pain point

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.

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.