The Path to Innovation

Finding an ally

Have you found that with a c-suite devoid of any designers, the loudest opinion in the room can often guide the entire decision making process around innovation and….design? 

Design is so often viewed as subjective; but it’s the job of a good design partner to introduce objectivity into the design process to help reduce risk and ensure solutions fit into the existing culture and infrastructure.

By enlisting the creative and strategic expertise of a design agency, businesses can turn monotonous processes into streamlined solutions that provide unique experiences both for internal stakeholders and the end customer alike. 

The right design agency is a powerful ally in the fight for innovation when working within a corporate bureaucracy. Bringing a much needed perspective to the corporate world, design agencies can help to break through those organizational silos that can often stifle innovation and progress.

Sometimes immersion means deconstruction to fully understand functionality

Finding North: Alignment Through Immersion

In our experience, there tends to be at least one central focus that everyone can rally around – the end user experience. 

So, how do you align the business (and business stakeholders) to the end user? 

• Identify the roadblocks and opportunities that can be pressure tested in order to improve the end user experience and the bottom line.
  Too often we see products fail because of assumptions made by the individuals in charge. Remember that idea where design is strictly subjective and the loudest voice makes all the decisions…? 
• Get everyone on board to achieve product greatness.
  This probably feels obvious and should already be the case but more often than not within a corporate bureaucracy the disconnects between each vertical can be quite extreme and there isn’t just a difference of opinion but a difference in understanding, values, needs, etc within the same company for the same product or offering. 

An outside expert in the form of a good design agency can come in and help lay the foundation for creating that alignment through a synthesis or combination of immersive activities.  

• Stakeholder interviews, group and or individual in order to understand individual blockers to innovation
  Having each voice heard and finding not just those differences between them but also where the similarities lie. What limitations exists across each department involved? 
• Customer interviews
  Getting and incorporating that end user feedback as early and as often in the process ensures that you keep that parallel alignment between the business and your customers. 
• Competitive analysis, secret shopping & customer reviews 
  What are customers saying about your offerings? What are they saying about your competitors? Features, materials, packaging, services, support — what are your competitors doing right? Where are the opportunities for you to shine?
• Competitive research, business and product research
  Looking at analogous industries and products to find new previously unidentified opportunities. ….

These do not need to be exhaustive, this is qualitative work that is intended to illuminate the various perspectives and help to create the compass rose for what will become the roadmap to innovation that includes business goals, feature set, and the market at the forefront. 

Opportunities can come in many forms

Finding the destination: Opportunity Definition

Now that various opportunities and guardrails have been identified and the various verticals and stakeholders are on the same page through alignment — you need to define the opportunities. You’ve created that compass rose on the map so you can identify which direction is north but which direction do you need to go next…?

• Establish and document both the current and ideal user journey This will help to identify and further define opportunities along with any other considerations …
• Trend research to ensure relevance and longevity Something here…
• Cost benefit analysis Something here….

Keep in mind these opportunities can range from the open box experience, interface redesigns to the manufacturing optimization. There will be plenty of potential paths but with your compass from the alignment, ….. Something something 

One of the many functional prototypes we have developed

Finding the route: Testing assumptions & generating buy-in

Once you’ve created the ideal route, you begin the product development process. 

We all know that no trip is without issues – road closures, weather, flat tire. 

However, on this particular journey, there are ways to reduce risk and bring everyone into the fold through objectivity. 

• Create simple assets for users and stakeholders to respond to
  Not everyone is visual in nature but we have found that having a visual stimuli to respond to makes it much easier to engage and gather some initial, easy feedback. This can be low investment and can be high reward. It can help to garner support or to immediately identify if alignment has fallen. 
• Establish a northstar vision
  Yes the journey is important but sometimes you really need to hang onto the destination in order to maintain excitement and momentum. 
• Build an MVP – minimum viable prototype
  This can be looks like, works like, or both depending on what your product is and what your next steps are. Are you conducting user testing? Are you showing it off to get folks excited and raise additional funds? Are you wanting to establish a proof of concept? A good design partner can help you to identify which type of MVP is right for your project to meet your goals. 

You’ll then repeat a variation of this process until the product is fully defined at which point it is time to create the final outputs that will be needed to guide those who will implement the final product or solution.

Final Product: GE Monogram knobs and handles

Having worked with and partnered with companies ranging from Fortune 100s to entrepreneurial startups, we have helped support our clients through internal design initiatives, creating alignment across corporate verticals, bringing innovative solutions to market.

If you are looking for a design agency to act as your ally through innovating in corporate bureaucracy, reach out! And be sure to subscribe as in future posts we will dive into the specifics of each in more detail.

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