Посты с тэгом: subtraction

Feature Creep

Published date: May 2, 2011 в 3:00 am

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Companies that struggle with innovation often make up for it by adding features to existing products.  They succumb to “feature creep” – the gradual and continuous addition of features and functions though nothing is truly new.  While it may look improved, the added features make your product more complex, difficult to use, and more costly to produce.  Over time, your core customers abandon you.

Here is an example – the Numi toilet by Kohler.  At $6400, it is promoted as the top-of-the-line toilet with lots of high-tech bells and whistles:

  • Custom bidet: User can control pressure, temperature and angle.
  • Tankless design; dual flush
  • Motion Sensor Lid: After 90 seconds of no movement, the toilet will close.
  • Seat warmer
  • Foot warmer: A vent beneath the bowl blows hot air to warm your feet and the cold tile beneath them.
  • Automatic seat: For male users, a motion sensor is activated by foot and causes the seat to rise and then lower when you’re away.
  • LED lit back panel: Frosted glass is lit in an energy-efficient way.
  • MP3 hook-up: So you never have to be without your music.
  • Remote control: This touch-screen pad lets the user control all of these features from a wireless control.
  • A flat white surface designed for easy cleaning.

Instead of adding features, companies can become more innovative by subtracting features.  Here is an example of the Subtraction template of the S.I.T. innovation method.  Kimberly-Clarke Corporation, a global producer of paper-based products, launched their new Scott Natural Tube-Free toilet paper. Just as the name asserts, the rolls come without the cardboard tubes while still being able to fit on the average toilet paper holder.

From Foxnews.com:

“The idea has been around for quite some time,” said Doug Daniels, brand manger for Scott brand. “The tube doesn’t really serve any consumer purpose. But we’ve had a breakthrough in our technology that’s finally allowed us to do this.”  For now, the process of taking out the tube remains a mystery, as Kimberly-Clarke won’t reveal its ground-breaking technology. Daniels says they’re keeping tight-lipped, since they might use the process for future products. But more importantly, he maintains that no cardboard tube means every single piece of toilet paper will be usable, without those last few sheets getting stuck to the roll.

Kimberly-Clarke estimates that the U.S. alone disposes of 17 billion cardboard tubes from bathroom tissue, equating to 160 million pounds of waste. To put that into perspective, that’s roughly the weight of 250 Boeing 747s and enough tubes to circle the earth’s equator 40 times. Daniels says that this marriage of consumer and ecological advantages will pave the way for the success of the tubeless initiative.”

The LAB: Innovating a Service Delivery Model with S.I.T. (July 2010)

Published date: July 31, 2010 в 9:29 am

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Lab_2

A common question about structured innovation is can it be used on services.  The answer is yes.  A service is the same as a product in many ways, and the approach to using an innovation method like S.I.T. is the same.  Let’s consider a service example for this month’s LAB.  Imagine your company was a leading uniform and apparel rental service.  You own a fleet of trucks and drivers as well as uniform design and fitting services.  Your company delivers custom fitted uniforms to the client’s location, picks up worn uniforms for cleaning, inspection, and repair, and returns them on schedule.  In this highly competitive industry, the key to survival is to exceed customer expectations.  The key to growth, on the other hand, is innovation.  Let’s use the Subtraction tool on this service to create new opportunities.
We start by listing the internal components of the service line:
  1. uniforms (inventory)
  2. fitting service
  3. design service
  4. fabric
  5. trucks
  6. drivers
  7. billing
  8. pick-up
  9. delivery
  10. cleaning
  11. inspection
  12. repair
  13. tracking
  14. contract
  15. sales representative

We remove a component but keep all the others intact.  Working backwards from this hypothetical solution, we consider what benefits it delivers or potential problems it solves.  We try to consider possible benefits of the “virtual service” as is, without replacing the component with something else.  Here are some examples:

Innovation Sighting: Double Down – Two Innovation Templates in One Bite

Published date: May 3, 2010 в 2:00 am

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Here is an example of two innovation templates in one product.  The Double Down sandwich from KFC removes the traditional bread slice (demonstrating the template, Subtraction), and it assigns the additional job of "sandwiching"  to the two slices of fried chicken (demonstrating the template, Task Unification). 

What I like about this idea is that it shows the power of innovation templates to break fixedness.  Sandwiches have been around for a very long time, yet this idea transforms us to consider other components than bread for this critical role of "sandwiching" – bread slices holding one or more fillings between them.  The use of the Subtraction template in this example is obvious – remove the bread.  But then giving the additional role of holding the other components of the sandwich between two slices of chicken is quite novel. This pattern is called Task Unification.

How would you extend this idea?  Consider applying a third template such as Division. Take one of the components of this product and divide it one of three ways:  functional, physical, or preserving.  Look for additional consumer benefits, markets served, or new efficiencies.

Special thanks to my graduate student, Luke Kim, for sharing this example. 

The LAB: Innovating the Wedding Invitation with S.I.T. (April 2010)

Published date: April 26, 2010 в 2:00 am

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 Over 2 million couples marry every year in the U.S..  This fuels the $50 billion dollar wedding industry.  In an industry that prides itself in tradition,  companies must innovate new products and services within those traditions if they want to grow and prosper.  For this month’s LAB, we will use the corporate innovation method, S.I.T. to create new-to-the-world ideas for wedding invitations.

Here are five unique ideas from graduate students* at the University of Cincinnati taking the course, “Systematic Innovation Tools.”  They constructed a hypothetical “Dream Catalog” of these ideas for a local start-up design company.  Listed with each innovation is the specific innovation template the team used to create the idea.  You can download this and the other Dream Catalogs here.

1.  “Read It, and Eat It” :  Unlike traditional paper-made cards, the “Read It, Eat It” series of wedding invitations takes a non-traditional way by using edible materials to make the cards (except for the reply card), like cookie, candy or chocolate. Thus, recipients may eat the card afterward.

  • Benefits
    •Unique and beautiful
    •Practical; more like a gift
    •Conveys emotion and sentiments
    •Recipients would feel happy to receive the invitation
    •Recipients don’t have to find a place to keep the cards afterward
    •Less paper, environment-friendly
  • Target Audience
    •Young wedding couples who are seeking uniqueness for their wedding invitations with related spending ability and willingness
    •Those who need to send the invitation to recipients with kids
  • S.I.T. Template:  Task Unification

Innovation Sighting: Subtraction on CPG Products

Published date: February 15, 2010 в 2:00 am

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Here are two CPG products from this week's Best New Product Awards.  I tried them at home and noticed a pattern.  That pattern suggests a different way to use the Subtraction Template of the innovation method, S.I.T..  The question is whether that pattern can be replicated on other products to create line extensions and new categories. 

The first product is the Bounce® Dryer Bar from Procter & Gamble.  The second is the Scrubbing Bubbles® Toilet Cleaning Gel from SC Johnson.  See if you can spot the pattern in each:

Did you see it?  Each product has had an important step subtracted in how the product is used.  The conventional way to use the Subtraction Template is to list the components of the product or service, then remove a component, usually an essential one.  Using SOLUTION-TO-PROBLEM innovation, we take the hypothetical solution (The Virtual Product), and imagine problems that it solves.  These two products were created by listing the steps of how the product is used instead of the components.  The step: "consumer places product onto usage area" was subtracted.  In essence, the product has to "get" itself to the usage area or be installed in the usage area permanently so it can be used on demand. 

Let's see if we can replicate this idea with other CPG products.  Here are nine products and how a new product could evolve using this same pattern.

  1. Deodorant:  Instead of applying deodorant with an applicator, the product now has to reside under the arms on its own.  How?  Perhaps it could be embedded into clothing or undergarments.  Perhaps it is woven into the armpits of undershirts.  After a number of uses and wash cycles, it is replaced with a new dosage.
  2. Shaving Cream:  Instead of slathering on shaving cream out of a can, we remove that step and embed shaving cream into the handle of the shaver.  It dispenses as the shaver is used.
  3. Lip Balm:  We remove the tube applicator of the lip balm and place the balm somewhere else so it can be called into service when needed.  The question is: where?  This is a tough one because there is no intervening element such as a shaver, toothbrush, or washing machine as with the other examples.  Perhaps it could be stuck to your lips like the tiny, thin teeth whitening strips.  When you press your lips together, you get a dose of lip balm.
  4. Detergent:  Instead of pouring detergent from a bottle, the product is pre-loaded into a container within the washing machine.  The washer knows how much product to dispense based on how much laundry is placed inside. 
  5. Mouthwash:  Here is another tricky one because there is no intervening element.  Here is how it might work.  Instead of pouring mouthwash out of a bottle into your mouth, we have the product dispensed to the back of the tongue (where bad breath starts).  From where?  Sinus cavity, a tooth area, lips, etc.  Applications onto the body are  tougher because there are "less forgiving" areas to pre-install product as with the two cleaning product examples.
  6. Toothpaste:  Instead of squeezing toothpaste out of a tube, we pre-load it into the toothbrush.  It dispenses automatically.  This is the same idea as the shaving cream.
  7. Eye_Drop Eye Drops:  Instead of using an eyedropper to pour liquid into the eye, we place a thin coating on the eyelid.  When you squeeze your eye shut, the eyeball is moisturized.  This one is a stretch, but the concept could hold true with the right technology.  It would make it much more convenient than leaning your head back and taking aim with that little bottle.
  8. Hair Spray:  Similar to the shaving cream and toothpaste examples, we pre-load hairspray into a specially-designed hairbrush that meters it out as needed. 
  9. Floor Cleaner:  The cleaning solution is pre-loaded into the handle of the mop or somehow stuck to the floor where it can be accessed when needed.

Perhaps we will see some of these at the Best New Product Awards of 2011!

The LAB: Innovating a Recruiting Process with Subtraction (October 2008)

Published date: October 31, 2008 в 8:37 am

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Lab_2

Do systematic methods of innovation work on services and processes?  This may be the most common question from corporate executives who want to learn innovation methods.  This month's LAB will focus on a familiar corporate process: employee recruiting.  The tool we'll use is Subtraction.  

To use Subtraction, we make a list of the components. With a process or service, the components are simply the steps to deliver the process or service. We remove a step one at a time to create the Virtual Product/Process.  Working backwards with Function Follows Form, we innovate what the potential value or benefits would be without the component.  What would the new process do?  Who would use it?  Why would they use it?  What benefits emerge?

Here is a recruiting process map of a well-known software company:

   Recruiting

Here are four Virtual Products I created with Subtraction.  For each, I offer potential innovations and the benefits they might deliver:

1.  REMOVE INTERVIEWS:  The recruiting process would not allow interviews of candidates.  Benefit: hiring managers now have to rely on less subjective data such resumes and references.  They would have to rely on objective data such as job testing or personality testing.  Another benefit is candidates are shielded from interviewers who are less gifted at selling the benefits of working at the company.  They would have to rely on standard information provided by HR, thus avoiding negative or misleading information about the company.

2.  REMOVE JOB POSTINGS:  The recruiting process would have NO jobs posted anywhere even though many openings might exist.  Benefit:  There would be more job applicants because they could not self-screen or self-eliminate from not seeing jobs that fit them.  The company's message would be "open door": if you need a job, apply.  We'll find one that fits you.  This also might encourage hiring managers to be more creative about the people they consider for a job, perhaps seeking certain personality types or cognitive skills over experience.  Another benefit is the company avoids contingency recruiters who take job postings without the company's approval and try to fill them for a commission.  

3.  REMOVE SCHEDULE AND PLAN INTERVIEW:  The candidates have to find a way to get an interview without the benefit of the company's HR department setting it up for them.  Benefit:  This is more efficient as it cuts out the "middle man."  Another benefit is it becomes a way to test how assertive and personable the candidate is setting up their own interviews.  It helps them establish a rapport with the hiring manager before the interview takes place.

4.  REMOVE HIRING:  (You were just WAITING for that one!)  The recruiting process has all the traditional steps except the final one – hiring.  Benefit:  This allows a company to keep a pulse on the available talent pool  without the cost incurred from adding staff (a lot of companies actually do this). Another benefit is it reduces time, money, and the effort involved in negotiating salary, benefits, etc.  Also, it helps the company test its recruiting process to determine the effectiveness and accuracy of its interviewers and techniques.  The problem, of course, is how do we actually get the candidate on board?  This is where the REPLACEMENT function comes in handy in using this tool.  We can replace the function but not with the original component.  So what would replace hiring (in the traditional sense)?  Perhaps contracting.  Perhaps a third party does the hiring.  Or perhaps the candidates have to follow a process and guidelines to hire themselves on board.  Self-hiring?  That's novel.

M&A Innovation

Published date: June 20, 2008 в 6:14 pm

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Relying on mergers and acquisitions for growth sends a signal that you don’t know how to innovate or how to manage it.  M&A has other problems, too.  Companies tend to overpay which actually destroys shareholder value.  At best, firms end up paying full value, neither better or worse off financially.  The firm grows in size, not value, and pays in the form of distraction.
What if you could use the tools and processes of innovation in mergers and acquisitions?  How could it help?  Would you select acquisition targets better?  Could it help understand the valuation better so you get a better deal?  Might it help you implement better?  I believe innovation techniques could be applied to all three. Here is one example: targeting – deciding who to buy.
Imagine you are the CEO of a bank, perhaps headquartered in Europe.  You and the other board members have decided its time to deliver more value to the shareholders by growing the business. You decide to
acquire another bank with all the spare cash you have accumulated (rather than just give it to its rightful owners.) The question is: which bank?  Should we buy one in Europe to expand our share while eliminating a competitor?   Should we expand to the U.S. market and buy one there?  Should we buy a struggling bank, get it cheap, and restore it to profitability?
No, no, no. Too simple and obvious.  Nothing innovative here at all.  Let’s instead apply the Subtraction Tool from Systematic Inventive Thinking and see how we can re-frame the question.  Start by listing the components of your bank.

  1. Employees
  2. Customers
  3. Assets
  4. Property plant and equipment
  5. Brand
  6. Systems
  7. Management

Now, one at a time, let’s remove a component, then ask ourselves which bank we should acquire.  Imagine you had no customers. You still have all the other components, just no customers.  What bank could you
acquire that had the ideal customer base for YOUR bank given what it’s all about?  Would you want customers who were more diverse, higher income, more profitable, lower cost to serve, more loyal, etc?  In other words, acquire a bank that delivers the perfect complement of customers.  Now remove employees.  You have all the other components, just no staff.  Now what bank would you buy?  Which has the ideal employee base for who you are?  Would you go after employees who are smarter, less costly, more diverse, younger, older, etc?
The same process, done for each component in succession, gives you a whole new innovative perspective on who to acquire.  It helps you understand why you are buying, what you are getting, and how you
expect to create new value and competitiveness.  It helps you understand The Bet – what the deal is really all about.
M&A is an expensive way to grow.  By adding the gift of innovation to the process, shareholders stand a better chance of seeing more value.

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