Segment 1: Using observation to find the unspoken needs and wants of customers

• Simple approach - Use feedback from customers (complaints, emails, etc)
• Go deeper
• Active Observation - get our of the chair/office and go to where the customers are
• Active Reflection - after the observation, go back and dig deeper in the information you gathered
• Use empathic (observational) design
• In-the-world observations (home, office, where the customers are)
• Trend Safari
• Ethnographic Studies
• Study of customers as a social group
• Customer segmentation/persona
• Structure of the customer tribe
• Wishes/desires of the tribe
• Fears/concerns of the tribe
• Observation of the tribe
• Practice helps improve your observations skills
• People watching
• Are they alone?
• Are they an organized individual?
• Are they married?/Do they have kids?
• Are they a shopper or a buyer?
• Friends - in-house observations
• What is their task in music and art?
• What are their priorities (exercise, hobbies,etc)?
• Is there a gap between their professional and personal personas?
• For the above:
• What tribe do they belong to?
• Who else do you know is in the same tribe?
• How big do you think that tribe is?

Note:  If you want to connect with the community of listeners of this podcast, join the Killer Innovations groups in Facebook and/or LinkedIn.

MP3 of the June 1st Podcast on Observation Skills

Recorded live April 4th 2008 at the Business Alliance Bootcamp for Growing Companies and Entrepreneurs ...

Change is something we may try to stop but never will.  From the agriculture economy to the manufacturing economy to the knowledge/information economy to that of the creative economy … where wealth creation is dependent upon the capacity of a nation to continually create ideas.  In short, a nation without a vibrant creative labor force does not possess the knowledge base to succeed in the creative economy, and must depend on ideas produced elsewhere.

The creative economy is a new a world in which people work with their brains instead of their hands.   A world in which innovation is more important than mass production.  A world in which investment buys new concepts or the means to create them, rather than new machines.

In this new world … ideas are the new global currency ...

Link to the April 20th Podcast: Creative Economy - Recorded Live

Link to the slides: PPT for Creative Economy

Key components of an innovation execution approach

• Gated funding model
• Gated milestone management

Gated Funding Model

• Limit funding until key deliverables are met
• Recognize that not all ideas will result in products.  Manage the budget to ensure there are ample funds to see the best ideas through the innovation pipeline

Gated Milestone Management

• Setup gates that answer key questions/challenges in translating the idea to a product/service
• I use four gates .. you should setup gates that make sense to your team/project/organization
• Market Valuation (e.g. how many customers have the problem being solved?)
• Customer Validation (e.g. Do customers agree that the solution address the problem?  Will they pay for the solution?  Does the business case justify the investment?)
• Limited Trial/Test Market (e.g. Will the customer actually purchase the solution?  Does the business case/value chain hold up?)
• Launch!
• How are gates milestone charts created? (Sample)
• Define the groups/teams (e.g. engineering, marketing, sales, etc) needed to translate the idea into a product/service
• Setup "swim lanes" for each group/team vertically along the left side
• For each swim lane, setup the timeline of the deliverables
• Define the gates vertically across the timelines
• A gate is defined as:  "all deliverables to the left of the gate must be completed to satisfy the exit criteria"

How do you setup the Killer Innovation Execution approach?

• Define the gates you will use to manage your innovation programs
• Define the key questions that need to be answered? (e.g. Is the market big enough?).  These will be the gates.
• Define the exit criteria for each gate.
• Make the criteria as objective as possible (e.g. Must have a total addressable market of $x with a sustainable margin of y%, etc.)
• Define the deliverables the would be needed to answer each question and satisfy the exit criteria for each gate
• Break-down the deliverables by the groups/teams
• Setup the gate milestone chart (see above)
• Break-down the funding by gates.  Project out the full project funding need and then revise the outer gates as you gather more information.

Managing the execution ...

• Make each gate a "hard" gate with a "time box" (date when the gate will be completed)
• Have the teams perform "gate reviews" at each gate.
• Review the gate and its deliverables
• Status against the exit criteria
• Walk through findings and insights learned during the gate
• Status against funding
• Define deliverables and exit criteria for next gate
• Update funding for next gate and total funding requirement
• Ask for "go" or "no go" approval to move forward

Sample Gate Milestone Chart - PDF Version  (License: CC - Non-commercial, Attribution)

MP3 of the April 13th Podcast:  Execution - Translating Ideas To Innovations

Segment 1: Ranking Your Ideas

• The purpose of ranking is to ensure you are working on the ideas that will have the most impact
• Step 1: Rank the best ideas (most impact)
  • Rank each of the following ideas (0 = lowest, 5 = highest)
    • Will this idea change/improve the customer experience/expectation?
      • How does it improve the experience/expectation?
      • How could you measure this improvement?
      • Does the customer value the improvement?
    • Will this idea change the competitive landscape?
      • How does this idea re-position you against the competitors?
      • What would the competitive reaction be?
      • Does the idea create a sustained barrier to entry for competitors (does the change have long lasting benefit)?
    • Will this idea change the economic structure of the industry?
      • What is the current value chain? (position, margin, etc)
      • What would be the new value chain? (position, margin, etc)
      • How easy/hard would it be to get the ecosystem partners/value chain to change?
  • For this question where at least one of the questions had a 4 or a 5 ... ask the following three question ...
    • Do you have a contribution to make?
      • Is this aligned with the general space you are in? (direct or adjacency)
      • Is this aligned with your core expertise and capabilities?
    • Will this idea generate sufficient margin?
      • Is the TAM (total addressable market) big enough?
      • Can you price the product to secure sufficient margin?
      • Does the overall return (total lifetime R&D compared to lifetime margin) exceed the hurdle rate?  (e.g. min 5 times return of margin against R&D)
  • Now rank the ideas and come up with a short list (top 10 or top 20) ...
  • Ask the following questions to determine if your organization is ready to take on the project (ability to execute) ...
    • Can we get our teams excited?
      • Is there enough sizzle with the steak? (vision)
      • Is there a way to "demo" what the end result to be so that executives can "see" it?
    • Will senior management support it?
      • Is the total investment aligned with the overall ability to fund?
      • Is this generally aligned with the direction & strategy of the business?
    • Do we have the skill and expertise to pull this off?
      • What skills are needed?
      • What skills are missing from the organization?
      • Could we free up critical skills to work on this project?
    • Can we access the customers preferred channel?
      • What channel does the customer purchase from?
      • Do we have GTM (go-to-market) to this channel or do we need to created a new GTM approach?
  • Now rank your ideas against these question (top score is 20)
  • Take the top 2 to 3 ideas and prepare "idea pitches" and present to a number of groups within the organization ... taking input and improving the pitch each time.
    • Pitch should be 10/20/30 (as defined by Guy Kawasaki)
      • 10 slides
      • 20 minutes max
      • Nothing less that a 30 point font

MP3 of the March 30th podcast

Link to slides that go with the audio

Killer Innovations Group on LinkedIn

Segment 1: Ideation - Creating Killer Ideas

• The current method ... simple questions get simple answers
• Better questions get killer ideas
• Explore beyond the obvious - SCAMPER
• Idea Quota
• Characteristics of the best killer ideas
  • The ideation session has a purpose
  • Consider timeliness in setting the focus and the session
  • Recruit for diversity (executive level, age, background, experience)
  • Look for people who have a different perspective
  • Build a culture of collaboration
• Last but not least - suspend disbelief

Link to February 24th Podcast

Link to slides

Segment 1: Having A Focus For Your Innovation Search

Where to focus?

• Moving into new competitive arenas
• Expansion into new geographies
• Improvement in industry structure
• Innovation in value delivery system
• Innovation in products and services
• New or existing customers

What customer segments that should be the focus of the innovation?

• YUPPIES
• YUFFIES
• MOBY/DOBY
• WOOFS
• SKIPPIES
• "Sandwichers"

Listen to the podcast to hear the definitions of the above segments.

For a more complete list of customer segments, see the post on Power of Customer Segment

Link to January 21st Podcast

Link to slides that go with the audio

Segment 1:  Why do current methods not work?

• Most ideas are either incremental or unrealistic
• Not confidence that there aren't better ideas
• Lack of follow-through form the list of ideas generated
• Lack of executive and management support

Segment 2: Is there a better way? Killer Innovation Approach

• Tools
  • Focus the innovation search
  • Ideation by using killer questions
  • Rank the ideas
  • Execution
• Skills
  • Empathic design
  • Observation skills

MP3 of the December 16th Podcast

Segment 1: Why is innovation important?

This is part 1 of the re-created audio for the workshop slides.

• Innovation acceleration
• Technology Adoption
• Innovation Reality
• Innovation Gap
• Innovation Delay
• Innovation Impact
• Executive View of Innovation
• The Challenge of Innovation
• The Value From Innovation

Link to Nov 12th podcast

Segment 1: One Dimensional Innovations - Getting out of the innovation rut

• "One Dimensional Innovations" are when you are stuck in a rut and focusing your innovation efforts in the same area as your competitors
• Why is it so hard?

• People tend to focus the innovations in areas where they think they are getting measured (customer, press reviews, etc)
• Its not about results but about innovating in the portion of the value chain that your competitors are not.

• So .. what can you do??

1. Research and understand your value chain (your supply chain is only a portion of your value chain)
2. Look for ideas that attack multiple steps in the value chain not normally looked at by your competitors
3. Look for ideas that eliminate steps in the value chain
4. Look for ideas that add/replace steps in the value chain that customers will value and compensate your for
5. Rank your ideas against your customers un-spoken needs and wants

Segment 2: Killer Question

What are the spoken and un-spoken assumptions that your business and/or industry operate under?

What is the default value chain your business and/or industry operate under?

Segment 3: Listener Question

How do you find help with an idea? (submitted by "Clay")

• Avoid the "for fee" companies that want to charge you evaluating your idea and possibly securing you a license for your idea.  They are not worth their time.
• Can I help??  I'm swamped with my current job - but feel free to send me an email and I will try to respond (no promises)
• Search our a local mentor
• Someone who has had some success in translating and idea into market success
• They have local knowledge, expertise and contacts
• Take the idea to your customers for validation

Link to Sept 16th podcast

Flick photo by Lance & Erin