Innovation, Growth, and Getting to Where You Want to Go

In this article on "design thinking" - encompassing design research and the design process - the authors present the “ways to grow” model to help managers direct and assess innovation efforts, using design thinking as a business asset. The authors work from the premise that "innovation loves structure".

They recommend that "innovation bias" be determined in the initial stage of a design process and list these three questions to identify biases:

1. Human: “How might we become more relevant to people outside our existing markets?”
   
2. Technology: “How might we leverage this new technology in the marketplace?”
3. Business: “How might innovation allow us to grab share from our competitors in this growing new market?”

Next, they offer the framework "Ways to Grow", for "identifying, describing, and prioritizing opportunities for growth in a way that is simple yet actionable." The "Extend and Create" categories are suited to new offerings, while the "Manage" and "Adapt" categories are suited to existing offerings. Viewing the vertical columns, the "Extend" and "Manage" categories are focused on existing users, while the "Create" and "Adapt" categories are suited to new users.

EXTEND                     MANAGE

• Extending brands     • Raising price

• Share of wallet         • Raising usage

• Leveraging users      • Winning share

CREATE                     ADAPT

• Creating markets     • Expanding footprint

• Disrupting markets   • Winning share

A second tool is used: "a) to identify the type of growth you intend to create, b) to recognize the scope of that challenge and deploy an appropriate innovation process, and c) to assess your portfolio of innovation efforts. It uses quadrants to assess growth as "revolutionary, evolutionary, or incremental." Placing a process in one of its quadrants can help match resources and processes, including the right type of people to assign to the team, and the right type of outcome measures to measure success. For example, a revolutionary project requires exploration-focused processes and people, while an incremental project requires execution-focused processes and people.