the joys of designing agile solutions for new-age problems

Tathagat VarmaVP, Strategic Process Innovations

[24]7 Innovation Labs

The Joys of

Designing

Agile Solution

s for New-Age

Problems

Discussion Topics

New Product

Development (“NPD”)

What’s new?

Why it sucks?

How to make it joyful…

How it all started?

With the advent of mass production …

then somewhere down the line…

…and now!

•Task: Visualize your creative / innovation / new product development process•Time: 2 min•Tip: Keep it simple

Does it look like this?

http://www.polaine.com/playpen/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/creative_process.png

Or, like this?

http://revisionlab.wordpress.com/that-squiggle-of-the-design-process/

Why is NPD such fun Problem: Design

an effective lighting solution

for Dharavi homes.

Problem: How to help farmers get best prices

for their products?

and a world of exciting new ideas…

New Product Development: Old vs New

Old NPDDeveloped markets

Industrial Enterprises

Large R&D $$$s

$(Technology) >> $(People)

Closed Innovation

Technology-driven

Forecast based Production

Long gestation period

Top 3 / Land grab

Mostly Commercial

Slow upgrade cycle

New NPD

Saturated + emerging markets

Knowledge-based enterprises

Small Startup $s (and ¢)

$(Technology) << $(People)

Open Innovation

User needs-driven

Feedback based Design

Short experimentations

Long tail / Zero Billion $

Often Social Innovations

Fast upgrade cycle

Our Charter?

Build next Gen

Faster, Better, Cheaper…mousetrap!!!

Our challenge…

Design, Develop and

Deliver Successful Products

and Services

Continuous Innovation• UX• Features• Performance

Deliver at Speed• TTM• Support• Upgrades

Manage Total Costs• Idea to Launch • Sell ‘Free’• Protect

investment

Images: http://www.appcelerator.com/products/, http://www.ccfninsurance.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/costs.jpg

Our Odds…

http://www.stage-gate.com/resources_stage-gate_latestresearch.php

Many reasons, but my 2¢…

Uncalibrated assumptions

about the constantly changing opportunity, market, products and customer needsStealth mode mindset that gives no opportunity to get early real-world feedback for course correction

Poor collaboration

among internal stakeholders leading to conflicts, delays in decision-making and execution, duplication of efforts and diffusion of responsibility, among others

Premature Scaling up

too soon before all aspects of opportunity, market, products and customer needs have been validated

Sample these beauties…

How to make it better?

There’s a way to do it better…

Find it.

Thomas Edison

What are we trying to solve?

How about the scientific method…

“a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses”

http://www.moisiadis.com/creation_science/Scientific%20Method%20edited.JPG

Would it solve all problems?

The scientific method is a pattern of problem-solving behavior employed in finding out the nature of what exists, whereas the design method is a pattern of behavior employed in inventing things of value which do not yet exists.  Science is analytic, design is constructive.”  (Gregory, 1966)

…and how does our product development process look like?

“The Stage-Gate system assumes that the proposed strategy is the right strategy; the problem is that except in the case of incremental innovations, the right strategy cannot be completely known in advance. The Stage-Gate system is not suited to the task of assessing innovations whose purpose is to build new growth businesses, but most companies continue to follow it simply because they see no alternative.”

Clayton Christensen, “The Innovator’s Dilemma”

Does Agile help?...yes, but…

http://www.infoq.com/resource/news/2008/01/iterating-and-incrementing/en/resources/Patton_Incremental_Iterative_MnaLisa.jpg

What if you didn’t know if you wanted a painting, a sculpture or a mousetrap, a Monalisa or a Facebook or a Porsche?

How would you design and develop something the world hasn’t known yet?

So, what else can we do?

Learn from children!

How Children Learn?

Holt observed hundreds of children and came to an interesting conclusion. He found that the best learners are also the ones that are having the most fun. The best learners are the ones that like to play with the noise around them. Play doesn’t work if it isn’t fun, which means that learning in times of chaos and change will tend to work best when it is fun as well. Play minus fun equals labor, which doesn’t have the same learning benefits.http://news.noahraford.com/?p=203

Customer Development

GET OUT OF THE BUILDING…

Minimize TOTAL time through the

loop

Instead of making complex plans that are based on a lot of assumptions, you can make constant adjustments with a steering wheel call the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loops. Through this process of steering, we can learn when and if it’s time to make a sharp turn called a pivot or whether we should persevere along the current path

The MVP is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort or development time. The MVP lacks many features that may prove essential later on.

MVP is not a minimal product!

Validated Learning

• Validated learning about customers is the measure of progress in a Lean Startup – not lines of working code or achieving product development milestones.

• Process in which one learns by trying out an initial idea and then measuring it to validate the effect. Each test of an idea is single iteration in a larger process of many iterations whereby something is learnt and the lessons applied to the succeeding tests.[1]

• Typical steps in validated learning:– Specify a goal– Specify a metric that represents the goal– Act to achieve the goal– Analyze the metric - did you get closer to the goal?– Improve and try again

Pivot

In the end, it’s about “Double-loop Learning”

To conclude…

Solving a problem makes us happy

Happy minds are better learners

Continuous feedback

amplifies learning

Experimentation is a great way to solve problems

and get feedback

References and Pictures

• Cover slide: http://velojoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ARIAL_PATTERN_LG.jpg • http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/04/procrastination.aspx • http://www.nbcnews.com/id/16580741/ns/health-mental_health/t/if-you-procrastinate-dont-put-r

eading/

• http://sidsavara.com/personal-productivity/procrastination/procrastination-survey-results • http://www.usereffect.com/topic/how-to-solve-any-problem• http://www.diegm.uniud.it/create/games.htm • http://www.glencoe.com/sec/busadmin/entre/teacher/creative/stimulate/exer8.htm • http://hbr.org/2008/06/design-thinking/ • http://www.slideshare.net/akhella/design-thinking-for-startups-1971227 • http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/04/04/is-there-a-single-example-of-a-company-that-star

ted-in-stealth-mode-and-launched-to-success/

• http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1015091/The-New-Science-of-Product • http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2011/07/12/why-good-products-fail-and-what-you-can-do-about

-it/

• http://www.marketingnewproduct.com/why-new-products-fail/ • http://www.theproduct.com/marketing/product_failure.htm • http://hbr.org/2011/04/why-most-product-launches-fail/ • http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/98834-12-apple-products-that-failed • http://www.baddesigns.com/ • http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2006/03/the_zero_billio.html • http://news.noahraford.com/?p=203 • http://www.khoslaventures.com/design-thinking/

And remember…in the end, there is no such thing as a ‘problem’

http://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/BusinessAnalystHumor/tabid/218/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1742/Problem_Solving_Process_for_Business_Analysts.aspx

Thanks…

http://managewell.nethttp://twitter.com/tathagatvarma

http://slideshare.net/managewell