Jack and Kim walked down the hall away from their CEO’s office. They were buzzing with excitement. “Wow, I can’t believe he gave us full reign to build our innovation team!” said Kim. When their CEO had asked if their process of cycling through pain points and potential solutions with customers could accelerate innovation, their response had been, “Yes!” They also gave him this caveat: Design Thinking is more about finding the right solution than faster time to market.
“I thought he would reject our plan of testing early prototypes with customers because some ideas will turn out to be the wrong solution. But he didn’t,” said Kim. She instinctually believed that using design methodologies to discover the solutions her customers needed the most was the right path. But beyond the stories she had read, she didn’t have any real proof.
“There is this fear that customers will think we don’t know what we’re doing if we show them incomplete or wrong solutions,” said Jack. As marketing director, Jack needed to protect their strong brand image. “But I think they will love helping us create solutions. And they will especially love the results, if we can deliver solutions that address a real problem they need to solve.” They had arrived at Celia’s door. “Well …?” she said. Celia had been waiting on pins and needles. She managed the operations team that had won the innovation contest, and they were eager to get started.
“He’s all in,” said Kim. Kim managed the innovation contests but previous investments had been on things like apps or products. This time the investment was in the team and the problem to be solved. It was an important shift in the way they worked, and she felt it would have a profound impact on their business and the value they delivered to their customers.
Kim and Jack sat down in Celia’s office. “We will need to help the team develop their customer problem solving muscle,” said Kim. “I know this team is very customer focused, but their solution design will need to be driven by customer insights, not by what they think the customer should do. They will need to shift their thinking from inside out to outside in.”
Celia sat back in her chair. “How do we do that?” she asked. She knew her team would not react well to more training.
“Jack and I are going to be their coaches,” said Kim. “And yes, we will need to start by learning how to discover customer needs, how to listen for pain points. And how to prototype and test our ideas side by side with our customers.” She couldn’t wait to roll up her sleeves and engage with the team. “Besides the solution the team develops, I will be building and testing our innovation engine. I want proof of concept for future efforts,” she said.
Celia nodded. “That could work,” she said. “Let’s go talk to the team.”
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