The Coal Services Innovators Toolkit innovators · cultural DNA . Our objective . To generate and implement ideas . that will ensure Coal Services are able to navigate future challenges

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The Coal Services

Innovators Toolkit

Our DNA

Integrity

Accountability

Collaboration

Customer Centric

Innovation

Excellence

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The Coal Services

Innovators Toolkit

The purpose

To embed innovation in our cultural DNA

Our objective

To generate and implement ideas that will ensure Coal Services are able to navigate future challenges facing our organisation and remain relevant to the NSW Coal Mining Industry.

Our cultural DNA

Innovation is at the heart of our cultural DNA.

2 Coal Services | Innovator’s Toolkit

What is innovation?Innovation is the process of translating an idea into a product or service that creates value for customers or improve the way we conduct our business.

The ‘idea’ might be a

• Product

• Service

• Customer experience

• Internal process

What is innovation?

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‘Value’ could mean

• Improved health, safety and wellness outcomes

• Making our customers’ lives easier

• Lowering costs of services to them

• Providing thought leadership

‘Improve’ could be

• Faster

• Simpler

• Higher performing

• Cheaper


Scope

Empathise

Define

Ideate

Prototype

Test

Persona

Methodologies used to create our toolkit The toolkit incorporates the Value Proposition Canvas, Design Thinking, Lean Startup and the Business Model Canvas methodologies.

Value Proposition Canvas Value Proposition Canvas is a simple way to understand our customers’ needs and wants, leading to designing products and services they desire.

Methodologies used to create our toolkit

Value Map Persona Map

Gains

CustomerJobs

PainsPainRelievers

GainCreators

Products& Services

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Scope

Empathise

Define

Ideate

Prototype

Test

Persona

Design ThinkingDesign Thinking brings together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable. The ultimate beneficiary of the design effort is placed at the heart of each step of the iterative Design Thinking process.


Lean StartupLean Startup is all about experimentation and constant iteration through the build-measure-learn cycle.

Methodologies used to create our toolkit

BuildTurn ideas

into products. Build MVP.

LearnPivot or preserve

strategy.

MeasureSee how

customers respond.Identify Early

Adopters.

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Business Model CanvasBusiness Model Canvas ensures new ideas are implemented in a sustainable manner.

Key Partners

Cost Structure Revenue Streams

Key Activities

Customer Relationships

Key Resources

Channels

Value Propositions

Customer Segments

BuildTurn ideas

into products. Build MVP.

LearnPivot or preserve

strategy.

MeasureSee how

customers respond.Identify Early

Adopters.


The Coal Services innovation process

The Coal Services innovations process

Have a great vision It’s important to start well. Be clear about why it’s important to invest energy and resources to achieve a great result.

Plan the journey To be successful and actually implement innovative solutions we need to plan the journey.

Show empathy Think deeply and differently about the people in your target audience to understand their problems or ‘jobs to be done’.

Define the problem or opportunity Generate insightful problem or opportunity statements.

Ideate options Apply creative thinking to generate lots of different ideas, then synthesise into a solution you think might work.

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Prioritising possible solutions

Rank your solutions on an Explore Innovation Portfolio.

Experiment with solutions

Build multiple rough and simple prototypes to test and validate possible

solutions with your target audience.

Develop a business model

Prove that your solution is not just desirable but also viable and feasible.

Pitch the idea Craft and tell a story of learnings gained throughout the journey and present your validated solution that will deliver value.

While this might seem like a linear process, it’s actually iterative – often what we learn in one phase changes what you thought

you knew in an earlier phase. As you move through the journey, collect all the great work and insights you generate at each phase so you can refer to them later on.


Have a Great Vision

Have a Great Vision

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What is Vision? The Vision phase is a time for boldness. Be brave! We all agree on what could be, what should be or what might simply be better than it is today. It should be something important enough to invest significant energy to get a great result. Our Vision will be our “True North” for the innovation journey we are about to embark on.

It should be clear enough to provide direction, but not too constraining. We don’t want to lock in a solution too early. To embark on an innovation journey, we need to be prepared to challenge everything as we gather more information and test our ideas. During the innovation journey we can return to any phase at any time which could result in repositioning our Vision statement a number of times.

Why is Vision important? It’s important to start well and set an initial direction for our innovation journey. Creating a vision allows us to tell an inspiring story to potential stakeholders in a way that will make them want to support us.

How do we create a meaningful Vision? To start, select topics that are meaningful and will add value. Topics maybe selected from various sources such as feedback mechanisms, observations, the ideas portal, new technologies etc. Use the Innovation Funnel to refine the selected topics.


What is the Innovation Funnel?It’s a simple technique to help us refine our topics so that it’s meaningful for the whole team.

To be meaningful, the topic must be:

• Broad enough to be worth addressing

• Narrow enough to be achievable

• Aspirational or inspirational enough to motivate you to keep at it.

Why is it important to refine and define your topic?• It provides clarity about direction and

eliminates misunderstanding between team members.

• It forms an agreement between all team members that this topic is worth working on.

• It means everyone on the team knows exactly what they are working towards and how it can add value – it removes ambiguity.

How do we use the Innovation Funnel to define a good topic?1. Think of a funnel, with the wide end

being more abstract or ‘big picture’ and the narrow end being more tangible or practical.

2. Place your initial topic where you feel it fits. Topics the fit in the middle of the Innovation Funnel will be most optimal.

3. Make the topic more abstract (broaden it out). Ask:

– Why?

– What is this a part of?

– What is the greater purpose?

4. Make the topic more tangible (narrow it down). Ask:

– How?

– What is a part of this?

– What is a concrete deliverable?

5. Now you have lots of different versions of the original topic, some more abstract and some more tangible. As a group, select the version of the topic you all agree you’d like to work on. You might:

– Ask “what is the most meaningful problem we want to solve?

– Pick the one that just feels right.

– Put it to a vote.

Have a Great Vision

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Why?What is this a part of?What is the greater purpose?

Decrease rate of occupational illness

Better quality of life

Better rehabilitation process

Safe and sustainable workplace

Pre-placement medical assessments

Periodic health surveillance medicals

How?What is a part of this?What is a concrete deliverable?

Broader

Starting point

Narrower

Funnel of Focus


Plan The Journey

Plan the Journey

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As the old saying goes “Fail to plan, plan to fail”. To be successful in delivering valuable solutions we need to plan our journey. True innovation is also only possible through collaboration and diversity. Group think restricts possibilities. We use the Collaboration on a Page tool to plan our journey.

What is Collaboration on a Page? A tool that will helps us expand on our chosen topic and provide a shared understanding of the innovation journey we are about to embark on. It also captures all the collaborators/innovators who will be involved on the journey.

Why is it important to complete the Collaboration on a Page? • To create a shared understanding of

the journey

• To flesh out the chosen topic in more detail, bring just enough clarity to direct your energies.

• To include diversity (could be age, gender, experience, skills, perspectives) amongst the team.

How do we complete the Collaboration on a Page? Get together as a whole team. The discussion we’ll have as a team to complete the ‘Collaboration on a Page’ will help us create a common understanding of what it is we’re working on. This discussion is just as important as the outcome. Remember, this is an iterative process, so we might revise our Collaboration on a Page down the track. To complete the tool, simply work together, giving everyone a chance to contribute to the various elements.


Plan The Journey

Plan on a Page

What is our purpose?To create a shared vision of why we are collaborating.

• Vision Statement

• Objectives (more granular than the Vision)

What do we know?To create a common understanding amongst all team members.

• Define the scope and background

• List all the important assumptions

• List all the information currently available

• List all the expectations, dependencies and constraints

How will we make it happen?To agree the roadmap for success

• Agree activities that need to be undertaken to be successful

• Agree critical dates

• Agree communication methods

• Agree reporting

Who owns the outcome and collaborators?To identify who is accountable for the final outcome and those who will contribute to the success of the shared purpose.

• Agree who is ultimately accountable and decision maker

• Agree contributions and responsibilities

• Agree stakeholders to be consulted

• Agree stakeholders to be kept informed

How do we improve?To identify areas for improvement during the life of the initiative and to perform a reflect on what worked, what did not work and what could be done differently in future once the shared purpose has been delivered.

All people involved should be part of a joint debrief.

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What is our purpose?

What do we do?

Who owns the outcome and collaboration?

How will we make it?

How do we improve?


Show Empathy

Show Empathy

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What is Empathy? The problems we are trying to solve are rarely our own. To create meaningful solutions, we need to understand our target customers (internal or external) and care about their lives. The empathy stage gives us the opportunity to get a first-hand view of what the customer in our target group experience.

When we can feel what they feel when they make a decision or take an action, we are better able to design for them. We’ll focus on discovering what drives them, looking specifically at their ‘jobs to be done’ and ‘problems worth solving’. Empathy is the foundation of human-centred design.

Why is Empathy important? • Empathy helps us build products,

services or solutions people want (versus trying to make people want the product, services or solutions we build).

• It helps us adopt a people first approach when coming up with new ideas.

• It helps us generate our insight statement which will provide the foundation for our Ideation work in the next phase.


Show Empathy

How do we empathise? To empathise we need to abandon everything we think we know, demonstrate true curiosity and suppress any biases we may have. Replace what we think happens with what actually happens.

Gaining empathy can be a little uncomfortable because you really have to inhabit the other person, including their needs, wants and pains. But this sense of discomfort is the only thing that will bring a fresh perspective and lead to truly creative solutions.

The Empathise phase has three steps:

Step 1 – Briefing

• Prepare well before you go out in the field.

Step 2 – Field work • Real empathy can’t happen inside

the walls of our company. We need to get out into the real world and spend time with our customers in their environment.

• Field work has three components:

– Immersion

– Observation

– Interviews

Step 3 – Share stories • Report back from the field about what

we’ve done and what we’ve learned.

• Sharing our stories will increase our collective understanding of our target audience.

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Step 1 Briefing

What is Empathy Briefing?• Introducing you to the concept of

empathy, and some techniques to be able to achieve it.

• Preparing you to get out in the field and do meaningful empathy work that results in genuine insights.

Why is it important to brief team members for empathy field work? • Time with our target audience is

precious, so we need to make the most of it.

• It’s good to allow for spontaneity and serendipity in the field, but we will be better placed to make the most of opportunities if we’ve taken the time to plan and structure our observations and interviews.

How do we brief team members for empathy work? • We meet as a group and introduce

everyone to the concept of empathy and how to achieve it.

• We then work as a group to design the specific empathy work that we will undertake to generate meaningful insights for the specific vision.

We’ll plan and structure the most relevant immersion and observation activity to undertake.

We’ll brainstorm questions for interviews; identify and order the themes we want to cover within the conversation; and then refine the questions to help make the conversation flow naturally.


Step 2 Field Work

Immersion • Do something that allows us to

experience what our target audience experiences; to see the world through their eyes and on their terms.

• Spend a day with them. What they are doing in a particular situation? Note the obvious as well as the surprising. Just report the objective facts. No opinions of your own!

• How are you doing it? Does it require additional effort or a workaround of some sort? Is the activity impacting them in a negative way?

• Make notes about your experience individually.

Observation • View how people behave in the

context of their work.

• Directly observe what they do and infer why they do it, as well as their thoughts and feelings.

• Observe and explore at their locations.

• Capture your notes. What is the person doing in a particular situation? Note the obvious as well as the surprising. Just report the objective facts. No opinions of your own!

• How are they doing it? Does it require additional effort or a workaround of some sort? Is the activity impacting the person in a negative way?

• Why are they doing what they are, in the way they are? You might need to make an informed guess about their motivation (note emotion as well).

Interviews • Interview people and capture the

conversation as accurately as possible. If allowed, record the conversation.

• Work in pairs. One person conducts the interview while the other takes notes.

Show Empathy

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How to interview Be human – Introduce yourself and what you’re doing. Try to build some rapport:

– Tell me about your experiences of...

– How do you usually use...

– What are your thoughts about...

Seek stories – Try to get to specific stories about what this person does, thinks and feels (past and present):

– Can you tell me about a time when...

– What’s the best/worst/craziest/most memorable experience of...

– What would I find surprising about...

Don’t be afraid to talk about thoughts and feelings:

– Walk me through how you made that decision? What were you thinking at that point?

– Why do you say that? Can you tell me more?

– How did you feel when that happened?

– Could you tell me why that is important to you?

Interview tips • Don’t lead the person being

interviewed! It’s so important to suspend what you think you know, judgment and other biases so you can find out something new and different:

– Ensure your questions are open- ended and neutrally stated.

– Don’t suggest answers, even if the person pauses.

– Don’t lead them to say things that agree with your expectations.

• Write good questions that encourage people to share their experience. Don’t just write a list of topics to cover.

• Don’t be afraid of silence.

• Look for inconsistencies between what people say and what they do (or say later). Gently probe contradictions.

• Be aware of non-verbal cues and body language.

• The most important of all – the one to remember – is to ask WHY?


Show Empathy

Step 3 Share Stories

What does it mean to share stories?• Reporting back to the rest of your

team on what you have done, seen, heard and felt out in the field.

• Sharing your newly acquired knowledge and insights with each other.

Why is it important to share stories? • This is aIl about increasing your shared

knowledge as a team so that you can accurately define the problem and opportunity statements.

• It allows everyone to come up to speed about what each of you saw and heard in the field. Even if some of you were working together, it’s valuable to compare experiences.

• Listening to your team members and probing for more information may draw out more nuance and meaning from their experience than they initially realised was there.

How do we share stories? • First, each of you will have the chance

to share your story of immersion. Tell your team what you experienced

– What did you do?

– How did you do it?

– Why did you do that?

– How did it make you feel?

• As you tell the story, the other members of your team will collect the insights they hear on sticky notes, which they’ll put on the appropriate section of an Empathy Map.

Repeat the process of sharing stories and capturing and mapping insights for your observation and interview experiences.

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What do theythink and feel?

What do theysay and do?

Pain Gain

What do theysee?

What do theyhear?

What really countsMajor preoccupations

Worries and aspirations

What friends sayWhat boss say

What influences say

EnvironmentFriends

What the market offers

‘Want’ / needsMeasures of success

Obstacles

FearsFrustrationsObstacles

Attitude in public

Appearance

Behavior toward others

Empathy Map


Defining the Problem or Opportunity


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Synthesising the findings from the empathic interviews will uncover insights and define the problem to be solved or opportunities to be had. It would also enable us to write personas of our target audience we want to provide innovative solutions to.

The Define phase has three steps:

Step 1 – Synthesise findings from the empathic interviews

Step 2 – Write an insightful persona• Use all the information you’ve gathered

to create a character who epitomises the audience you’re working for.

• Frame up what’s important to them.

Step 3 – Craft an insightful problem / opportunity statement



synt

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Step 1 Synthesise findings from the empathic interviews

Conduct a Define Workshop• The Define Workshop synthesises

the findings from the empathetic interviews.

• It’s about gathering insights from our customers’ stories and looking for trends.

• Being immersed in the stories of our customers allows for a deeper understanding of their world.

Use Affinity Diagramming• Affinity diagramming is a method to

synthesise complex, qualitative data into meaningful categories and groups in order to establish a design direction.

• Divide participants into groups and discuss the stories we uncovered during our empathic interviews.

• Cluster related stories to uncover common themes. The aim is not to find solutions but sort the facts into themes.

• Finally, themes are turned into personas and then statements that becomes the focus point of the Ideate workshop.



Step 2 Write an insightful persona

What is an insightful Persona? • A Persona is one model person in our

target audience.

• In creating our Persona we’ll capture all the important insights we’ve gleaned from the Empathy phase about how this person sees the world and what’s important to them.

• Basically, this is the person you’ll be designing a solution for!

Why is it important to write an insightful Persona?• It brings together all the most relevant

aspects of our understanding of our target audience.

• It will direct our focus when we ideate.

How do we write an insightful Persona? • Populate the Persona Profile section of

the Value Proposition Canvas).

• To do this, bring your model person to mind – the one person who epitomises your target audience, who you’ve come to know through your empathy work – and note their:

Pains: What problems does this person have in relation to your topic?

Gains: What benefits does this person want to experience in relation to your topic?

Jobs to be done: What jobs would this person have relating to the products and services we provide or potentially could provide?

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Value Proposition Canvas


Gains

Customer Jobs

Pains

Persona Map



Step 3 Craft an insightful problem/opportunity statement Use this information to craft a problem or insight statement. In theory this is a combination of the most important job to be done, pain and gain. Double-check to make sure everyone in your team feels this is a ‘problem worth solving’.

Point Break – Problem StatementI need to get things done but when I follow the Coal Services set process, I often get stuck. When I talk to someone with whom I have a previous and trusted relationship, they make it happen and become a single point of contact. Right now this is the most effective way.

JobPain

Gain

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Ideate Options

Ideate Options

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Diverge

The Ideation Process SolutionsOpportunities

Converge

The goal is to brainstorm as many solutions to your opportunities as you can. Focus on creativity, not feasibility.

Go for quantity not quality.

Review your divergent ideas. What are common themes? Re�ne the concepts to

focus on what may work, without discarding your creativity. Go for quality, not quantity.

What is Ideation? The Ideation phase is when we’ll get creative and generate divergent and radical solutions to the problem or insight statement identified in the Define phase. We’ll create many broad variety of potential solutions. Then synthesise, combine and narrow down, to generate concepts you can prototype and test with your audience in the Experimentation phase.

Why do we Ideate? • To transition from identifying problems

to exploring solutions for our target audience (personas).

• To step beyond what has been done before and uncover unexpected solutions.

• To identify possible solutions that can be tested in the Experimentation phase.


How do we Ideate? Ideation involves dreaming up a number of potential solutions to the ‘problem worth solving’ we’ve uncovered.

The Ideation phase has four steps:

Ideate Options

Step 1 – Frame up good questions • Any answer is an artifact of the

question that was asked.

• The quality of our solution will be influenced by the way you frame up the problem.

Step 2 – Generate lots of ideas • Free from constraints, we’ll first think

up a huge quantity of different ideas about how to solve the customer’s problem.

• This will give you a wide range of potential solutions to choose from, and even combine.

Step 3 – Synthesise a concept • We’ll be selective with our ideas,

choosing the most promising ones to develop further.

Step 4 – Articulate the value proposition • Finally, we’ll add some flesh to the

bones of our concept, and check that the proposed solution is a good fit for the customer’s problem.

• Identifying the value proposition will allow us to communicate it to our target audience in a meaningful way. This will set you up for the next phase, Experimentation.

• To close Ideation we’ll complete the Value Proposition block of the Business Model Canvas and then hypothesise all the remaining building blocks.

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Step 1 Frame up good questions What are good questions? We have a problem or opportunity statement from our Empathy phase, and a problem is nothing more than an issue that needs to be addressed, or a situation looking for a creative solution.

We can take the expression of a problem from a customer’s perspective and turn it into questions that:

• Are framed positively.

• Are from our perspective as a design team

• Empower and inspire our creative energies.

Why do we frame up good questions? • The secret of ideation is that good

ideas come from good questions!

• Creating these good questions will shift us from empathic mode to creative mode. We need to change our perspective from the problem-centred view of our audience to the solution- focused position of our design team.

How do we frame up good questions? • Consider the problem or insight

statement we generated in the Empathy phase for our target audience.

• Use the phrase “How might we...” to create small actionable questions that retain your unique and specific perspective.

• These questions should be both aspirational and achievable.

Examples include: • How might we reduce a specific injury

at a mining operation?

• How might we exceed customer experience expectations by reimagining our business model?

• How might we provide experiences which move our customers to say ‘Wow!’?

• Test with people who are not on the team to find out how clear and motivating the questions are.

• Iterate if required based on feedback.


Step 2 Generate ideas

What is idea generation?• Being creative and letting go of self or

externally imposed constraints.

• Mentally, it’s a process of ‘going wide’ in terms of possibilities – it’s all about divergent and lateral thinking, and deferring judgement to arrive at non-obvious ideas.

Why is it important to generate ideas?• The best way to have a good idea is to

have lots of ideas.

• We work as a team because it’s a great way to come up with ideas you wouldn’t be able to generate by sitting down individually with pen and paper.

• The intention of brainstorming is to leverage the collective thinking of the ideas group, by engaging with each other, listening, and building on each other’s ideas

How do we generate ideas?You’ll do a quick exercise to get the team into the right frame of mind, then you’ll ideate twice.

• Get into the right frame of mind.

• Do two rounds of Ideation.

Idea generation tips • Push each other to get the obvious

solutions out of our heads so that together we can explore beyond them.

• Harness the power of diversity in the team and use our collective breadth of perspective as well as individual strengths.

• It’s not about coming up with the right idea, but generating the broadest range of possibilities that might seem farfetched or crazy. In fact, the crazier the better at this stage.

• There is a clear difference in mind-set between generating ideas and synthesising, so don’t move too quickly from one to the other and ensure you keep these two tasks separate.

Ideate Options

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The principles of ideation

Defer Judgement

Make everyone feel like they can say the idea on their mind.

Build on others’ ideas

Add to others’ ideas by saying “yes and...” instead of “yes but...”

Encourage wild ideas

So we can think unconstrained and imagine innovative solutions.

Focus on the topic

Try to keep the discussion on target to avoid losing track.

Be visual

You should write down or try drawing every idea you have.

One conversation at a time

So everyone is paying full attention to whoever is sharing their new ideas.

Go for quantity

Aim for as many new ideas as possible to offer lots of choices


Step 3 Synthesise a concept

What is concept synthesis?• Being analytical.

• Mentally, it’s a process of ‘coming back in’ in terms of ideas and possibilities – it’s about convergent thinking. This is where we bring our judgement to bear.

Why do we synthesise our ideas to a concept? • We’ve just successfully created a

wonderfully broad range of potential solutions.

• We purposefully deferred our judgement to go for quantity and diversity.

• Now we need to review these to make sense of them and take them forward to solve problems for your customer.

How do we synthesise a concept? • We should carry forward a range of our

ideas, so that you preserve the breadth of solutions and don’t settle only for the safe choices.

• We can leverage multiple ideas by either combining them in some way, or by taking more than one concept through to the Experimentation phase.

These concepts could be hypotheses for different building blocks of the Business Model Canvas, or alternatives within a single block.

• As with generating ideas, there are many ways to synthesise. The facilitator will select particular exercises to suit your team and the problem you’re addressing.

Ideate Options

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Step 4 Articulate the value proposition

What is a value proposition? • The promise we’ll make to our

target audience.

• It’s how we intend to relieve their pains, create their gains, and ultimately help them with the job they want done.

Why is it important to articulate a value proposition? • To be able to describe our concept in

relation to our target audience, and ensure a fit between what we plan to offer and what they actually want.

• For clarity of understanding across the team.

How do we articulate a value proposition?• We’ll design our value proposition

based on the insights we gained during the Empathy phase and the great ideas we’ve just generated and synthesised.

• This step requires our collective intelligence and creativity to think deeply about our audience again, and to identify the particular features of our idea or concept that will deliver meaningful benefits to them.

• Populate the Value Map section of the Value Proposition Canvas.

– Starting with Products and Services, list all the aspects of our proposed solution that will help our customer get their job done.

– Moving on to Pain Relievers, make it explicit how we intend to alleviate specific pains that our target audience experience in trying to get their job done.

– Then use the Gain Creators section to show which of the target audience’s desired gains our solution will fulfill.

• We might want to write a post-it note for each element and stick them on the relevant sections of the Value Map.

• Now we’ve achieved a problem-solution (or product-market) fit where the features of our solution perfectly match the job to be done, pains and gains of your target audience.

• Distill what we’ve mapped out on our Value Proposition Canvas to populate the Value Proposition block of your Business Model Canvas.

• In the Experimentation phase we’re going to check the product-market fit by testing prototypes with our audience.

Ideate Options

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Value Proposition Canvas


PainRelievers

GainCreators

Products& Services

Value Map


Prioritising Options

Prioritising options

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Viability(Business)

Feasibility(Technology)

Desirability(People)

EmotionalInnovation

ProcessInnovation

ExperienceInnovation

FunctionalInnovation

Prioritise ideas for the experimentation phase based on the following criteria:


The Explore Innovation Engine

We categorise our options via a risk-return matrix. This will be fluid over time as these initiatives evolve.

High expected

return

Low expected return

High innovation

risk

Low innovation risk

Solutions B

Solutions A

Solutions C

Prioritising Options

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Learn

Iterate

Test

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What is Experimentation?Experimentation is where we test our solutions in the real world using hypotheses.

We’ll make rough and simple prototypes to test, not our whole proposed solution, but small, distinct aspects of it (individual hypotheses). We’ll use what we learn from conducting these experiments with your target audience to tweak our ideas, or iterate, then test again. In this way we’ll develop and refine our solution.

Why is Experimentation important? • It ensures the people we’re designing

for are front and centre in our process, and keeps us on a path towards making something they will actually adopt.

• It keeps us moving forward – understanding what’s working and getting inspiration about how to make things better.

• Testing one hypothesis at a time gives us more valuable information about how to change and develop our solution than if we try to test the whole solution all at once.

• Most importantly – experimentation allows us to fail fast, fail early and fail cheaply. Success is most often the result of a series of failures that are learned from.

• Through the experimentation process, we’ll get a better idea of requirements and we’ll build more common understanding within your team about what your solution looks like.

Learn

Iterate

Test


How do we Experiment? Experimentation phase has five steps.

Step 1 – Create a User Journey Map• The first step is to map out how we

think our target persona might interact with our concept.

Step 2 – Build your first prototype• Next, we’ll build something that will

allow us to test one of our hypotheses.

• It’s the tough task of taking our concepts out of our heads, off our Business Model Canvas, and into the real world.

Step 3 – Test and learn.• We’ll learn as much as we can, from

the people we’re designing for, about our concept, and how well it solves their problem.


Step 4 – Structured feedback review• As a team we’ll share and review what

we learnt from testing your prototype.

Step 5 – Iterate and build your next prototype• This is where we make changes to

your hypotheses, assumptions, value proposition and prototypes, based on the results of your experiments.

• The Experimentation process is cyclical. With each prototype we build, test and learn from, we’re getting closer and closer to a solution that works.

• Successful experimentation will lead to completing the Business Model Canvas.

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Step 1 Create a User Journey Map

What is a User Journey Map? • An outline of all the points and ways

in which a customer interacts with our product or service.

• For a services, these points may include research of the service, purchasing the service and after-sales support if any; and the ways might include Coal Services’ website, face-to-face meetings, telephonic discussions, working on mine sites etc.

• It’s essentially a map of the lifecycle of a typical customer’s engagement with our solution.

Why is it important to create a User Journey Map? • It challenges us to start thinking about

how people might actually interact with a product or service we create.

• To visually represent the series of interactions we need to cater for in our solution design.

• When we create our prototypes we might choose to test the customer experience at different interaction points as well as different aspects of the solution. Our User Journey Map will help you identify what those interaction points are.

How do we create a User Journey Map? • Refer back to the persona profile we

created during the Empathy phase. Remember, this person epitomises our target audience.

• Now think through the journey this persona might have with our proposed solution.

• Identify all the interaction points (including what they will do and how they’ll do it) and put them in chronological sequence.

• You can use the template provided in this toolkit, or find one online that resonates with your team and solution.


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User Journey Map

Who are we testing with? What are we trying to learn?



Step 2 Build our first prototype

What is a prototype? • An early sample that is only

sophisticated enough to test one hypothesis of your value proposition with your target audience.

• A process, not a product.

• It’s low-tech or no-tech – think cardboard and sticky-tape – it’s not a minimum viable product.

• If we’re not a little bit embarrassed by it, it’s probably not as simple and cheap as it could have been.

• It’s the first step towards turning an idea into something that’s real and tangible.

Why is it important to build a prototype? • It lets us put our idea in the hands of

real people and learn from how they interact with it

• Working with prototypes helps us show rather than tell. It’s easier for people to understand.

• If we have a physical prototype, people can see that we’re serious about developing our idea and it can help get buy-in.

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How do we build a prototype? • We want to test just one assumption

or hypothesis of our solution, so we can isolate it. If we test the whole solution and it doesn’t work, we won’t necessarily know which part or parts of it failed.

• A useful approach is to ask “Which hypothesis, if it turns out to be false, would bring this whole idea crashing down?” Test that one first.

• Review the User Journey Map as a group and ‘decide which interaction we would learn the most from. We might create a prototype that tests something about that interaction at the same time as testing our hypothesis – or we might need separate prototypes.

• There are lots of different ways to go about building a prototype, but the end result needs to be something physical our testers can interact with – this is how you’ll get feedback.

• We can build a model, a wireframe or do a role play. Stretch our imagination to see how we can create something our target audience can experience.

• Remember, it should be pretty rough and scrappy!

• For every prototype we make, it’s very important to be clear as a team exactly what it is we are trying to learn from it.


Step 3 Test and learn

What is testing and learning? • Getting honest feedback from

our target audience on our value proposition using prototypes to test individual assumptions or hypotheses.

• Using that feedback to improve aspects of our solution until it works.

Why is it important to test and learn? • We won’t know how good our solution

is until we leave our comfort zone and get back into the field to check it with our target audience.

• The learning we’ll gain from testing with our audience will be invaluable to us and can’t be achieved any other way.

• We need to validate all the assumptions from our value proposition and business model, and the test and learn process is the way to do this.


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How do we test and learn? • First, we need to find some people in

our target audience to test with.

• We should find at least three people to help us, but the more the better!

• Remember back to when we did your interviewing in the Empathy phase. Start by introducing yourself and the concept we are working on to give your test subject a bit of context. Then jump into the open questions about the experience.

• While they’re testing our prototype, take note of their body language and any questions they ask.

• Look for how they go about completing the task, and try to observe what creates delight and, conversely, what causes frustration.

• Once testing is finished, ask the person some open questions about the experience. Examples include:

– How was that? How did it feel to go through that?

– What worked well? What did you like?

– What didn’t work so well? What didn’t you like?

– Why did you do that at that point? What would you do next, or expect to happen next?


Step 4 Structured feedback review

What is a structured feedback review?Making sense of our learnings from our prototype testing.

Why is it important to review feedback in a structured way?• So we can maximise our learning from

every prototype we test with our target audience.

• So we are well placed to make improvements to our value proposition and business model in the next step.

How do we do structured a feedback review? • Once we have completed sufficient

testing of our prototype with our target audience, come back together as a team and review the learnings in a structured and meaningful way.

• We suggest using this grid.


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Review Grid

What worked?

• What was exciting for you?

• What did people value the most?

• What resonated with our target audiences about the prototype?

What questions came up?

• What aspects of the prototype needed further explanations?

• What made you curious during the experiments

What didn’t worked?

• What would you change?

• Were there any direct suggestions for improvement from your target audience?

• What did you learn that could make the next prototype better?

What new inspiration arose?

• What surprised you?

• What might you try next?


Step 5 Iterate and build your next prototype

What is iteration? Making changes to any aspect important of the proposed solution, value proposition or prototypes based on what we learnt through experimentation.

Why is it important to iterate?• We don’t want to keep using,

something that’s not working, and we also (most likely) don’t want to throw it out and start all over again either.

• Iteration allows us to use the aspects that are good and fit-for-purpose as a pivot, and try different modifications to the bits that aren’t quite there yet, until we arrive at a design that’s better than the last one.

• Continue experimenting, learning and iterating until we arrive at a solution you think will fly (then we develop our business model)

How do we iterate and build another prototype? • As a team, come together and decide

what we would like to test next.

– Ideally we’ll make many, many prototypes, each testing:

– A different hypotheses or assumption contained in our solution

– A different interaction point on the user journey.

– A change we’ve made to the solution design, based on testing feedback.

• Remember to keep updating our value proposition to reflect all the tweaks (or radical changes!) we make.


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Successful solutions have to be sustainable to justify further investment. We use the business model canvas to ensure all aspects of the business model are considered and tested before committing further resources.

What is a Business Model Canvas? It’s a widely-used, single- page framework that allows us to collect our thoughts, assumptions and hypotheses (statements we think might be true, but are not yet proven) that comprise our proposed solution, and helps us create a sustainable business model.

Hypothesise the remainder of your Business Model Canvas Now it’s time to draw on all the thinking and discussions that have happened so far, to make an educated guess about the remaining building blocks.

At this stage you should have sufficient information to complete the Customer Segments and Value Proposition blocks. The aim is now complete all the remaining blocks to ensure that the solution is Desirable (Customer Segments, Customer Relationships, Channels), Feasible (Key Resources, Key Partners, Key Activities) and Viable (Revenue exceeds Costs).



Key Partners

Cost Structure

Key Activities

Key Resources

Value Propositions

The Business Model Canvas

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Cost Structure Revenue Streams

Customer Relationships

Channels

Value Propositions

Customer Segments


Pitch the idea


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What is Pitching? • Congratulations, we’ve done the

hard work to develop, test and iterate our idea, and have captured all the key elements in our Business Model Canvas.

• There’s still one more important step – communicating our idea to others (outside the team) in a compelling and logical way.

Why is pitching important?• People won’t believe our concept

or business model is important or relevant unless we have a great story to tell.

• We need to have all the right information and details for our particular audience to convince them that our concept or business model is worth their attention and investment.


Pitch the idea

Complete the One Page Idea Pitch The trick here is to capture our audience to support our idea. Follow the following principles:

• Tell a story (People, Place, Event)

• Keep the story short, simple and tight – your Nana should be able to understand it!

The Opportunity or Problem• The problem or opportunity statement

from your define workshop

The Solution• Your final value proposition

Additional Information • Highlights from your Business

Model Canvas

– Resources required to bring your idea to life

– Key assumptions (Customer, Market Potential, Competition)

• Implementation plan (Strategy, Execution, Metrics)

Elevator Pitch• Your elevator pitch is a written

summary of your pitch deck that can be skimmed in 30 seconds or less or can be told to someone in 30 seconds.

C

The Opportunity or Problem

The Solution

Additional Information

Elevator Pitch

Documents

The Coal Services Innovators Toolkit innovators · cultural DNA . Our objective . To generate and implement ideas . that will ensure Coal Services are able to navigate future challenges