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MANAGING INNOVATION PROJECT
Adopting Design thinking, we will rely mainly on two main approaches:
- Creative problem solving to frame the challenge of the project
- Sprint execution to transform the challenge into an idea and then test it The challenge’s aim reframe what we get from the market, re-interpret it in an innovative way; Look at the insight we collected, change the perspective, and transform them into something that can even surprise the users we are addressing instead of simply answering to what the market is asking to you. VIDEO “liter of light” what are the capabilities that are fundamental in enabling innovation: Expertise in investigating users’ needs? Expertise in reframing the nature of the problem? Expertise in creatively conceiving original solution? Expertise in embedding innovative technologies in the new solutions? Expertise in effectively combining and prototyping alternative technologies? Users’ needs are intrinsically contextual based. They depend on the experience they are living. So, immersing yourselves in the context of users is fundamental to understand their needs. (Context is intended as the place where they access the product). This means being empathetic : put yourself in the shoes of the people that we are addressing the innovation. What does “ reframing ” mean? It means: o Framing: organize knowledge in front of us that is complex and transform it in something that you can digest (we do it every day, every single moment to simply reality) o Framing: Re-organize information (netnography, surveys) collected and transform them in knowledge that you can absorb, that allow you to understand the deep reason why people do something (check insight definition from other notes) o ..but … “Framing” (put something wide in a narrowed view) is an enabler for innovation but not enough: competitors in the same market can reach similar framing proposals but the real innovation comes from the “Re-framing” ( trial&error approach ). This one will lead you to face same challenge but in a different, innovative way and from another perspective: “interpret differently, from other, the same info you collected”. It’s about interpreting observations and filter them from perceptions that represents symptoms of a different problem at the basis. They are not really connected with deeper needs of users. o Re-framing: capability to rely on your intuition, personal view to give to your innovation process a new meaning, a new understanding, new knowledge. o Re-framing: It’s about capturing signals from a specific context and then put them in the value proposition o Re-framing: It’s far from the “naïve” solution but instead it’s very close to the original context of the problem it’s related with the identification, in the case of the video, of an alternative technology that could satisfy the same needs but really embedded in the context people is facing. o Re-framing: So, it’s about looking at the problem from another new perspective to enable a real innovation process that satisfy deeper needs
Quote FROM EINSTEIN “ If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and only 5 mins in finding the solution”. Creative problem solving is mainly related to the capability of conceiving original ideas, BUT the way you effectively design the problem will allow you to be even more creative in proposing a good solution. So, if you can properly understand, interpret and frame the problem, the final idea will be even more powerful and original instead of a simple and poor interpretation of the problem. (check other notes double diamond). This is why, the great portion of DT approach is about the first diamond: “problem space” not the solution one. One of the main error or human tendency we can do, is considering the problem as a fact, something that is given and not modifiable, as a result of exogenous variables that we can only embrace (or answer through creative solutions) BUT in reality, problem is something that you frame or even create and shape: you can find out the symptoms, what people express, how they, consciously or unconsciously, perceive the problem, but what they convey to you (as clients) is not the problem per se but instead their interpretation of the problem (and sometimes this interpretation can be even wrong). This is why believing that what you can get from the users is the “real problem” is the biggest mistake you can do in running this kind of project, even if we call it creative problem solving. So “solving” phase is more than directly proportional to the “framing of the problem” phase: if you will be poor in interpreting and reframing the problem, you will be poor also in conceiving the solution”. While, if you will be able to read the problem in a richer way (that doesn't mean to have more information than others), if you are able to interpret differently from others the same information that you collected then will discover that it's quite natural that the solution that will emerge would be even richer than the others, because you are looking at the problem through completely different lenses (Re-framing). EX: problem: “elevator is too slow” (users’ feedback) naïve solution “make elevators faster” REFRAMING PROCESS : Is it the lift really is low? or the people are just perceiving the lift slow because they are annoyed by the time they must spend in waiting? In this case, the scope of the solution can be even broader Reframed problem: “ the wait is annoying ”creative and original solution “make the wait felt shorter” i.e. by installing infotainment contents. From a business point of view it could be even more easier to implement, more convenient, efficient, cost saving solution. SO try to challenge yourself not only in framing but also in re-framing several times before you identified the problem reframed that will allow you to be more creative in conceiving the solution!!
described as the stuff that you have to avoid. So it was described as the stuff that could enable you to make mistakes. We were the ones in creating models, frameworks, processes that should fight with intuition, because the analysis in a very positivistic culture was perceived as the panacea for any kind of issue. While there are a lot of studies that demonstrate that sometimes complex problems could be better solved, relying on intuition instead of analysis. And paradoxically, we know in a world where complexity is growing significantly as we are properly living day by day, intuition is becoming even more relevant because of its capability to synthetically recognize what are the fundamental, supporting elements that could allow you to properly solve the issues. And this is exactly the kind of reasoning we will try to go through in management of design innovation project. -- Last Monday, I mentioned quite briefly the Double Diamond that I'm not going to be back to it, but what I would reflect with you is on this chart, and hopefully, we will be able to transform this kind of reasoning, from theoretically, in practical. Both in the first half, but also in the second half of the semester, we will continuously move from abstract conceptualization to concrete experience or even vice versa. That is, let's say, a way to stimulate both your analysis looking at the concrete experience, but then through your intuition, we will try to conceptualize what we are seeing, what you will see. Examples: o As I mentioned at the very beginning, along this week, we will invite you to get in touch with real users to interviews or even survey as I will explain this morning and during interviews will be fundamental to collect the concrete experiences the people you are interviewing at, in relation to the brand you are consulting. Then going back in order to detach yourself from what you have listened to, in order to get what is the real problem, you have to abstractly extract the kind of phenomena that in your eyes are able to cause the reaction coming from the users. So, you continuously move from concrete experience to abstract reasoning, and then you will move forward. o Second example: we will engage you doing in netnography activities. So, we will require you to deeply live the retail experience provided through digital channels by the brands that you will consult. And also in this case, you will mix up the concrete experience that you will have in surfing through the mobile application or even the website. But then you have to conceptualize the kind of feeling, the kind of values that you are able to get from that experience. So you will continue to move from concrete to abstract. And you will move also along the x axis. Honestly, in the first half of the project, you will mainly reflect and observe, while during the second half of the semester and the project, you will transform your reasoning into experimentation. Around experimentation, we will organize a set of activities that hopefully will be
able to move forward the project initially you will experiment among yourself, we will have a dedicated factory entitle IDEATE , where you will initially experiment something alone, then you will be back to your team in order to say whether the experiment that you conceive is the most, let's say valuable one or not. Then, at the end of the factory dedicated to prototype, you will even experiment getting in touch with external interlocutors that could be the users you interview at the really beginning or even new ones. And this back and forward in experimenting is a kind of dynamic that hopefully you will get from especially the second half of the project. But this model was aimed at sharing with you a small observation that in reality we have already pre announced and I would underline again, because it's one of the big messages that we leave to you. Stereotypically we look at the big topic of design thinking as a methodology that should allow you to create stuff, as a methodology that should allow you to have more ideas and consequently to create original solutions. And I'm not saying that the ultimate goal is not that one. But what I would really pass to you is the fact that the design thinking is really connected to these two initial activities (observe & notice + Frame & re-frame) even before designing anything. So don't underestimate your capability to rely on creativity even when you are not creating anything. Creativity is a mindset that you can apply in generating stuff as well as in interpreting phenomena. And considering the amount of solutions already available in the world, today is even more relevant to be creative in interpreting the problem that we're facing, then creating a new solution again. You will have to originally interpret the weak signals you can get from the market and transform them, frame them in a new way, then the solution will come out. The solution that will probably come out, it will be something that is already around, you will discover that especially ideate factory will stimulate you in looking around to find a solution that, even if applied in other contexts, can be quite similar to the one that you will create for your brand. Because we perfectly know that creating something is completely absent in the world, it is a sort of mistake per se. So, looking at the problem, understanding the problem, and framing it in an original way, is something that you can deal with. This is the reason why we will rely on two main pillars (of the CPS in the problem space of the double diamond): ● Being human centered ( observe and notice ) capability to put yourself in the shoes of the user that you will serve. How much you will be able to immerse yourself in the context that your innovation will deal with. This is the reason why we will engage you in interviewing real users. And being empathetic with someone else, it doesn't mean just to make questions, but it means to look at the reality he or she is looking at from his or her viewpoint. That means that you have to forget, for a while, the kind of relationship you have with the brand that you will consult and try to wear the pair of glasses that your users are wearing. This will also imply that the user you will pick up will be crucial, even more than the question that you will give to them. And secondly, having in your mind the kind of topics to cover and preparing the kind of discussion you will love to have with the users, is even more important than the answers you will get, you have to be prepared in the kind of topics you would surf through. You had to know upfront the kind of dialogue you would
the moment where you divergent and you converge over the needs and basically you define the perspective that you want to tackle; Then you have divergence and convergence during the ideation which is the creative part where you generate ideas but then you have also the prototype; And then you have the implementation part, which is more related to the testing the moment where you will craft your solution and then you can iterate and go back
Stanford design school (2)
It was conceived by the Stanford design school. This is the reason why it's really close to the IDEO mentality. Even if it is significantly different from the double diamond from a pure content view, they are quite aligned. Here, you can see the divergent convergent dynamics considering that they move from up to down and then up and then finally down. So, they are conveying to us the fact that we need to rely on both convergent and divergent steps. While the two initial phases could be reconnected to the problem spaces of the first diamond in the Double Diamond model, the last three mainly correspond to the solution space. We'll have a dedicated lecture for each of them and we have even let's say dedicated factories for the final three out of the five phases.
Empathize phase
The empathize phase is the one that aims at collecting signals, it should allow you to put yourself in the reality that you're dealing with and initially frame what the market is conveying to you. To some extent, it is the phase where you will not put your own perspective, it is the one when you will try to avoid your own perspective in order to get the perspective of the user that you are addressing. analytical attitude
Define phase
While this phase is the one where you will partially forget the perspective coming from outside, you will use your own perspective in order to originally read and interpret those information you have already collected in the previous one. Differences between empathize and define phase It means that again going back to the Roger Martin definition in the emphasize phase , you will mainly perform your analytical attitude; while the Define phase you will mainly perform your intuitive thinking. While, in running the empathize phase you have to be really precise in getting the nuances (sfumature)2 around the data you will collect, around the opinion coming from the user that you will interview, around the small signals that may not be verbally expressed by the
users (You will be able to get through the kind of reactions they have in answering your questions); In the define phase, it will be essential to nurture your sense making attitude , your capability to give sense to what you have already seen or analyzed. The Define phase, is the place where you will put your talent in looking at the reality that also many others have already seen. So, you will be able to express your view around d those data that were available also to others. ----You will test this attitude in a small environment that will be your team initially, but then you will also have the opportunity to move back your intuition to the users and consequently having a sort of richer feedback on top of the one that you will get from your teammates------ While at the three last phases is already a bit more straightforward to interpret.
Ideate phase
Here, you will move from the reframed problem, you will identify as a team in an embryonic solution you will conceive, again, initially individually then in teams. So, in this phase, you will use the creativity in the most traditional way: in order to generate stuff, in order to ideate the new solution. Probably the ideate phase is the easiest phase to go through, while moving from idea to prototype and even test, you will recognize that seems easy, but it's quite complicated.
Prototype phase
When you will prototype stuff, you will be stimulated in making hypotheses, you will prototype something in a certain direction, not only because you feel that the direction is the most promising one, but you will prototype stuff in order to test something that you're not sure about. So prototyping is not just the embodiment of the best idea you conceived. But it is something more, prototype is the tool to learn is not just a tool to validate what you have already conceived. This means that prototypes will be mainly about things that you are not sure about. If you're more than sure that users will be in love with a specific feature that was mentioned several times during the interviews, it's a feature provided by all the competitors of the brand that you are consulting. So, maybe that will not be the future that you will need to prototype. While, if you feel that something is really intriguing, but you are not sure that the market will be aligned with you. Or if you feel that that specific feature is the one that can make the difference between you and the competitors. That feature is probably the one that will require a deep prototyping effort. Because it would be the one that will allow you to learn more. The innate tendency is “let's do something at our best, the best stuff that we can do and then let's see”. No, this is exactly a kind of trajectory that probably will not allow you to learn. You have to organize the prototype, even different prototypes according to the hypothesis that you would surf through. And so it would be important to organize, for example, prototypes that will allow you to run A/B test, organized prototypes that will allow you to test different paths that users can go through (using the smartphone application for example) that you will conceive for them, in order to recognize which one of the alternative trajectories you are thinking about, is the most appreciated one. So, prototypes are tools to learn, more than embodiment to validate what you have already conceived, even because if you will live the prototype in this way, in reality, you will discover that the test will be useless. You will do the
look at the even broader landscape, picking up brands that work in adjacent industries, but that are related to the brand that you're consulting. Try to interpret those signals that come from the cultural environment. For example, looking at the brands loved by the people targeted by the brand that you're consulting. Try to understand the kind of that are appreciated by the people that you're looking at. So don't assume that just surfing through the website you will be knowledgeable enough in order to judge what is good or what is not good in the stuff that they are providing. So, from a model perspective, the kind of graphical representation we will share with you is exactly this one (exploring cultural clues). Especially in retail, that it's accessible to anyone of us, there are a lot of clues around and you have to identify them, you have to capture those signals, that accordingly to your interpretation will become knowledge you will rely on in framing the problem. But in some instances, you have to become a sort of Sherlock Holmes in finding the signals, and then interpret what they mean to the users. Again, when you work, you will have to ask yourself every time Why, why they display the product and services in this way, Why they organize the process accordingly to these phases instead of the other one, Why they are partnering with someone else in delivering the specific service, Why they are communicated to me through these codes. Don't forget that retail is the last mile provided by a brand to engage the user in buying a product. So any detail designed by a retailer aims at talking with the end user examples that you can even test by your own. Let me use a couple of example:
Nespresso
If you have visited one of the Nespresso boutique or if you have already the chance to surf through the website, both visiting the digital retail channel or even the physical one, you will recognize that they are using a lot of small details in order to build up a story that at the end of the day will be the one will remain in our head. Even the name that they are using is already conveyed to us a piece of the story that they are building up. Now, forget that when they conceived the Nespresso boutique format, the coffee was mainly sold in two different channels on the one hand grocery, where you can buy the raw materials and that will cook the coffee at home in order to drink it or eventually the bar. They created a third category of retailer: the Nespresso boutique, where even if they were selling a commodity as the coffee was, they were presenting the stuff in a more luxurious and premium way. If you look at their furniture in the retail shopper, you will discover that they are even closer to a jewelry shop, instead of a grocery one. I would really draw your attention in thinking for a while to ESSELUNGAbig distributors, and then a jewelry shop. The way products are displayed, the way you can get in touch with the personnel is significantly different. This is just one of the small signals that you can get just looking at the way products and services are proposed, shown both in the physical area and in the digital. The Nespresso boutique is conceived as a place where you can buy the capsule and even a place where you can prototype the kind of home experience you will have. So, you can taste the coffee but you can also spend time choosing the display you would love to have at home in order to show different capsules to your guests. As I mentioned before, they named the Nespresso as a boutique in order to demonstrate or to build a story around the fact that they are using exclusive distribution channels. Now, we are living in a significantly different world where you can buy the Nespresso capsule through different channels, but at the really beginning the capsules were distributed only through website owned by Nespresso and the boutique, again owned by Nespresso. So very selective channels. If you think
that coffee was a commodity this is exactly the opposite: they went through a completely different strategy. If you will put together this kind of small signals about the way products are displayed to you, you can even recognize that from a process point of view, from a pure experience point of view; they integrate pieces of experience that can pass to you different values in comparison to shops dealing with coffee. In the picture, you can find the sort of corner in the Nespresso boutique where users are invited to stay in order to taste the coffee. And again, please take a look to the furniture, the pieces of furniture that they are using, the way people can sit down in front of a sales people from Nespresso, it's even closer to the experience that you can have in a wine bar, more than the one that you can have at the coffee bar. So there is a sort of ritual that gives value to the experience that you are living, there is something precious, there will be someone that will dedicate time to you just with you, in order to explain what is behind the product that you are going to eventually buy, or at least taste. And they are so precious that you can't buy without tasting. So before buying them, you have to taste them as the wine, that at the end of the day, you are not even able to recognize the taste. But the fact that you are tasting makes an experience per se, that maybe will allow you to remember the kind of wine you will drink at home independently by the pure taste that it has. So they are creating slightly different pieces of experience. So they were the first one in properly relying on social network initiative in order to create circles. Even if you are buying, again, a commodity product as coffee, you feel yourself as part of a circle, a premium circle. You're not buying the coffee that is available to all of us, even if an espresso is available to all of us. And now it's so diffuse that it is surely a mass market, but the feeling that you have in buying that kind of coffee in comparison to the other one, even if you are talking about mass market products, is significantly more luxurious than the other ones. And finally, it's partially fun, but it seems that they allow us to transform us into coffee experts, even if in reality we don't have any kind of idea about it. We don't know at all the connection between the name of those capsules that we went for, and the content. But they were able to name the capsules. So we are not buying anymore coffee, we are buying Roma, Milano, names that allow us to feel ourselves coffee experts, in reality really close to the wine. We use the word in order to name the one that we are buying, even if we don't know, the great portion of us doesn't know anything about. But just the name that we are able to give allows us to appreciate more what we are buying. To the point that the story they are building up is a coffee boutique for experts. I'm not saying that the coffee produced by Nespresso is good or bad, is better or worse than others. But what we are buying, the reason why we are going there, the reason why we are buying that coffee is not completely connected to the content that we drink. We are buying a lot of stuff around us that allows us to appreciate those moments where we are drinking that coffee, especially when we are welcoming someone else. Choosing the taste that we prefer is a small pleasurable moment that we iterate day by day and reward us independently from the tastes that we will perceive in drinking that coffee. So why this example: in order to demonstrate that retailers are quite sophisticated in building up small signals, in order to convey a story. And in the empathize phase, you can look at other retailers for the one that you are going to consult, but also the competitors in order to decode those signals that can allow you to understand the kind of value, the kind of experience they are proposing to the user.
Eataly
If you have the chance to visit the store or the ecommerce, just one example, then you can go through these slides on your own in order to reflect on alternative retailers. It's quite impressive in recognizing that the first product you can get in touch entering in Eataly is not food. The first product that you can get in touch entering in Eataly is a book. There are several books, so the first
meantime, Marco has written Starbucks is perceived suspiciously, so they want to show the transparency of the process. And Riccardo says Milan in generally speaking in a static place in which big companies can somehow show off their best face in a so demanding context. Yeah, it's an additional motivation. So it's a flagship. So the Starbucks that they build up in Milan represent the sort of flagship that they are promoting around the world. So displaying the process is how Starbucks decided to arrange the coffee shop, some of you have already had the why. So what's the meaning through that disposal they were aimed at conveying? So for those that choose to visit Starbucks or a coffee shop, what's the ultimate meaning you can get? Why would you like to visit that coffee shop? “Transparency with the client to take a relaxing and pleasant break” Yeah, if I had to be completely honest again: Starbucks has been created in order to engage people in staying and not only in drinking coffee, then go away. But, the Milanese store probably is not exactly the most relaxing, and pleasant place to stay. So it's really pleasing from an aesthetic point of view, in a way is quite monumental, so it's something that you can admire, it's something that show off a lot, as mentioned by one of your colleagues, but I'm not so sure that the real meaning I'll go there is in order to relax. Maybe the real meaning behind is exactly the one that we were sharing: “show off in the country of coffee that we are legitimate in providing good coffee”. So this was the challenge that they went through that specific place. It's a place that, paradoxically, you would visit as the Duomo, so I will go there in order to see it once. Starbucks is so monumental, so flagship, is so iconic. It's so symbolic that maybe I will not go there any Sunday, because honestly, if I had to have breakfast there every Sunday, it's a sort of fight in order to get the stuff that I would like to drink or eat. But it's one of those places that I would visit being in Milan. Because it's becoming the iconic Starbucks store, they were able to put their flag even in Milan, generally speaking, even in Italy, the country where the culture of coffee was born. So this was the meaning, this is the reason why they pick up a location that is just a sidewalk. So probably they asked for the model directly, but they were not allowed to. So they went just a few meters near to put they machines that is quite monumental. So they didn't put there some small demonstrators, they put the entire process in order to show off in an incredible way the culture they created about coffee, and in order to demonstrate that they are legitimated to be there. Let me read something else: “Enjoy the Willy Wonka factory spirits”, “live an experience while drinking a coffee”, “having a Starbucks experience with preserving the Italian coffee tradition”. So I really appreciate some of these sentences, this is exactly the challenge that I will love that you will go through even when you will deal with the experience you will analyze. Let's avoid the words “experience”, “cool”, “advanced” “frontier”, “pioneering” when you are describing the inner why the retail experience is provided. The retail experience is the object we are analyzing in order to identify the meaning that they are conveying.
2.Knowing and
3.immersing
So the ones that come later to the exploring phase, let me start from a common reflection that refers to both of them. And this is something that I would really underline also in relation to the project that you are going to start. There are different categories of users for any kind of project you are dealing with. Here, you can find a list:
- Users that can be considered representative. They are the average user.
- Precursory users the category that is able to anticipate what will come.
- The new potential users Those that are not currently users, the non-users , but you feel that they will become users of the brand that you are consulting,
- passing through those that are users of competitors, technically speaking, or not users of the brand that you're consulting.
- The fringe user those that are showing a strange behaviors in relation to the brand that you are consulting. So they are marginal in terms of numbers. So they are not the core of your market, but they are strange. They are showing some alternative ways of living the relationship with the brand that you're consulting.
- The most advanced sometimes called lead users so those that are so experts about the services or products that you are delivering that they are able even to suggest to you what you should do. So they are challenging you in asking more because they are particularly advanced. ----Suggestions and tips for your project: o Try to avoid to build up a sample of users composed by the same category of users o Try to be various, to search through the different categories that are shown on the chart in order to have different perspectives, especially at the beginning. For those of you that have already noticed in the syllabus, we are going to ask you before they define factory to interview 10 plus users per team, that on average it means less than two users per teammate. So in reality, you don't have to interview many people. o But one of the big advice that I can leave to you since the beginning is trying to organize with your mates, the sample in order to serve through different categories. o If I had to say which one I would avoid across this list, since the beginning is probably the first one (representative users). If you are just a little bit knowledgeable about the brand that you're consulting, or even you are a user of that brand, probably the average user is not at all the one that you should interview. Because probably you will get the same information you can get by your own relying on your own experience. o While getting in touch with someone that is far from the brand that you are consulting to the point that is really loved with the product category sold by your brand, but is in love with another brand. This is a valuable user, because he could give you an idea about the weaknesses that your brand is providing in comparison to others. o Getting in touch with someone that is really expert. So someone that, by profession, is quite closed to the product and services that the brand is selling, could allow you to go a little bit deeper because of the knowledge of those users. o So the advice that I can leave to you, before starting interviews, is sharing the team, the categories, and the profiles of users you will love to get in touch with, with the aim of having a good variety of users. And this variety, sometimes could be even simpler: so age, gender, geographical location. So I know that it would be super easy or easier to get in touch with your friends, that on average they could be more or less similar to you in terms of age, they can live more or less the same context of life so probably they are still people attending a university courses or similar stuff. But trying to be a little bit various relying also on someone that is belonging to your family or relatives or younger people or even older. Someone that could give you the appropriate variety in order to look at the same brand with a different perspective.--------- These perspectives could be explored with different tools and techniques. I would quickly go through this model, even if I will focus on those two tools that we will invite you to use on top of the exploratory activities that we have already described.
matter of asking, it is not a matter of serving, it is a matter of giving them the opportunity to design or either build the product or services they are looking for. And in this case, we are talking about a co-creation platform. Those solutions could allow the user to not only express what they need, but directly create what they would. That is super interesting, but it's not so easy to apply in the kind of project that you are dealing with. So a few information about the two techniques that I was mentioning: specifically interviews, and then nethnography.
Preparing the interviews
Don't worry if I will surf through some slides that I will leave to you as additional notes, and I'll focus on the more important one. Please, before starting with your interviews, you have to run two preliminary activities. First to define the sample of the interview, and organize the protocol, the kinds of questions you would go through. But in this case, a couple of additional tips: a lot of your colleagues in the past, organize the interview activities in two waves. The first one was completely qualitative and synchronous. So the 10 plus interviews that we were mentioning were mainly organized in 10 interviews done through direct interviews, obviously face to face, that don't mean that you need to meet people, but through synchronous tools. Then they organize a second wave of interviews through surveys. And in this case, obviously an asynchronous tool with a lot of questionnaires via Facebook, or even other social networks. But obviously the second wave benefits from the first finding coming from the first wave. So in the first wave, the interviews were really explorative and a little bit more open. They manage the topics they would go through but in a more flexible way, while the second wave, based on survey, was mainly aimed at collecting some quantitative dimension of data they had. They were mainly organized on multiple choice and consequently closed very few questions in order to get more answers. But it was quite intriguing mix techniques in order to have on the one hand the richness coming from the qualitative interviews, and the robustness coming from the quantitative survey.
Managing the interviews
I have already mentioned the opportunity to rely on different categories of users. Let me give you a few additional tips on interviews, and they mainly refer to qualitative ones. When I started to run these kinds of activities, one of my mentor used to suggest to me that the story you will collect is not your story, but is the story coming from the people that you will meet. So, the most difficult stuff that you will deal with in interviewing is on the one hand leaving to him or her the flexibility and the possibility to go through what they would because they have their own story to pass to you. But at the same time to avoid wasting both your time and their time talking about irrelevant things. This trade-off is the one that you will deal with. And in order to properly solve it, you have to know upfront the kinds of topics that you would love to explore. According to the brief that you are dealing with, I’ll guess that it will be fundamental having a feeling from the user not only about the current experience they are living with the brand that you're consulting, but also the kind of experience that they used to have before pandemic. Don't forget that our brief is “let's conceive the new retail experience that the brand that you are consulting should provide, when we will be back to the new normal that will be neither the one that they were used to provide before pandemics, nor the one that are struggling with today, in order to serve through the challenges that they have, because of the pandemics”. So putting myself in your shoes I’ll guess the interviews could be organized quite frequently as a sort of difference between the previous status quo and the issues, or opportunities they are living today. How did you change the way you access this brand? Did you start in that period or did you use to get in touch with the brand even before? And in the case, they were in touch with the same brand even before, which kind of behavior you change moving from before to now, I will guess that now we are visiting a little bit less the physical touch point, because of the issue you're facing. How did you change your relationship with the digital touch points that were already provided, even before? What did you really appreciate in
the change of the offering that they are providing, because of the pandemics? What's the stuff that you are really missing now, in comparison to what you lived or you were used to before the pandemics. So these are the kinds of questions. And again, please don't use exactly the same. But these are the kinds of questions that I will guess you will need in order to allow the users entering in your reasoning, especially at the beginning. Try to be on the one hand clear about the objective. So they have to be aware about the fact that you are interviewing in order to know their experience. This is something that should be explained even before the interviews, is something that you have to disclose when you will invite them. And the really beginning try to be really welcoming. So really beginning, try to give questions that are easy questions that allow the user to feel prepared. One of the big mistakes that you can do is in making questions that are so complicated since the beginning that people will find themself wrong. They will, let's say, reduce the willingness in sharing just because they feel that they are not appropriate in transferring to you, while there are no wrong answers. Because you are basically saying what's their view, so their view is for definition, correct. Eventually, maybe they didn't get something that the brand is already doing. But the view is, in any case, their view, it's correct by definition. So you have to allow them to enter in the reasoning progressively, in a confident way. I would have to mention some additional strategies that you can adopt. The interview will be helpful to you if it would be fun in the eyes of those that will answer. I know that you are doing it for MDIP, unfortunately that professor asked me to do it so you are doing that. But, in this way, those people are not so motivated, you have to allow them to do it in a very pleasant way. It's a story to share is not an interview to fulfill or to answer. And try to rely on memorable experiences that they had. So, one of the key questions that you can rely on is what was the most memorable interaction you had with the brand? What was the most surprising service you received from that brand? What was the most annoying issue that you had interacting with? So try for peaks and not for the average. It's a relationship that they have with the brand, because it is through these peaks that you can identify stuff to work on. Ethnography Ethnography is the activity that aims at going deeper in analyzing the user's needs through observations. And the main reasoning behind is that the context where we are living influences so much the needs, that asking without observing implies to lose a lot of information. Your observations could allow you to recognize those needs that are significantly influenced by the context that you are living. Nethnography The nethnography is the ethnography in the digital era, and try to rely on those digital environments that allow you to observe users even if they are not aware about the fact that you are observing them. That is the real core of ethnography in general. So people demonstrate through behaviors their needs, cause maybe unconsciously, they are influenced by the specific context they are living and consequently, they differently use differently behave in the relationship with stuff. And it's true that being in this context, we will not have the opportunity to visit the store so easily and it is not required. But we have a lot of opportunities in terms of digital touchpoints. And here you can find a small list that can give you some insights about the place that you can look for in order to nethnography people:
- Corporate digital touch-points: website and mobile application
- Blogs (about addressed and adjacent industries, experiences, etc.)
- Social Media (thematic groups)
KANO model
There are alternative models that are a little bit more structured that could be in any case quite intriguing. Probably you have already heard about the Kano model according to which the needs that we perceive in relation with a service or product have different priorities.
- Starting from the baseline once so those stuff that as users we expect will be delivered in the solution. If they are delivered, they will not create any kind of satisfaction because we assume that they are there, but if they are absent, they will create a great dissatisfaction. They are baseline requirements, some must have, something that must be there.
- There are delighters. So, those features that if they will be satisfied, they will create a great satisfaction, if they will be absent, we will not recognize that they are not there because we are not expecting for. Something that can surprise the users, they could allow you to recognize different priorities in the needs that you have already spotted.
- Linear Satisfiers Performance, attributes which are not absolutely necessary, but which are known about and increase the customer’s enjoyment of the product.
Customer’s journey map
Finally, the third way of classifying the needs could be connected to temporal organization. (And this could be put quite aside from the first one, it's even more straightforward than the Kano model). Basically, you can organize the needs that your user mentioned, or even the ones that come from blogs and alternative sources, accordingly to the different moments of the retail experiences where they emerged. What the users perceive when they are getting in touch with the retail brand, when they are looking for information about the product, when they are trying the product that they are looking for, when they are buying or paying the product. So you can recognize the needs that you will spot accordingly to a temporal dimension along the customer journey that your user will go through in order to access the retail information. These three models don’t imply any kind of interpretation, we are still looking at the reality that we collected through the empathize, we are eventually starting interpretation by classifying, but in reality you are not putting your viewpoint in analyzing them, it is still a sort of description of what you got. And this is also the enabler for the last activity that we invite you to do before the factory dedicated to the Define phase that is exactly the framing that is on one hand “ cutting ”, when you will put the information that you have already collected in a frame, you will also decide to leave out some of the information because you don't feel that are relevant to you or they are less relevant to others. So, framing the reality that you are looking at means to forget what is out of that frame. It is not only a matter of dropping out or cutting out some of the information that you will collect, but it will be also a selection of the information that you feel are relevant. And it is also a first analysis of the relationship between these information, the famous “why”. So, it's not only a matter of leaving out but also a matter of recognizing the main relationship that you feel can composed the puzzle of needs you are dealing with. And then you will keep in your frame, the ones that are independent one each other but relevant for the user that you have interviewed. In
this way, you can include in the frame only those needs that are not linked each other so that they can be addressed with a specific and unique solution. So it's a matter of cutting out and recognizing the main relationship in the frame. IT’S A SENSE MAKING ACTIVITY! -- And more specifically, as a first attempt to frame the problem, we will invite you to synthetically describe through two slides, the problem statement. So what we will invite you to do before the factory that will happen in on March 22nd^ is in declaring accordingly to you in a very synthetic way, what's the core problem in your eyes, that is fundamental in the retail experience provided by the brand that you are consulting. It is the first attempt to frame out of all the information that you collected, the problem behind the symptoms you have retrieved through the empathize phase. And more specifically, we will ask you to describe a problem in a problem statement template that is organized in this way: the person that you are targeting - that will be eventually a subset of those that you have identified because you feel that the retail experience you're dealing with needs improvement for a specific segment of people that you would like to address - needs a way to - and here you are just press the kind of actions, situations you would improve, change, innovate in comparison to the ones that they are offering right now - because - you have to provide the sort of surprising motivation that it's your first attempt to identify a problem that is not evident. The problem that was quite surprising to you was a problem that you impressed you in the way the user mentioned to you or in the sources of information you collected from blogs or influencers. - But - unfortunately, even if there is a motivation, so far, that kind of action is not available to the user, at least in the way that you are thinking about because of a constraint, so because of a limitation. It's a problem that in your eyes is the most relevant you got out of the hundreds of quotes you will have from the users from the other sources. The first template the more interesting information that as individual you got from the desk research that you did surfing around looking at the competitors, the interviews that you did personally or even your colleagues did, but here you will put the stuff that impressed you. So what was the most interesting stuff that you got from the interviews or not? Again, I'm not saying only the ones that you will do personally because I will get that each of you will organize the team in let's say distributing the interview. And finally, what most impressed you from an immersive point of view, so from blogs or influencers, what was the information that we're meaningful to you were really relevant to you. Because the problem statement would be package initially at the individual level and conceptually the problem statement that each of you use should come from the most impressive information you collected through the empathize phase. So, synthetically, to me looking at all these information we collected the most impressive stuff is these from the exploration, that we did, the second one the most impressive information that we got from the interviews. -- 8 th^ March 2021 https://politecnicomilano.webex.com/webappng/sites/politecnicomilano/recording/ 4237f688459648be9cc2c48c8c8e3da2/playback We have already defined the Define phase as the one where you will introduce your viewpoint, the one where you will introduce your talent in interpreting and consequently, framing the problem that you would address. Define What? Construct a point of view, a unique, concise reframing of the problem that is grounded in users’ needs. Define How? · Come together and understand the experience · Identify user, reveal the needs, articulate insights · Reframe the problem into a new point of view Three main activities that connote the Define phase. · Classifying : identify similar categories of needs · Framing : shape the initial formulation of the problem to be solved. Framing capabilities include the ability to understand a wide range of information and put it in
