So the onus really rests with the person who has the idea. Here again is the ubiquitous what and why. If you ask the intended user what he wants, he will probably mislead you. If you on the other hand ask him why he needs something, you will get your first insight into a new product idea or service.
Tim Brown and David Kelly of IDEO practically invented Design Thinking as a thinking model to better understand consumer behaviour and solve design riddles. Understandably the term has been misunderstood or often not quite understood at all. Design thinking assumes no solutions or presumes nothing toward a solution. It encourages a solution seeker to look to the beneficiary for insights. It preaches a seven step process to arrive at answers. It encourages extreme diversity in a group that comes together to address a problem that defies easy answers.
To harvest new product ideas or solve current problems in an organisation you need to immerse yourself in the problem. Often the initial answers that you find so easily are not the real reason for the problem. All events happen in a complex environment. And the environment could be concealing the solution.
So encourage your employees to ask “why” to a problem and you will be amazed at the insights that pop up. Assemble a motley group to solve a problem including the intended beneficiary. Don’t criticise the idea flow in the group. And don’t be afraid to rearrange and dissect and recombine the suggestions.
Finally, when you do find a potential solution, prototype it as soon as possible. Draw it. Make a clay model of it. Describe it in detail. Try it out as soon as possible so that you fail early and correct or modify the design or solution.
All new ideas are nesting within a problem. So when you drop an egg tray and the eggs crack, interrogate the event. Why did the egg shell crack? Why is the ground hard? Is the hard ground the problem? Is the fragility of the egg shell the problem? Is the shape of the egg the problem? And so on. In the right answer lies a commercial opportunity. Of course, you could curse the Government and be none the richer. I’m just saying!
Cedric Serpes is Associate Professor
at the Goa Institute of Management.
He keeps all his eggs in different baskets
and then cannot find the baskets.
