Newsletter

What to do if you are given an Innovation goal

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One of the worst things you can do is to take an Innovation project completely on your head. At the onset, it feels like a super worthwhile project where YOU can shine. Ideas come and fly, some stick, and you will be on a path to deliver the riches. Soon enough you will hit a speed breaker and things come to a halt. That’s because you are stuck on a “local maxima,” the farthest point you could reach by isolating a huge piece.

The collective talent of a team.

I am not saying don’t think by yourself. By all means we should do that. We need to dig deep into problems and carve our perspective.

Our solo perspective will always be limited.

As a basketball fan, I have seen countless of NBA tournaments featuring superstars and Hall of Famers. Did Michael Jordan or Steph Curry or Lebron James win it all by themselves? As good as they were, to win at big problems like NBA championships, a strong team is a requirement.

Innovating and in other words, creative problem solving is no different!

Here are my 5 top reasons to consider.

  • Innovation requires a strong supporting cast, not just a standout player.
  • A diverse team brings different perspectives and a 360-degree view of the situation.
  • Opposition and obstacles can be overcome with the help of the team.
  • Involving the team in a relay race-like approach enhances brain power and expands possibilities.
  • Innovation is a team sport that should not rely solely on one person.

Work with a team and see what can be brought to life!

Happy Ideating!
Hemang.

Trust: The Unsaid Factor for Greenlighting Projects

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In the past two weeks, I had contrasting experiences with grocery shopping. A fruit vendor handpicked top quality fruits for me, which turned out to be substandard. Contrast this with another vendor who convinced me to buy the lower-priced of two variants of raisins, which have turned out to be awesome. It’s clear who will get my repeat business, but the more interesting aspect is what they really ended up losing. My complete trust.

I may still shop with them – everyone deserves second and third chances – but will be much more diligent. In there is a lesson for getting the green light for any project you’re pitching.

As our careers progress, we will find ourselves facing complex situations.

We may not know everything we’d like to. In hairy situations where run-time decisions need to be made, the best leader is one who holds the trust. The team believes in this person. As does the management.

Wait – is skill or talent undervalued compared to trust?

Yes, to an extent. There will always be a skill gap. However, a gap in how decisions are made is not acceptable. Think of how many times a sporting event has been won by an inferior team compared to the most talented one. Dig deep and you will find that the team that made better decisions won in the end.

Where does trust come in the picture?

The team executed on the decisions. When people are not convinced, it shows in their body language and ultimately their performance. When the process is not sound, getting the output is a coin toss.

If your leadership trusts you, getting extra budget is a possibility. Making a case for a change of plans gets you an audience that is willing to listen with an open mind. That is a huge factor. For innovation and strategy projects, that is the main factor. This is also one reason why some entrepreneurs keep getting funded – one strong reason is their investors believe in THE person.

How does one cultivate trust?

This is a test of character, which is proven when things get tough. Own up to blind spots, issues you should have caught earlier, or made a mess. People can sense intent miles away. However, this is a subjective factor. You will rarely be able to pinpoint a situation where the Trustometer swung the right way.

If I had to suggest one approach to practice, here’s what it would be:

  1. A systems mindset helps. Take decisions that help everyone around you. See how your decision can affect all around you whether it’s customers, vendors, or the business.
  2. Communicate how you are arriving at those decisions. A clear communicator finds it easier to get buy-in.
  3. When things are not going to plan, refer to point 1 above 🙂

That’s it for today.

Happy Ideating!
Hemang.

WHAT are you really building?

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Today we dive into addressing a massive blind spot that affects innovation charters.

An innovation exercise is a journey that has you playing with important questions that start with Why, What, How, Who, When, Where, and so on.

The most important of these is Why

Why is the customer behaving in a weird manner, Why is it a pain point for them, or Why is a problem limited to a specific demographic. This customer discovery process uncovers that golden problem worth solving. It is my favorite phase of innovation programs because of the learning involved.

At this stage, it is tempting to dive straight into How you will solve it.

This is a fun stage involving brainstorming, whiteboarding, and other ideation sessions. People run inspired. You feel like just getting the resources – time, money, tools – and cannot wait to deliver. However, you are carrying a big blind spot that has derailed many wonderful programs.

You must have a super clear vision of what your solution will look like.

What is it going to take to make it work for your entire customer base? What is the plan to make it ready for scale? What is the cost you are going to undertake to deliver?What are you going to exactly deliver?

Teams that have not addressed these questions spend cycles on building something that doesn’t make it to the market.

Here is Robyn Bolton, Founder and CEO of MileZero, who shares an example from one of her clients.

That line of questioning from Robyn was a great pause in the innovation program. Putting it in a term like “You will need to build TWO Facebooks” showed the enormity of the challenge.

As an innovation leader, you have to play the tough role of guiding the team through the phases. Getting ideas is, arguably, the easier part of the equation. Making them work at scale is where the magic happens.

Successful innovation programs combine ideation with execution.

Give your execution plans as much thought as ideation. That is where the strategy comes to life.

That’s it for today.

Happy Ideating….and Executing! 🙂

Hemang.

A Monday Exercise for Jump Starting Innovation

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One of my favorite brainstorming teams would meet on Monday at lunch. We would get together every two weeks. The meeting always started with the same question.

What bothered you over the weekend that you want to solve today?

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All the participants would proceed to share the pain point(s) they experienced. It might have been something they saw at a mall or a movie theatre or while out on walk. They may have noted a stronger “What if” thought. Or wondered “Hmm, why aren’t they doing X this way?”

The key is to gather these problems in a no filter approach.

It was simply a problem statement collection exercise. There’s no revenue analysis, market surveys were not required. No slides, for that matter.

Collect as many pain points as possible.

The moderator of the meeting would go around the room, jotting down these on simple spreadsheet. No one else could use devices. No screen sharing. It’s just a polling exercise around the room. After about 15 minutes, we would then pause before proceeding to the next stage.

Selecting the problem to solve.

This was selecting the strongest pain that wasn’t solved. In other words, the best opportunity to go after as a team. Usually, the group would quickly determine that. If there was a deadlock, the moderator would call rank and select the problem for the group.

After that, we would brainstorm different approaches to solve the issue at hand.

Depending on the problem, we would devote anywhere from 15 – 20 minutes to sometimes a full hour. The moderator aims to keep the group energy high peppering with questions if the team is stuck. We are trying to keep the ball rolling. When things get to a standstill i.e. when all creative juices have stopped, we move to the next problem. Along the while, the moderator would note the key ideas generated that will help the product.

What makes Mondays so special?

We are outside of our work on weekends and get a natural pause among our chores, meeting people, and relaxing. Subconsciously, we can get to a state of pause and wonder. Issues identified in this state are worth spending a bit of time. Before we get too involved with the other work items, filing them is worth addressing.

But we only selected one or two to solve. What about the rest of the pain points?

That is your pain point bank. If a problem wasn’t picked during one meeting, we can bring it up during the next. We also don’t forget things that bother us. Quite often, the team will remind of something worth spending time on. Else, you have the moderator for that too.

Is that it?

Yes, keep it simple. The most important thing is to instill this as a habit. Our meetings were recurring and at lunch, which people should not skip 🙂

Try it and you will look forward to these meetings.

Happy Ideating!

Hemang.

How do your business partners become your advocates?

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Today I am sharing an example of how your innovations can be marketed by your business partners.

Last week, I moderated a case study on monetization of a technology for a professional society. A large company working on specialized printing of metals found an issue in the parts made. The lead cause, among others, was the flow of gases in the equipment used. They put together a team of engineers who analyzed the flow. After simulations, the team designed an add-on part that could fix the problem. And guess what?

The solution worked and more. They could not only print defect-free parts but could also operate at a much higher load.

One time the service technician from the equipment maker was in their facility. He saw the part, the results, and was beaming with wide smiles. He asked if he could discuss the potential of using it with other users. This is a huge sign!

When technicians volunteer for a product, pay close attention. They understand the ground issues better than most.

Fast forward, this company now has an established flow of customers who are lining up to use their part. They get a fair amount of leads from the equipment maker. Their customers are also getting them other leads. This is the best form of marketing one can aim for.

What can we learn for our innovation journeys?

The best innovators tend to be the ones that experience the problem themselves.

The defects were something that could not be tolerated. A fix was required. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.

Complete solutions >> Hacks

Arguably, the defect could be addressed with a hack. Those are not built for scale and certainly not for industrial production. Their solution was a result of flow analysis, simulation, prototypes, and fine tuning. Hence, it worked for much greater loads and is now built to last.

When engineers are happy with something, listen to them

The technician really cared for the other users of his equipment. Else he would have to listen to their complaints. When he saw that there was great potential in the add-on part, he became a strong advocate at his company.

In this case study, there was a good insight for how a collaborative approach resulted in a win-win partnership for businesses. Adopters could get to market easily and the innovators got a favorable outcome.

There’s a case to be also made for marketing of innovations. Something in a lab cabinet needs to be put out there for others to use. Bringing awareness to that is the innovator’s responsibility.

It all starts with having an acute understanding of the problem at hand and determining who else is facing it. If you fix it well, your partners will become your advocates. It helps them too – win-win!

That’s it for today.

Happy ideating 😊

Hemang.

LinkedIn Top Voice and Best Practices to Grow on Social Media

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Today, I want to share a bit of how we need to look at social media for professional development. Earlier this week, LinkedIn gave an amazing surprise by adding me to their Top Voices program. A few friends have asked on my best practices, so here it is for you.

Sharing

We all perform amazing roles in our careers. However, most of us are stuck at labels such as engineering, accounting, marketing, and so on. The way we function, and our thought processes differentiate us. Share those because there are many who benefit from your insights.

Format

Social platforms support text, video, and pictures. Use the format that doesn’t feel like effort for you. I enjoy writing and have been experimenting with video lately. Just get started. It’s kind of like running. We’ve all done it as kids, give it a few attempts and you’ll be further along than yesterday.

Good enough is better than perfect

If you wait for the perfect text or video, you’ll never reach it. Get to the point where you are conveying your point across. If I write a text post, I compose and leave it aside. I’ll review it to check if it reads well and if I have put my point across. After a light edit, it is shipped.

Repetition

The more you share, better you’ll get. It’s important to get into a rhythm. Stick to a frequency where it doesn’t distract you. Start with a weekly schedule and increase if you like.

Define your content

Get to a clarity of what you will share. This can change from one platform to another. I am most active on LinkedIn since I truly feel connected with my network there. I don’t understand YouTube and Twitter algorithms, and don’t focus on them. On LinkedIn, I share professional posts related to my domain of practice. It is not my family WhatsApp group 😊

Learn

A huge benefit of social media is we can absorb so much. I’ve tailored my feed to highlight topics of interest where I get further along than yesterday. This takes a bit of work but once you do, good content reaches you.

Just do it

I’ll admit that getting started on video took a lot of effort. Most videos you watch on YouTube and other channels are…so professional. Their camera setup, audio quality, studio setting, and whatnot is overwhelming. I thought along the same lines and realized that the cosmetic stuff doesn’t matter to you. You and I care about learning. Our work is done when we share valuable insights. The cosmetic appearance needs to be at an acceptable level. So, focus and make sure that the main thing (insight) is the main thing.

There are many aspects which are not relevant in the long run such as gaming the algorithm, best times to post, hashtags to use etc. It doesn’t make sense to spend time on them. That is my experience.

Let’s share and learn from each other.

I wish you all the best and if I can be of any help, let me know.

Happy Ideating!

Hemang.

The only way to succeed at innovation inspired by Super Mario

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Have you ever played Super Mario? If you have, I can almost guarantee that you did not stop at one attempt. You played it over and over again until you mastered the first level. And the one after, and one after until your parents or spouse gave you a stern warning. Mario is an awesome game that gets the innovation funda. There are levels to be discovered, tunnels get you somewhere, new worlds pop up. Let me test your memory now.

Did you receive a user manual or an instruction set to play the game?

That’s a mind blowing aspect for a bestselling and maybe a best loved game. No one got instructions. Anyone, any level, age group could pick it up. You were up and running (literally), figured out how to knock those turtles off, and get to the flag. Time for another question.

What was the penalty when you failed in a level?

You had to restart that level. Not from beginning. Even better was that you could add lives after completing levels.

Mario rewarded attempts! This is the innovation takeaway for today.

To get better at innovation, you must take multiple attempts. Let’s say you are in a brainstorming session. You provide ideas but they are not leading anywhere. No problemo! Go for it again the next time and the one after.

The multiple attempts are helping you discover new avenues.

Just like in the game we discovered new tunnels or ways to make yourself bigger. More ideation sessions are adding to your skills. One fine day, you will reach a breakthrough to solve the problem. It might feel like you had an amazing session but the real winner here is the body of work you’ve put.


What’s preventing us from doing this?

Ourselves. Most of the times, we get in the way of our free-flowing ideas. We add filters – what will other’s think, what if this is not a quality idea, will it earn money etc. All are good questions to be asked at a later time. In an ideation session, the number of attempts matters. You have to generate volume.

From the forest of ideas, a clear path will emerge but first plant the trees.

If this doesn’t sink in, go play Super Mario. You will have fun and emerge inspired.

Try it 🙂

Happy Ideating!

Hemang.

Do this to get Super Insights to form your Strategy

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I have a long-held dislike with surveys asking to rate on a scale of 1 – 10 with anything less than 8 being the worst. There is an optional comment field, which I suspect gets filled with 1-word praises or lengthy rants. Such data is pointless (largely) to determine what to improve.

If things were either awesome or terrible, you would know by just looking.

A restaurant doing great business will have customers lining up left, right, and center. A restaurant screwing up orders will have customers shouting left, right, and center. Data collection did zilch to know this.

What you need are qualitative insights from your users or potential customers.

Your job is to know their issues and what is meaningful to them. Why is it an issue? What will fixing it help them. You need to dive beyond the superficial answer. Surveys and interviews are terrible to get these insights. So, what should we do?

Have conversations.

Back when I was planning my grad studies in the US, I followed a playbook prescribed by seniors. It was a simple process – select universities based on rankings, budget, and your scores. Get this to 8 – 10 universities with the hope of being admitted to 3 – 4. To get to the final 10 that would be blessed by my application, I turned to their websites.

A good website meant a good university. Especially, the ones with sparse pages of faculty members went lower in my list. This was a quantitative exercise. I came up with a solid plan to be presented to my parents until I bumped into Chintan, my senior visiting after a year in the US. I was ecstatic on seeing him!

Not because he was a good friend – I barely knew him. However, I planned to apply to his university, which was in my list. It was a good school, great website, good faculty, fit my budget, and I was confident of getting in there.

Chintan was at one of the hangout places in our college. I sat with him and asked him how it was going. Over the next 30 mins or so, he shared how difficult it was for him. Studies aside, his experience was not favorable. He gave me numerous details that would have never been found on the website – the class strength, the lack of on-campus jobs, lack of research opportunities etc. I realized how big and costly my blind spots would be.

The start point of receiving these insights was a conversation.

A simple “Hi, How are you doing?” Not a survey form. Not 20 questions to be rated on a scale of 1 – 5. Just, a regular conversation between friends.

Going by what he shared, I sought similar conversations with students who were at other universities on my list. I then formed a modified list and from that chose Drexel for my MS and PhD in Engineering.

To hear another perspective, you need to watch this conversation between Jaimit Doshi and Adhar Masand. I stumbled upon this podcast recently and am in awe of how well Jaimit explains the customer discovery process.

In our world that encourages moving fast, conversations are an underrated goldmine.

As Jaimit says, only consider insights from 45-min or longer conversations. Anything less, it may have transactional data, i.e. data with lower insights.

Aim to have conversations where you let the other person open up. It isn’t so much about the place. It’s about how you make the other person comfortable.

That’s when we share what’s meaningful to us with context.

Having said that, how would you rate this newsletter on a scale of 1 – 10? 😉

Happy Ideating!

Hemang.

Your Favorite Movie Shows the Path to Terrific Insights

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Can you guess the movie I’ve watched the most number of times? In a formal setting, I’d say something intellectual like Interstellar, The Matrix (all of them), Lord of the Rings, Andaz Apna Apna etc. While I’ve watched them many times, one movie rules over them all. It’s none other than one of Govinda’s super hit films – Shola Aur Shabnam.

At one point, I knew everything about that movie.

Well, it goes back to the summers where content was what Doordarshan served, which wasn’t exciting at all. Fortunately, we had a video parlor close to us. You borrowed video cassettes one at a time. The guy who ran it would drop and pick up the cassettes after 2 days. They were diligent as they had a limited stock and many bored students to serve.

In one case, he forgot to collect on time. We liked the movie and were prepared to pay late fees, which weren’t much. I believe the parlor closed and we inherited the one grand movie in my school life, Shola aur Shabnam.

It’s crazy to imagine a time where your source of entertainment was one movie.

Any time you got bored, Shola aur Shabnam went to our VCR player. Why didn’t we get other movies? We did, as a family. In other words, parental decision was involved. I was pestering them for other movies to be seen on the big screen, for ice creams, or toys. A Rs. 2 movie permission was not worth adding to the list.

What does watching one movie over and over again do?

Expectedly, you knew every dialogue. Every song. Every side character. Every cringe moment. How the story flows. What makes it work. Don’t you also do that with movies you like?

That’s the point for today’s newsletter – Total immersion.

We are drowned by stimulus in every direction – movies, books, case studies, web series, emails. When and where are you taking time to think deeply? How are you extracting insights?

Fortunes are found when you dig at one spot for a long time.

If we keep digging everywhere, we are left with a mess. Instead, think of your consumption and thinking as an oil drilling exercise. Once you find something good, immerse yourself in it.

It’s alright if it appears like you’re stuck on the same thing for eternity.

At some point, ideas will emerge naturally. Allow your real intelligence to shine in the world of AI.

Persist and keep at THE main thing.

It will be worth it.

Happy ideating!

Hemang.

Celebrating Necessity and Types of Needs

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Happy Mother’s Day! In a very corny and cheesy way, today’s article bridges the gap between needs and innovation. As the popular saying goes, Necessity is the Mother of Invention.

Let’s pause and consider – what does a need mean to you?

I believe we consider them to be things we want. Like food, shelter, clothes etc. But we also want phones that never need charging. We want mangoes – if you are from my family, only the alphonso mango will do from Ratnagiri. Anything else is not meeting our needs.

If you noticed, I switched between a need and a want.

Why does it matter? If we address wants, aren’t we meeting our goals? We are but understanding the difference is the key to developing long lasting innovations.

Wants are fleeting desires. Like the wind, they can keep changing. Because of their transient nature, we are fine with a good enough solution. If you wanted Belgian dark chocolate ice-cream but got a chocolate chip ice-cream, it’s fine. We’ll get it the next time. The good enough offering won because it wasn’t a pressing need.

Instead, let’s understand needs.

They come in three flavors:

  1. Primary – these are core needs. Example – notebooks need to have binding that doesn’t fall apart in daily use.
  2. Secondary – these are nice to have. Example – the paper needs to be at least 100 gsm thick. If it’s lesser also, we’d make do.
  3. Latent – these are golden needs that we won’t ever express. Example – the paper is textured so that it feels like papyrus. Your notes have a different quality because of it.

We all will be mostly aligned on primary needs and somewhat aligned on secondary needs. The latent needs can be different because we don’t express them fully. We may not have realized at an internal level. It’s just that when someone looked at the books we like working with, the understanding dawned.

How does this understanding help us to create products or solutions?

  • Meeting primary needs is non-negotiable. That’s why every book in the bookstore has good binding.
  • The secondary needs will vary. There are some books which are printed on thin paper for optimizing budget or thickness (think phone books).
  • The latent needs make their way into the premium section. The folks who understand the customer base will design the solutions for this niche crowd, initially. As the product – market fit is established, the very solution will find a larger audience. Soon enough it will be a secondary and eventually could also become a primary need.

Solve for latent needs and you will realize innovations that the market enjoys.

How to spot them is a topic for another day. For now, I encourage you to look at the products you love and see if you can categorize the different features across the needs.

Happy Ideating!

Hemang.