"Innovation has arrived, and it has made a huge splash in the world of business. Except that it hasn’t."
- 101 Design Methods, page 1
"...innovation planning’ is not an oxymoron. Successful innovation can and should be planned and managed like any other organizational function."- 101 Design Methods, page 7
How do you “plan” for successful innovation? By managing through these seven modes of design innovation through the stages of research (R), analysis (A), synthesis (S) and realization (Real):
1. (R) Sense intent – in this mode our focus is on figuring out where to start. We know we want to innovate, but need to pause and consider all the changes occurring in business, technology, society, culture, policy and the like.
2. (R) Know context – this mode is about understanding the circumstances or events that affect the environment in which our innovation offerings (products, services, experiences, brands, etc.) exist or could exist.
3. R) Know people — in this mode we further our investigation by strengthening our understanding of the end users and other stakeholders of the innovation we are planning.
4. (A) Frame insights – in this mode we bring structure to what we’ve found in the previous three research oriented modes.
5. (S) Explore concepts – the next step is to use the insights and principles framed in the earlier modes as a place to generate ideas and concepts.
6. (S) Frame solutions – in this mode we build on the large sets of concepts resulting from the previous mode and combine them to form systems of concepts, or solutions.
7. (Real) Realize offerings – this mode is about testing prototypes, evaluating them, and then moving them to implementation.
Before listing the various tools and methods useful for each mode, Kumar discusses mindsets that will increase the probability that we will address the mode thoroughly.
"The mindset for Explore Concepts is to be creative and open to new, perhaps radical ideas and ways of thinking; but at the same time, keeping sight of human-centered and context-driven principles for success that were identified in earlier modes."- 101 Design Methods, page 196
Each mode of the design innovation process has five mindsets associated with it. Ideally, if you’re involved in an innovation project, you will engage in all of the mindsets. Below are the five mindsets of the “explore concepts” mode:
While the time constraints of innovation projects would make it impossible for you to adopt every mindset Kumar lists, an awareness of mindsets will help you choose from methods of research, analysis, synthesis and realization more wisely.
"Just as a master carpenter will expertly select a different set of tools depending whether he is building a house or a chair, the master innovator needs to be familiar with a variety of methods in order to choose them effectively for a given project."- 101 Design Methods, page 13
One of the best things about Kumar’s book is that it provides so many methods to choose from. In a previous summary I wrote for Actionable Books, I committed to learning more techniques for generating ideas. To this end, Kumar’s book has proven extremely helpful.
For each of the seven modes of his design innovation process, Kumar provides 9 to 20 methods, from which a skillful innovator will choose to explore possibilities, generate ideas, promote ideas and see an innovation through to implementation and adoption. Each of the methods is presented on a two-page spread with an example of how the method was used in a real project on the left-side page and a detailed account of what the method accomplishes, how it works, and the steps involved on the right-side page. As an example, below are short descriptions of two methods from the “explore concepts” modes that I look forward to trying:
Like many others, I have often wondered exactly how to respond when business leaders tell us to innovate. For me, Kumar provides clear guidance in 101 Design Methods: A Structured Approach for Driving Innovation in Your Organization. Now, not only do I have a deeper understanding of innovation, I have 101 practical methods that will help me successfully achieve it!
Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also holds positions as Adjunct Professor of Psychology at HarvardUniversity and Senior Director of Harvard Project Zero. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. He has received honorary degrees from twenty-nine colleges and universities, including institutions in Bulgaria, Chile, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, South Korea and Spain. In 2005 and again in 2008, he was selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. Most recently, Gardner received the 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences. The author of twenty-nine books translated into thirty-two languages, and several hundred articles, Gardner is best known in educational circles for his theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be adequately assessed by standard psychometric instruments.
