncover deeper meaning.

EMPATHISE


How to Empathise - Watch & Listen

● Combine observation and

engagement.

● Ask someone to show you how they

complete the relevant action/task.

● Ask them to vocalise what’s going

through their mind as they perform a

task or interact with an object.

EMPATHISE


Transition to Step 2 Define

DEFINE

To move from empathy work to drawing conclusions from that

work you need to process all the things you heard and saw,

sharing what

you found with

your team.


Step 2 - Define

Framing the right problem is the

only way to create the right

solution.

DEFINE


What is Step 2 - Define

● Making sense of the widespread

information you have gathered.

● To craft a meaningful and actionable

problem statement – this is what is called a

point-of-view.

● Helps to define the challenge you are taking

on, based on your user and context.

● Crafting a more narrowly focused problem

statement tends to yield both greater

quantity and higher quality solutions when

you are generating ideas.DEFINE


How to Define

● Identify what patterns emerge when you

look at the information.

● Develop an understanding of the USER

you are designing for.

● Synthesise and select a limited set of

NEEDS that are important to fulfill.

● Create an Actionable Problem Statement

by combining these three elements – user,

need, and insight – that will drive the rest of

your design work.DEFINE


Goal of Step 2 - Actionable Problem Statement (POV)

● Provides focus and frames the problem.

● Inspires your team and ensures

alignment/shared understanding.

● Informs criteria for evaluating competing

ideas.

● Captures the hearts and minds of people

you meet.

● Saves you from the impossible task of

developing concepts that are all things to

all people (i.e. your problem statement

should be tightly focussed, not broad.).DEFINE


Transition to Step 3 - IDEATE

Ideation provides both the fuel and the

source material for building prototypes.

Create a list of “How-Might-We . . .?”

brainstorming topics that flow from your

problem statement.

IDEATE


Step 3 - Ideate

It’s not about coming up with the

‘right’ idea, it’s about generating the

broadest range of possibilities.

IDEATE


How to Ideate

IDEATE

● Is a process of “going wide” in terms of

concepts and outcomes.

● Creating a wide range of potential

solutions for your users, not simply

finding a single, best solution.

● Harness the collective perspectives and

strengths of your team.

● Create fluency (volume) and flexibility

(variety) in your innovation options.


How to Ideate - Tips

● Location is important, surround

yourselves with inspiring, related

materials.

● Building the prototyping itself can be an

ideation technique. In physically

making something you come to points

where decisions need to be made.

● But defer judgment – that is, separate

the generation of ideas from the

evaluation of ideas.IDEATE


Transition from Ideate to Prototype

Designate three voting criteria to use to vote

on at least three different ideas that your team

generated during brainstorming. Criteria could

include:

● Most likely to delight

● The rational choice

● The most unexpected

● The most cost effective

PROTOTYPE


Step 4 - Prototype

Build to think and test to learn.

PROTOTYPE


Why Prototype?

● Build to think - prototyping helps to ideate and

problem-solve.

● To communicate. If a picture is worth a thousand

words, a prototype is worth a thousand pictures.

● Starts a conversation with users, the prototype

acts as a conversation piece.

● To fail quickly and cheaply.

● To test possibilities. Staying low-res allows you

to pursue many different ideas without

committing to a direction too early on.

● To manage the solution-building process. PROTOTYPE


How to Prototype

Start with low-resolution prototypes that are

quick and cheap to make (think minutes and

cents) but can elicit useful feedback from users

and colleagues.

A prototype can be anything that a user can

interact with or experience, be it

● A wall of post-it notes,

● A gadget you put together

● A role-playing activity

● A storyboard.

● A software demoPROTOTYPE


How to Prototype

● Don’t spend too long on one prototype. Let go before

you find yourself getting too emotionally attached to

any one prototype.

● A prototype should answer a particular question when

tested.

● Build with the user in mind. What do you hope to test

with the user? What sorts of behavior do you expect?

● Use different media for the prototype, break a large

problem down into smaller, testable chunks.

PROTOTYPE


Transition from Prototyping to Test

What you are trying to test and how

you are going to test that aspect are

critically important to consider before

you create a prototype.

TEST


Step 5 - Testing

TEST

Testing is an opportunity

to learn about your

solution and your user.


What is the Test Step?

When you solicit feedback about the prototypes

you have created.

Ideally you can test within a real context of the

user’s life:

● For a physical object, ask people to take it

with them and use it within their normal

routines.

● For an experience, try to create a scenario in

a location that would capture the real

situation.

TEST


Why Test?

● To refine prototypes and solutions.

● To learn more about your user, it often

yields unexpected insights.

● To refine your POV. Sometimes testing

reveals that not only did you not get the

solution right, but also that you failed to

frame the problem correctly.

TEST


How to Test

● Show don’t tell. Put your prototype in the

user’s hands.

● Don’t explain everything (yet).

● Watch how they use (and misuse!) it.

● Then listen to what they say about it, and the

questions they have.

● Ask users to compare - Bringing multiple

prototypes to the field to test gives users a

basis for comparison, and comparisons

often reveal latent needs.

TEST


And Finally -Iteration

Iteration is a fundamental of good

design for example by creating

multiple prototypes or trying

variations of a brainstorming topics

with multiple groups.

TEST


Next Steps

Funding Supports

Innovation Supports

[email protected]

Thank [email protected]