Appunti - Management of Design and Innovation Projects

Management of design and innovation projects (A.Y. 2020/2021)

Notes and summary

Prof. Claudio Dell’era and Stefano Magistretti

MSc in Management Engineering

Politecnico di Milano (A.Y. 2020/2021)

All the material included in this paper is related to the notes taken during the lectures of the course (no copyrights have been infringed) also for the “Design Thinking for Business” course.

Lecture 01: Design thinking as creative problem solving

Creative problem solving and sprint execution are the two methodologies that will be adopted during this course. We start by saying that the context is crucial to analyze user needs and to start building empathy: designers, managers, and, more broadly, innovators have to put themselves in people’s shoes when they are gifting them with an innovation (see the video “Liter of Light”, presented during this lecture).

We need to immerse ourselves in the (digital) experience and this is all about mindset and attitude, not just about tools: we have to train ourselves!

Two fundamental concepts are frame and reframe:

• Frame It means to organize complexity (i.e., what is there) and knowledge in something we can digest. When we’re able to absorb and give meaning to information we are framing. It answers the question: what is happening there? Different competitors can frame in the same way.
• Reframe When we give a new understanding to the information in order to create new knowledge (i.e., when we frame multiple times). When we really put ourselves into the problems: same information, same challenge, but framed in a different way; a new way of looking at problems, from a new perspective.

Frame and reframe are not the same thing, but they both start from a deep understanding of the problem, then the solution will come, based on creativity and originality. Framing problems in a different way allows us to reach and find different solutions, moving from naïve solutions to creative solutions.

We need to say that Design Thinking can be considered an innovation approach with a strong focus on understanding problems, but what is a problem? A problem is not something we can find: we can only find the symptoms and people’s interpretations. Problems are linked to Creative Problem Solving that states that the ability to interpret the problem is linked to how you will solve it. It’s crucial to look at problems with different lenses!

Lecture 02: Empathize and define

While in the Design Strategy course the focus was on Innovation of Meaning, this course will focus, as we already mentioned, on Creative Problem Solving and Sprint Execution.

Creative problem solving

This approach was mainly conceived by Tim Brown at IDEO and moves from inspiration (outside-in practice) and ideation (opportunity for design) to implementation (innovative solution). Roger Martin transformed this concept into theory: this approach mixes analytical thinking (studying the reality and finding potential relationships we are investigating) and intuitive thinking (that comes from the gut, not following processes or strict methods). In Creative Problem Solving, we continuously move from concrete experience that deals with analysis to abstract conceptualization that deals with intuition and also includes reflective observation and active experimentation.

Coming back to the concept of Design Thinking, we can stress the fact that it aims at creating not only original solutions but also at fostering creativity: signals coming from the market and frame them in a new way… The solution that will come maybe is already out there and creating something completely new can be a mistake! Signals can be weak or strong:

• Weak signals Small indicators of something that might emerge as a potential greater change: it’s not easy to imagine the consequences of their expansion.
• Strong signals Trends easy to be identified and be aware of: we’re able to consider their consequences and be prepared for them as we approach the future.

In this scenario, we consider two pillars:

• Be human-centered: immerse yourself in the context and in the user’s shoes. Be empathetic: look at the reality from the user’s eyes, changing your own perspective. Be prepared about the topics you will face during the interviews: users should feel confident!
• Reframe (applying a search and recombination logic) the problems (cognitive representations of signals that you can retrieve) in a personal/team-based way. Don’t take for granted what is already out there, but reframe it!

This course will use the framework of the Stanford Design School, in which the first two blocks relate to the problem space, while the others relate to the solution space. It has to be mentioned that all the models rely on divergent and convergent thinking, that’s why usually some phases in the models are down, while others are up.

Let’s now have an overview of the different stages:

• Empathize Frame what the market is conveying to you, adopting users’ perspective. In this stage, we adopt an analytical attitude, finding signals.
• Define We now forget the outside perspective and we use our own perspective, putting our talent looking at something other people have already seen. In this stage, we adopt intuitive thinking, reframing the reality.
• Ideate From reframe to embryonic solutions, we now use creativity to generate stuff.
• Prototype It’s the embodiment of the best ideas of the “ideation” phase; here, we make hypotheses, test, learn and prototype ideas. This phase is related to something we’re not sure about (prototypes are tools to learn!).
• Test We test prototypes and our assumptions.

Empathize

In this phase, we should be able to find out the signals we’re looking for during interviews and understand users’ reactions (both positive and negative). Be curious and go deeper in understanding the reason why during this phase! Also, it’s important to build up users’ stories and engage people, trying always to adopt a kid’s attitude. Empathize is divided into different stages that we are now going to analyze one by one:

• Exploring In this sub-phase, we broaden the context, looking at competitors: what are the differences? What are the similarities? We interpret the signals coming from the environment: which of them will become knowledge to frame problems? Find these signals and interpret them from the user’s perspective: why are they communicating in this way? Why are things exposed in this way? Why are they partnering with these firms?

An example is provided by Nespresso: this brand uses details to create a story that people will live when they are in the shop, dealing with luxury and premium items. The company is closer to a jewelry shop rather than a grocery (look for example at how products are displayed both in the digital and in the physical environment). It’s like a home experience in which they’re selling not only the capsules but also screens that you can use in your home. It’s like a boutique: it deals with exclusive distribution and selective channels. The small signals refer to the way in which products are displayed and to the different processes in relation to other coffee shops: Nespresso is closer to a wine bar in which there’s a sort of ritual of a boutique. In the Nespresso boutiques, people are “forced” to taste the coffee before buying it: coffee becomes no more a commodity product and people feel like “coffee experts” (the names of the coffee make people feel like experts, like it happens with the wine). In this specific case, the reason why is not completely connected to the good that people buy, but it goes beyond coffee… Nespresso brings people from small signals to stories that the retail brand wants the user to live, making them understand that particular kind of experience.

Another example is Eataly: the first thing they sell are books so that people know what they’re eating (the origins, how to cook…) and they also organize courses. This brand is all based on discovering food culture.

• Both Nespresso and Eataly based their experiences on clues. They are particular surprising facts: what kinds of stories do they want to communicate? The final goal should be to build up small signals to deliver a story/experience.
• Another example is Starbucks, in particular, the one placed in Milan. This is a monumental store that aims at showing that, in the country of coffee, the American company can sell its coffee, too. But the store is not just about selling coffee: also, people can see the process of coffee-making and the employees call people by name when they give them the coffee (like it happens with Italian baristas). Thus, the strategy was to adapt to the Italian culture and display the whole process. Starbucks store in Milan is becoming the brand icon in the world: the company was able to enter the Italian market, in the country of coffee… And they are perfectly legitimized to be there!

• Knowing This sub-phase deals with the explicit needs: people are able to tell these needs to you, but these can be very superficial. Tools that can be used in this scenario are interviews (what people say) and focus groups.
• Immersing This sub-phase deals with the observable needs: people are not aware of them, but you can observe users and their reactions. Tools that can be used in this scenario are ethnography (i.e., observing people and analyzing their needs in the context of use) and Netnography (basically, an ethnography done online in blogs, social media, apps, mobile applications… analyzing users in the digital environment where they don’t know they are observed, for example following influencers and looking at how people react to their posts).
• Discovering This last sub-phase deals with tacit and latent needs, in which innovators give users opportunities to design and create what they need or see what people have already built. Tools related to this practice refer to co-creation platforms, user toolkits, and lead user analysis.

Interviews

Let’s have now a focus on interviews. They are a qualitative methodology to gather data from the users (we always should start from qualitative tools to gather data). You start defining a various sample of users (i.e., different categories of users) and be aware that every person might have its own story to tell, but remember that you don’t have to waste time on things you are not interested in (keep the focus on the topic)!

Which are the different categories of users that we can interview?

• Representative users They represent the average users (try to avoid this kind of users, they are not so suitable for innovation). Ex. core drivers.
• New potential users These people will become users of your brand. Ex. not wealthy users.
• Precursory users They are able to anticipate what will come. Ex. teenagers.
• Non-users They are users that don’t buy and use things from your brand. Ex. non-drivers.
• Fringe users They show strange behaviors in relation to a particular brand and adopt alternative ways to live their relationship with it: they don’t fit with the mainstream culture, but are unconventional and at the edge. Ex. unconventional users.
• Advanced expert users Lead users: if interviewed and analyzed properly, they can suggest what the company should do. Ex. modifiers.

Tips for good interviews

• Be clear about the objectives before the interview starts.
• Remember that it’s a story to share, not just an interview to fill.
• Be welcoming at the beginning with easy questions to make the person feel confident and appropriate for the interview.
• There’re no wrong answers: it’s just people’s view about the reality.
• Look for peaks, not for the average experience.
• Asking "why" is the first thing you can do to move deeper in what people feel for a specific need and why they behave in a certain way.

Once interviews are concluded you can move to more quantitative methodologies like surveys and questionnaires.

Define

In this phase, we classify users’ needs, trying to recognize clusters, and so similarities, in contents and needs, which are classified in needs areas. Define is based on “how might we” questions that help to move from the problem to the solution space, giving enough space to generate new solutions. Here’s some tips for better HMW questions:

• HMW questions don’t have to be too broad.
• They should come from your insights.
• Try to enlarge their scope to arrive at more solutions (generate more than one HMW at the beginning of the process).

A crucial tool that can be used here is the Kano model, applied by designers and managers to shape people’s experiences. According to this model, we have:

• Baseline expectations Things in an experience that must be there and are taken for granted by the users.
• Linear satisfiers Performance attributes that increase customers’ enjoyment (they are known attributes).
• Delighters Something that can surprise the users (customers don’t even know they want them).

To track user experience, one can use the Customer journey map. It’s the map of the user experience in relation to the brand over time and it identifies relevant touchpoints, pleasure, and pain points.

In Define, framing takes the floor: this means, as we previously mentioned, focusing on certain information, forgetting what’s out of that frame. It’s crucial to select relevant information and start thinking about possible relations inside the frame, cutting out non-relevant information. Since the key is to start from the problem, we need to start from the problem statement: what’s the core problem of the brand you are consulting? What are the symptoms? What is the most relevant problem you have identified? With the problem statement, we try to answer these questions, putting in just one sentence the target person, the need, the motivation, and the friction. Please note that the problem statement is referred to a persona, not to a specific interview!

In this phase, innovators introduce their viewpoint and talent in framing and interpreting the problem they want to address. It includes three main activities:

• Classifying
• Framing Be concise and selective in choosing the information to define the problem in a meaningful way. In this activity, we try to interpret what we see and give a reason why to the context.
• Reframing It’s a search and recombination process: innovators should look for signals that then should be recombined in an original way in order to creatively frame the problem they want to address. Remember: it’s an interpretation, not just an analysis! Reframing allows thinking original and creatively frame the problem you are addressing. Creative logics support reframing (see lecture 03).

Note that the Define phase is not only a matter of analytical thinking but also a process of sense-making and interpretation of what we see.

Difference between needs and insights

• Needs They are facts and evidences from reality: thus, we can retrieve them from the reality itself. People are able to show needs through their behaviors.
• Insights They are the reason why a need is emerging and is becoming an evidence. They are the reason that led to a specific need, what’s behind it. Basically, it’s the interpretation of all the stuff that you can collect during the empathize phase. They help the innovators to move from the problem to the solution space.

Talk: Alessandro Confalonieri (Head of Service Design at Doing)

We report here some key messages from his speech:

• At Doing they design for the people: it’s a Service Design driven company.
• They design experiences, not just interfaces.
• At Doing they care about People, Experience, and Process.
• Surveys can be better to cluster different types of people.
• They always start from the users to gain insights that then they transform when it comes to the ideation and prototyping phases.
• Design is not just a matter of workshops.
• Always try to exchange information with managers and engage them in the innovation process (if needed, explain why the design driven process can be relevant for a company).

Lecture 03: Design thinking and digital transformation

As we already mentioned, creative logics support reframing and several kinds of reasoning exist to reframe needs. We are going to analyze abductive (1), associative (2), and speculative (3) thinking: they represent alternative ways of thinking for an original interpretation of phenomena that...