ideation process

May 10, 2016

Isn’t it time to start thinking outside the cliche?

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Originally published on April 9, 2016 as a Guest Column in The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-managing/isnt-it-time-to-start-thinking-outside-the-cliche/article29537629/

Every time I hear somebody use the phrase, “Let’s think outside the box,” my frustration boils over. Such statements remind me why so many businesses today struggle and even fail.

People who believe they need to think outside the box have all missed a fundamental reality: It’s been a while since there was any “box” in business. There may be a status quo, but nobody goes there any more. It’s been replaced by continuous change.

The need for continuing innovation and course corrections should be glaringly obvious to all leaders and managers. I mean, really: Did somebody miss the fact that we can all communicate directly with our customers now in real time? Or that our wristwatches are now digital business and life assistants that speak to us and guide us through the day?

If we have to create a metaphor to replace “the box,” it might be a virtual-reality video game. These digital diversions are fast and all-absorbing. They engage all of your faculties, and get more difficult with every level.

We need to learn, understand and process the fast-changing business environments just as we navigate the next level of a game. We must constantly adjust, react to new threats, and take advantage of emerging opportunities. One slip and it could be “game over.”

How do you keep pace with continuous changes in the marketplace? For me, the one guaranteed success strategy is staying focused on your customers. In a World of Warcraft context, your customer is your game score. Delighting (or failing) your customer is how you win or lose.

With today’s immersive digital games, you slip easily into digital avatars or personae that bring you into new worlds of fantasy, combat or sport. Refocusing on your customer involves a similar transition: creating new models of customer behaviour that enable you to better understand their feelings and experiences, and thus engage them in stronger and deeper relationships.

Customer success today requires continuous commitment to developing and refining customer personae (models of your most important customer types) and customer journey maps (models of your customers’ experience as they move from initial contact to purchase to continuing relationship). These two approaches help you develop deeper knowledge of who your customers are, how and why they buy, and what challenges you face in keeping them as customers.

If you hope to take your business to the next level (as in the video game context), you first need to improve your knowledge of your customer. Be more curious. Ask more questions.

Customer personae bring each of your identified target groups to life in a personal and meaningful way. Developing customer personae means creating authentic, insightful descriptions of each target group that include:

  • Relevant details about their key needs;
  • Understanding of their unmet needs, or where your next opportunities lie;
  • Identification of “hot button” issues that can make or break sales opportunities and continuing relationships.

At my firm, once we have a clear understanding of who our clients are and what motivates them to purchase, we create a customer journey map for each identified target group. This means understanding all of the steps they go through in deciding to purchase our products and services:

  • Identification of need
  • Sourcing of solution provider
  • Modelling the customer’s decision-making process
  • Uncovering “tipping-point” factors
  • Driving purchase decisions
  • Assessing post-purchase satisfaction

So important are these customer-recognition insights that we post them on our office walls. They remind us why we are creating solutions in the first place. They articulate the decisions that our customers make and the steps that they have to follow to purchase and be happy with that purchase.

Once we understand that customers are always looking for something better, we can leave behind the “outside the box” cliché and start thinking inside our customers’ lives and aspirations.

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Category: Icicle, Innovation, Spyder Works

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Sep 22, 2015

Experts suggest using innovation in times of crisis

Photo credit: Dudu Leal

This post was translated from Portuguese.  It was originally posted by FIERGS in Brazil following a keynote presented by Ken Tencer at their Innovation Forum, “Innovation in Times of Crisis”.  The original post can be read at: http://www.ielrs.org.br/pt-br/noticia/especialistas-sugerem-usar-inovacao-em-tempos-de-crise

“Nothing like a good crisis to generate great opportunities”. This was one of the takeaways shared by Ken Tencer, entrepreneur and Spyder Works CEO, during the 3rd Forum on Innovation and sponsored by the FIERGS System, through Sesi, Senai and IEL. “Many great businesses have started during recessions,” he told more than 700 people who came to FIERGS Events Center this Wednesday. “It’s important to focus on key clients and invest in innovation in a few areas,” said Tencer, a leader in management and innovation, and co-author of The 90% Rule®, which empowers companies of all sizes to identify, prioritize and implement growth opportunities. “Every day I challenge myself and my team to search for the next 10% of growth. We have to think about innovation every single day”, he commented. During the talk “Cause a Disturbance – a Simple Way to Innovate Continuously”. Tencer, who also co-authored bestseller Cause a Disturbance (2014), recommended delighting customers, “because they will delight your bottom-line”. To do this, the Canadian speaker suggests always listening to your customers, “because that’s where your ideas will often come from”. He said there are six steps to ensure that innovation is lasting and targeted (1) Engage emotions, not numbers, (2) Change the lives of your customers, (3) Connect the dots – between your business and its customers, (4) Identify and rank the opportunities, (5) Develop a plan, and (6) Communicate the plan.

In addition to Tencer, Gijs van Wulfen, an expert on innovation and design thinking, from the Netherlands, also spoke at the event. Van Wulfen is founder of the Forth Method which has been implemented by 35 European companies and is a LinkedIn Influencer, with more than 260,000 followers throughout the world. Van Wulfen shared 10 insights to innovate in times of crisis (1) Teamwork -You can invent alone, but you cannot innovate alone. Innovation must be bought in by all, (2) Choose the right moment, (3) The pace of the process has to be slow, (4) A great idea is a simple solution for a problem or a dream the customer has, (5) If you don’t have new insights, you will not have new ideas (which is essential for the sound operation of a business), (6) Think outside the box, but present it in a box, (7) Have a business plan, (8) Connect with the client from the start of the innovation, because “he is your support”, (9) “Innovation doesn’t stop at the first No, that’s where it starts”; 10) Lead your people, show them the way.

Gijs van Wulfen also presented the Forth Method, with its five islands of thought. According to van Wulfen, first we have to know where we want to get to, and then, look for the knowledge to get us there. “Ideas will come after a while and, with knowledge, we can choose the best ideas, try them, get the feedback, and then outline our business plan”.

Also presenting at the Forum was the company Imobras, which was featured in the Best Practices Toolbox, an initiative by the RS Innovation Center in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. The Center was created to support businesses in generating innovative solutions to their own challenges.

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Jun 17, 2014

Want to build a better team? Consider the rules of improv

Originally published on June 10, 2014 as a Guest Column in The Globe and Mail.
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I was out with a friend when he announced that he was taking an improv course. He can be pretty humorous, but no one would mistake him for George Carlin. Or even Jerry Seinfeld. So, as politely as I could, I asked, “Why?”

His answer was surprisingly insightful: “Because improv comedy is about teamwork,” he said. “It’s about working together to build rapport, conversation, and a story that is engaging and compelling for the audience. If one member of the team tries to steal the spotlight, then the whole story unravels.”

He went on to say: “If I can become better at engaging and building on the ideas of others around me, then I will ultimately be more successful in my work.”

He seemed to be addressing one of the biggest challenges we all have as owners and managers; that is, building positive consensus in the face of individual dissent.

You know what I’m talking about: those brainstorming naysayers who pop up like jabbering jack-in-the-boxes with their bold proclamations like “that’ll never work,” “that’s too hard,” or “we’ll never be able to afford to do that, so why waste our time even trying?”

As an entrepreneur, nothing is more painful than hearing the words “no” or “can’t.” So the notion that improv comedy could somehow relieve my pain was enticing.

I immediately did what all inquisitive minds do these days: I Googled it. I searched the rules of improv comedy to see if I could re-purpose those principles to fit the world of business.

Naysayers beware: what I found is that ‘Yes’ is the new ‘No.’

I came upon many concepts from the art and discipline of improv that closely relate to business. They are similar because improv, like business, thrives on lively conversation, clear communication and seamless collaboration. Ultimately, both arts hinge on tapping the talents of all team members to generate bold, original ideas.

Consider a few of these rules and how they can practically apply to your work: The first rule is to agree. Ban the word ‘no’ at your brainstorming and ideation sessions. No is a full-stop. It not only quashes specific ideas, but discourages the flow of conversation in general. It makes people think, “why open my mouth to express an idea when somebody in the room is automatically going to say no to it?”

Learn to say yes to all new and different ideas. On a practical level, write all of the ideas down on Post-It notes and stick them on the wall in thematic groupings. For example, you might group them as ideas that relate to new products, new services or new processes. Or you could group new ideas by the functional areas of the business that they will impact most – sales, marketing, R&D or administration.

Once you have dozens of ideas on the wall, it’s time to use the second rule of improv: Say “yes, and…” Agree with the idea, but then add some new twist of your own. This is how we add value and substance to these original, random ideas.

Break the full team into four or five mini-teams and assign them to work on one of the identified groups of sticky notes. Their task is to review these ideas to see if they can be fleshed out, built on, embellished or combined. Bottom-line: their role is to take the original slew of ideas and translate them into three to five clearly articulated opportunities for the business to consider.

This process is not just about innovation – it’s empowering for your team as a whole. It demonstrates that everyone’s opinions, ideas and insights matter. It helps your team think more freely and openly, and not be afraid to voice what sounds like a radical idea. Crazy, stupid things such as “what if we could slip the power of the original supercomputer that filled a whole room into our coat pocket?” Some things may never happen in our lifetime, but others may surprise you and lead to offbeat new opportunities.

“Yes, and…” is powerful and empowering. It enables your team to generate a wall full of ideas and then narrow them down to more manageable numbers.

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