How to innovate a product – and reduce risk
Need to innovate a new product or service? We recommend a Design Sprint to increase your odds of success.
We’ve often used Design Sprints to engage a broader team effectively and efficiently in the innovation process. We've identified some best practices and tips to make these intensives a bit less intense and a lot more impactful.
But first, what exactly is a Design Sprint? Wikipedia defines it as, “a time-constrained, five-phase process that uses design thinking with the aim of reducing the risk when bringing a new product, service, or a feature to the market. The process aims to help teams to clearly define goals, validating assumptions and deciding on a product roadmap before starting development. It seeks to address strategic issues using interdisciplinary, rapid prototyping, and usability testing.”
In our experience, the design, number of phases, etc. can be easily modified to flex to the unique needs and desired outcomes of the team and innovation quest.
3 DESIGN SPRINT MUST HAVES according to Ignite 360’s innovation specialist, Claire Farber:
1. Involve R&D throughout the process
Claire Farber says – Involve R&D as early and as often as possible. They are often undervalued. And yet these are the people who spend time thinking about how to make things. R&D experts are amazing contributors when given the context and provided with the guidance to engage productively in the process. They are often the source of the tiny nuggets of ideas that can be built into a new product.
Involvement Solutions:
Identify a primary R&D partner and enlist their involvement via a personal pitch where the process and their role are explained alongside the desired outcomes and benefits.
Ask your R&D partner if there are others in the organization who would be helpful to include, for example, any others who might be asked to work on developing the innovation solution or be involved in commercializing it once the legwork is completed.
Ensure that an R&D representative is invited to key project meetings throughout all phases of the sprint and has a voice in the process.
2. Focus your sprint on a specific problem to solve
Claire Farber says – Don’t set out to solve global warming in your sprint. Instead, what if I asked you to just reduce your electrical use in your own house by 5%? Maybe you can but maybe even that's too hard. How about in the room you’re sitting in right now? Look around you. Is there one thing you can unplug for half an hour? What else could you do just in this room to reduce your energy use by 5%?
The smaller your ask, the more you might get in terms of ideas. For example, what if you were tasked with creating a new laundry detergent? That’s a big ask. Too big. So, you scale the ask. Come up with a laundry detergent that can do two things at once. Do that for an hour. And then maybe spend time on something more sensorial about the laundry experience. Do that for an hour. For every ideation round you want to focus your people on specific problems so they can identify creative and meaningful solutions. Don’t ask them to boil the ocean.
3. Help people relax
Claire Farber says – Every single person who walks into a Design Sprint is tight. They might be thinking, “My job is depending on it, I only have 5 days, I’m spending XX dollars, if we don’t get this right, I’m screwed.” How can people be expected to come up with good ideas when they are so tense? They can’t. You need to directly address those emotions so people can relax. Then you can get to the creativity and collaboration.
Relaxation Solutions:
A sprint is designed to be efficient. You don’t have hours and hours to kumbaya your way into group relaxation. What we often do, is pair up two activities to get them into a more relaxed mindset – one to manage expectations, and one to get people thinking more openly. It’s the equivalent of tightening all your muscles and then relaxing them, breathing in for 5 counts and out for 5 counts, etc.
Manage expectations and emotions. We’ll often have a slide that directly addresses the worried/skeptical voice inside people’s head. It usually reads something like: “WARNING: Be comfortable with messy. This process may feel chaotic, but it is a method that reaches clarity at the end.”
Get people thinking openly. Help them start to look at the process from a different perspective. A quick way to do this is to share a short, but thoughtful video or audio clip no more than 1-2 minutes, like this Be Curious, Not Judgmental clip from Ted Lasso.
“The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything: the better you are with your loved ones, the better you are with your enemies, the better you are at your job, the better you are with yourself.”
Need help with your innovation pipeline? Let’s talk Design Sprints at claire@ignite-360.com
For further reading on innovation…
HOW TO THINK LIKE AN INNOVATOR, IN 5 EASY STEPS
TIME TO FRESHEN UP YOUR INNOVATION AND SAY GOODBYE TO THE COOKIE CUTTER
EMPATHY: THE SURPRISE INGREDIENT IN GENERAL MILLS’ BRAND BUILDING RECIPE
