Посты с тэгом: corporate innovation method

The LAB: Innovating a New Product Launch Campaign (September 2011)

Published date: September 26, 2011 в 3:00 am

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Innovation methods are not just for inventing new products.  Savvy marketers apply innovation methods to the “big event” – the product launch campaign. Companies spend millions of dollars to get a product off to the right start.  The launch of a new product can make or break it.

Some companies excel at this.  Memorable campaigns include Apple’s launch of the iPhone, Microsoft’s launch of Windows 95, and my all time favorite – Tickle Me Elmo – by Fisher Price.  But a lot can go wrong with product launch, so marketers need ways to stand out from the crowd.  Whether you have a big budget or small one, structured innovation methods take your dollars further and may be the difference between success and failure.

For this month’s LAB, we will demonstrate the use of Systematic Inventive Thinking to this critical aspect of marketing: the product launch.

The method works by applying one of five innovation patterns to components within the product launch process.  The pattern morphs the component into something that unrecognizable or ambiguous.  We take that “virtual product” and work backwards to uncover potential benefits, a process called “Function Follows Form.”

We start by listing the components of the launch:

Innovation: Make It Someone Else’s Problem

Published date: September 5, 2011 в 3:00 am

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New research suggests that you are likely to be more creative when you imagine the problem is someone else’s instead of your own.  Evan Polman and Kyle Emich describe their studies in their April 2011 article that support this conclusion.

In one study, 262 participants were instructed to draw an alien for a story that they would write, or alternatively for a story that someone else would write. When drawing an alien for someone else’s story, they produced a more creative alien. In another study, 137 students were instructed to picture either themselves or a stranger stuck in a tower and to think of a way to escape using only a rope that did not reach the ground. Of the students who imagined a stranger in the tower, 66 percent found the solution—divide the rope lengthwise and tie the pieces together—compared with 48 percent of those who pictured themselves in the tower.

For innovation practitioners, teachers, and consultants, this research suggests a new technique to improve innovation output. When using an innovation method or problem solving technique, participants should try to image the problem is not theirs.  Instead, they want to mentally simulate the problem belongs to someone else.  One way to do this is to have participants imagine they are innovating for a similar issue but in a different industry.  As an exercise, have participants apply a technique in this scenario first as a way to activate and expand their creative output.  Only then, have them apply the same mental structure to their actual problem.

Here is an example.  Imagine you are facilitating a team that makes diagnostic equipment for automobiles. They want to innovate new ways to use the data that is collected by their equipment.  You are about to apply the S.I.T. Subtraction Technique (remove an essential component).  Normally, you would have the team apply Subtraction by eliminating the vehicle data entirely – a great way to break functional fixedness.

Now, in light of this new research, here is what you might do instead.  Tell the team they are in a different industry – medical diagnostics – but that they are not allowed to use any traditional diagnostic tests on their patients (like blood tests, x-rays, vitals, etc).  Ask them, “What would you do now to get useful data about your patients?”  After a round of ideation, have them re-do the exercise back on their own problem.  Mentally imagining the problem to be someone else’s first will boost creative output on their own problem.

Polman, E., & Emich, K. J. (2011). Decisions for Others Are More Creative Than Decisions for the Self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(4), 492-501.

Photo by permission: www.cartoonstock.com

The LAB: Innovating Software Applications with S.I.T. (August 2011)

Published date: August 29, 2011 в 3:00 am

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Software runs much of our lives.  It runs everyday items like computers, automobiles, banking, telephones, and even kitchen appliances.  Software will affect more of our daily routines in the future. According to market researcher DataMonitor, the global software market will grow to $457 billion, an increase of 50.5% since 2008.

The problem with software is you cannot see it.  The term was coined originally as a prank to contrast the term, “hardware.” Unlike hardware, software is intangible – it cannot be touched.  So how do you innovate software especially with a corporate innovation method like S.I.T.?  This method uses the components of the product or service as the starting point.  Companies sometimes struggle creating new applications because software seems too abstract.

The secret to using S.I.T. on software is this.  Don’t innovate the software code; rather, use the innovation method on what the software does.  Apply the method to the products and processes that the software affects.  This will create new-to-the-world innovations.  Then, write the software code that implements these new applications.

Here is an example with the software program, Quicken.  We start with a component list of a routine process within the software – creating an invoice.

Innovation in Private Equity

Published date: August 15, 2011 в 3:00 am

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Private equity firms can boost the value of their investment portfolio by applying a systematic innovation method along the entire investment value chain – before, during, and even after the investment.

Private equity firms are collections of investors and funds that put money into privately-held companies. Private equity investments provide working capital to a target company to nurture expansion, new product development, or restructuring of the company’s operations, management, or ownership. Private equity firms are betting on their ability to take control of the target, clean it up, make it more competitive, and then sell it for a higher price.  It is like “flipping” a home in the real estate market.

Here is how a private equity firm could apply systematic innovation in their portfolios:

Before Investing:

Take the target company’s main product or service and apply S.I.T. to it during the evaluation process.  There are three things that could happen, all of which are positive outcomes.

1.  The innovation effort is a success.  You conceptualize exciting new innovations for the target firm that could increase its value.  By identifying these new sources of value before the deal, you widen your negotiating envelope.

2.  The innovation effort fails – no new opportunities are identified within the target company.  Given that, the full valuation of the deal should be based on the current products only.  This helps you avoid being overly optimistic about the target’s prospects for growth.  Any increases in value will come from cost cutting and efficiency gains.

3.  The innovation effort is a success, but you decide to walk away from the deal for other reasons.  You still have innovative concepts that you can extract value from.  You could sell the intellectual property to the target firm, or to one of its competitors, or to another private equity investor considering that target.

During the Investment:

By installing innovation processes in the target firm, private equity firms can influence success of the company and its stake in the company,   This would include: idea generation processes, voice of the customer processes, idea evaluation processes, prototyping, testing, validation, and launching.

After the Investment (the equity firm has sold its position):

How would a private equity firm use innovation after exiting?  On itself, of course. Taking the lessons learned from the last investment, and carrying those lessons into a systematic innovation process will yield new insights and opportunities.  Applying S.I.T. on deal flow, target selection processes, due diligence, and other key processes would bring value to the firm where it might be appreciated the most – right at home.

Innovation and Brand Coherence

Published date: August 8, 2011 в 3:00 am

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A quick and effective way to sort ideas generated during an innovation workshop is to apply brand coherence.  This means grouping ideas around relevant themes that support new or existing brands.  Ideation sessions can overwhelm you with hundreds of opportunities.  Teams struggle with evaluating and selecting the best ideas if they do not apply this simple step first.  Here is a suggested way to do it.

1.  Create an Idea Form:  Before the workshop, make sure all participants understand the importance of capturing their ideas using a standard format.  Print a supply of blank forms such as this one, and tell participants that any idea generated must be captured (quickly) using the form instead of taking notes in their own notebooks or lab books.  Engineers in particular like to document ideas in their own lab books for patent filings.  Insist that they do not use workshop time for this. (Your IP lawyers might appreciate this, too.).  Make sure each idea form has a pre-printed number (in sequence) on it.  This will be useful later as you inventory your ideas.

IDEA FORM

NAME OF IDEA:

DESCRIPTION OF WHAT IT DOES:

BENEFITS (TO CUSTOMER OR COMPANY):

CHALLENGES:

NAME OF SUBMITTER:

2.  Identify Possible Themes:  After a round or two of ideation, start scanning the Idea Forms.  Look especially at the BENEFITS.  Take note of recurring themes that participants write about.  For example, you might notice themes such as “increased performance,” “better safety,” “reduced cost,” “reduced inventory,” “better channel management,” and so on.  Start making a list of these for later.

3.  “Affinitize” Ideas Around Themes:  After ideation, have participants decide which of the possible themes are the most relevant to the business.  Then, have them assign each of the ideas (using the IDEA FORMS) to the brand theme that it best belongs to.  Once the ideas have been affinitized around a theme, assign each stack of ideas to subgroups.  Have them analyze the ideas.  They should take note of several things.  First, are there duplicated ideas?  This is likely to happen, so it makes sense to collapse  ideas into one.  Second, which of the ideas belong together within the same product or service?  Two or more ideas that work together in harmony form the basis of a potential development project, so these need to be identified.  Third, what ideas seem to be harmonious around a brand campaign?  Each subgroup should have an experienced marketer who can look at the ideas and foresee “the story” of how these ideas form a cohesive marketing message or campaign.  They are looking for coherence.  That is when a group of ideas that, take together, make the customer go “Wow!”.

Here is an example.  A group of MBA students used an innovation method to create innovations for a commercial airline.  The client told the students that they would welcome innovation in any area of their business.  This broad scope actually made the project harder, not easier, for the students.  After applying the method successfully to a variety of areas of the airline (gate area, baggage handling, in-flight services, etc), the students began to notice ideas relating to “family travel convenience.”  Seeking brand coherence, the students brought together all the ideas that resonated around helping families travel more conveniently regardless of the where it came from.  This set the stage for a new marketing campaign.

Innovation Sighting: Attribute Dependency in an Exercise Bike

Published date: July 11, 2011 в 3:00 am

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Pro-Form’s Le Tour de France Indoor Cycle lets users choose or create real-world routes, then adjusts the angle of the riding platform to replicate the experience of riding up and down those roads. This new product has three different features using the Attribute Dependency Tool of the corporate innovation method, SIT.

  • iFit Live:  With the iFit Live™ Technology Powered by Google Maps™ you can ride anywhere in the world! Choose from 24 pre-mapped courses or create your own. Ride over the Passage du Gois or climb the hills of Mont des Alouettes in France. Now you can experience these same trails and more on this Indoor Cycle. With iFit Live™ Technology you can ride where the Pro’s do. The world is at your fingertips. Map any route and enjoy the ride!
  • Incline/Decline:  Introducing incline and decline that matches the street! Now, you can experience any route around the world and Le Tour de France Indoor Cycle automatically adjusts the incline and decline to simulate the terrain! No matter the route, no matter the map, your bike moves to follow the road. So, you get a realistic workout-just as if you were outside-but without the traffic, potholes and weather. Now you can have the perfect day on your road bike every day of the year with Le Tour de France Indoor Cycle.
  • Intelligent Wind Resistance:  Any indoor bike can give you resistance-but only Le Tour de France Indoor Cycle can give you Intelligent Wind Resistance. Intelligent Wind Resistance automatically adjusts the resistance of your bike based on your wind profile. Our smart technology calculates your height and weight to apply the natural resistance you would get out on the road. A climb in your basement is exactly like a climb outside.

Wind Attribute Dependency differs from the other templates in that it uses attributes (variables) of the situation rather than components.  Start with an attribute list, then construct a 2 x 2 matrix of these, pairing each against the others.  Each cell represents a potential dependency (or potential break in an existing dependency) that forms a Virtual Product.  Using Function Follows Form, we work backwards and envision a potential benefit or problem that this hypothetical solution solves.  The Tour de France Indoor Cycle creates dependencies between rider preference, bicycle route, road elevation, and wind profile.

What caught my eye is the similarity of these ideas with those of my graduate students in my “Innovation Tools” course.  Using Systematic Inventive Thinking, they have to take a product category and apply the method to create completely new-to-the-world innovations.  For example, a group in my last class tackled the exercise equipment category with a focus on treadmills (see The LAB May 2011).

Compare these student’s ideas for treadmills with Pro-Form’s Le Tour de France Indoor Cycle.  Well done!

Innovation Gone Wild

Published date: July 4, 2011 в 3:00 am

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AOL succumbed to the myth that creating an eclectic workspace makes employees suddenly more innovative.  The headline from USA Today reads: “It’s engineers gone wild at AOL: Quirky office space inspires app innovation.” 

Quirky?

“The space you work in is a reflection of the kind of company you are,” says Brad Garlinghouse, AOL’s president of the Application and Commerce Group.  “You get innovation,” he insists, from “working in a space that’s very open and doesn’t have offices…where people can work together and play together.”  Further, the company believes letting workers draw on the walls helps creativity.

AOL is in more trouble than I thought.  Simply putting people in a different workspace is not going to make them more creative.  A room full of beanbag chairs, Frisbees, and white boards does not change the cognitive pattern of how people generate ideas.  It may indeed hamper innovation.  For example, employees treat other’s ideas differently depending on where the ideas come from.  An idea from a peer rival is seen as “tainted,” whereas the exact same idea coming from an outside source is seen as “tempting.”  In essence, employees subvert great ideas from peers so peers do not get ahead.  Lumping people together in quirky innovation rooms triggers that phenomena as it signals the battle-of-the-brains has begun.

True, office design can indeed have a positive overall effect on employees’ work.  For example, a well-designed office can improve productivity, communication, and morale.  These are certainly beneficial for creativity.  But these are beneficial for every business process.  It is innovation, though, not productivity or otherwise, that is singled out and associated with quirky rooms.  This misguided hype gives innovation a bad name.

Instead of spending millions on 225,000 square feet of “innovation rooms,” AOL should invest in building something much more important: skills and competencies in the use of innovation tools and techniques.  With the right innovation training and practice, employees can innovate anywhere in any space.

The writing is on the wall for AOL.  Quarterly earnings were a mere $4.7 million versus $34.7 million a year ago.  It’ll take a lot more than quirky office space to cover that shortfall.

Innovation Resolution

Published date: June 13, 2011 в 3:00 am

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“The level of abstraction determines a group’s ability to move between strategies and tactics.  Too high, and the group becomes lost in the detail; too low, and the group is unable to effectively navigate.”

Stuart Morgan
Director of Industrial Design
Johnson & Johnson

My friend and former J&J colleague, Stuart Morgan, is one of those rare people who can flex between the highest level of abstraction and the smallest details of any particular problem.  He is a whiz, and it is hard to keep up with him.  For innovators and innovation managers, this is a skill worth developing and adding to your company’s innovation competency model.  Here’s why.

To be most successful at applying an innovation method, a team needs to determine the right level of granularity over the problem.  Selecting different levels of innovation resolution will yield completely different innovative opportunities.  Changing the resolution could yield interesting new adjacent market spaces.  The level you target will also affect how you use an innovation method like S.I.T..

Here is an example.  Suppose you designed and manufactured commercial aircraft.  The natural starting point would be to innovate an airplane.  At this level of resolution, our initial component list might be:

  1. cockpit
  2. fuselage
  3. wings
  4. fuel tanks
  5. rudder
  6. elevator
  7. landing gear
  8. etc…

The LAB: Innovating the Treadmill with S.I.T. (May 2011)

Published date: May 30, 2011 в 3:00 am

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 In 1817, Sir William Cubitt innovated the treadmill as a method of reforming prison convicts who got out of line.  Today, that “torture” continues.  According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, fifty million Americans use a treadmill.  Sales of treadmills are $1 billion annually of the total $4 billion fitness equipment industry.  For this month’s LAB, we will use the corporate innovation method, S.I.T., to create new-to-the-world concepts for the ubiquitous treadmill.

S.I.T. works by taking one of five patterns (subtraction, task unification, division, multiplication, and attribute dependency) and applying it to an existing product or service.  This morphs it into a “virtual product,” which is an abstract, ambiguous notion with no clear purpose.  We then work backwards (Function Follows Form) to find new and useful benefits or markets for the virtual product.

Here are four innovations created by students at the University of Cincinnati as part of the innovation tools course.  They articulated these ideas in a dream catalog, a hypothetical, futuristic catalog that merges marketing insight with innovative design.  You can download it here.

Treadmill 1.  Extreme Runner:  The Extreme Runner provides the ultimate workout for the  athlete or experienced runner who loves a challenge. This special treadmill can provide an intense and unique training session or it can be used for extreme competitions.

  • Alternating Elevation Width Belt- instead of the tread staying the same width throughout the course of a workout, this treadmill challenges the walker or runner by correlating the width of the tread to the height of the treadmill. By starting out wide when flat, then getting smaller when the user decides to elevate the machine, this treadmill gives the feel of a rock climb or mountain hike in a matter of minutes.
  • SIT Tools Used: Attribute Dependency – creating a dependency between the width of the belt and the elevation of the machine; the belt speed and the price of the machine; and the time on the track and the position of the runner on the machine.

Targeting Your Innovation Efforts

Published date: May 9, 2011 в 3:00 am

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Companies get better results from innovation by targeting initiatives at the right places.  Given limited time, money, and human resources, here are six areas to focus on:

1. Your Value Drivers:  What activities across your business model create the most value?  Is it operational or commercial?  Who is involved and what departments make it happen?  Use a corporate innovation method like S.I.T. to reinvent the value driver as well as the resources that deliver it.

Procter & Gamble innovated an intelligent screening system that scanned coffee beans imported from any part of the world and selected the right proportions of each to create the desired taste.  This created a huge operational advantage in producing a distinctive product within a commoditized industry.

2. Your Core Competency:  What skill sets create strategic assets?  Strategic assets are those that deliver a sustainable competitive advantage.  By re-inventing these skills and how they are sourced and maintained, companies sustain their advantage.

AkzoNobel, a maker of specialty paint, has a unique ability to color match to near perfection thanks to their skills in chemistry and spectroscopy.  Applying innovation methods to the color matching process would uncover new skills or complementary skills to fortify its strategic advantage.  

3.  Your Potential Acquisitions:  Growth through acquisition is expensive and risky.  Acquisition stifles innovation and distracts management as it focuses on integration.  The answer is to use innovation methods ahead of the deal-making to clarify and enhance valuation.

IBM’s acquisition of Netezza for $1.7 billion seems excessive given the commodization of data warehousing.  By applying a corporate innovation method to the target’s core products before the offer would uncover new or hidden sources of deal value.  Pre-deal innovation either makes the deal more valuable or creates intellectual property to leverage against other suitors if the deal falls through.

4.  Your Customer’s Processes:  How does your customer use your product or service?  Observe and map out the detailed steps of what customers do when they use it.  Use innovation methods to re-invent the way consumers seek and derive value.  This will lead to new product concepts that address these new customer behaviors.

Johnson & Johnson’s medical device unit creates detailed heat maps of how surgeons perform complicated procedures.  The maps reveal the amount of time for each step, the product used, the degree of difficulty, and risk to the successful outcome.  Innovation is targeted at the high difficulty/high risk aspects of the procedure where the most value will be created from breakthrough ideas.

5.  Your Brand Reputation:  What are you most known for in the industry and in the minds of your customer?  Is it superior products, great service to your distributors, fabulous advertising, top people?  Use innovation methods on how consumers perceive your brand to strengthen and reinforce brand loyalty.

L’Oreal’s professional products division leads its industry through servicing salons with product support, training, merchandising, and market insights.  The use of structured innovation methods of how salons operate and service their customers would create new insights and product development opportunities.  Innovating where L’Oreal is regarded as the best in the industry would reinforce its leadership status.

6.  Your Strategic Capabilities:  How does your company win in the marketplace?  What is its “source of authority?”  By innovating the way a company competes, it surprises and outmaneuvers the competition.

Barry Jaruzelski and Kevin Dehoff from Booz & Company describe three strategic orientations: Need Seekers, Market Readers, and Technology Drivers.  “The most successful companies are those that focus on a particular, narrow set of common and distinct capabilities that enable them to better execute their chosen strategy.”  These strategic capabilities can be innovated using systematic methods of ideation.

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