upstreamthinking.com
5 Ways to Jump-Start Your Innovation Engine - Starting Today.
Stephen Walls, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer Jeff Mulhausen, Co-Founder Upstream Thinking
Despite valiant attempts, organizations still struggle to create a robust engine of innovation. This is due to a number of systemic points of failure. Design thinking is a creative problem-solving approach with a human-centered perspective. It encourages organizations to innovate by focusing on the people they serve.
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What’s stalling you?
Why is it happening?
How might you overcome it?
Seeking innovation only at the product/service level
Organizational Structure around functional silos often encourages a narrow perspective shaped by departments and near term deadlines.
Introducing 3 Levels of Innovation can evolve the organization’s perspective to one of an innovation portfolio that includes a mix of Incremental, Adjacent and Transformational efforts. Business Model Canvas
Using approaches intended to produce only incremental improvements
Goal + Tool Alignment for innovation is often lacking, leaving organizations to leverage legacy marketing approaches anchored on segmentation and limited understanding of customers.
Focusing on the needs of people through Empathy Mapping can reveal unmet needs in the lives of those the organization serves and align teams to a shared understanding. Empathy Map
Relying only on big, quantitative, historical data sets
Organizational Bias typically exists towards overvaluing backwards looking quantitative data at the expense of more future focused qualitative insight.
Deploying Generative Research Methods can expand the insights available to include a view of what an experience looks like through the eyes of a customer. Journey Map
Developing solutions without defining the challenge to be solved
Resource Allocation for innovation often skips the step of rigorously determining which challenge(s) the organization is deciding to pursue and why.
The process of properly forming Challenge Statements can provide clarity for innovation initatives and a disciplined step for leaders to determine the optimal use of resources. Challenge Mapping
Lacking intention about the idea generation process
Process Design for innovation may be missing in an organization. This can result in teammates colliding as they try to generate possibilities yet critique them simultaneously.
Distinguishing different phases of Divergence & Convergence can establish the basis of an innovation process and encourage the iteration necessary to improve ideas. Diverge / Converge Phases