Dish Four: Define & Create

 

We scoped.  We researched.  We observed.  We interviewed.  We're done... wait, no we're not.  Not even close.  As I hit submit on our 60+ page interview paper, I felt fairly confident that we had learned everything we needed to learn to start working on our solution---and true, we had learned a lot, but we needed to actually spend time interpreting the info if we were going to get an even clearer image of who we were creating our solution for.  

This process reminded me of my more analytical classes, such as Business Statistics and Business Analytics, where I learned the importance of taking time to organize and process data after collecting it.  Customer Insights for Innovation may not be an analytical class in the sense that we're dealing with a bunch of numbers, but observations, interviews...all that counts as data, too!  And just like with my Business Stats class, where I couldn't just write up a conclusion after downloading the Excel file, I can't simply draw out a solution after completing the discovery process.

I found one of the most difficult parts of the Define process to be thinking of our persona as a specific person.  It was easy to fall into the trap of thinking of her generically, as simply a "married mom with three kids," but how would I feel if someone chose to simply call me a "full-time college junior?"  Horrible!  Unseen!  No, our persona is not just a mom.  She is Susan Ceaco, a Trader Joes-loving, Banana Republic-shopping administrative coordinator who commutes 40 minutes every day to work at a law firm in Richmond, Virginia.  As marketers and innovators, it is our job to make sure customers feel seen, to make sure we don't treat them as numbers, but as unique individuals.  

Another major challenge during the Define process was writing the problem statement.  I figured it would be as simple as copying how we originally outlined the problem back when we first started the project scope, but when we looked back, it seemed all wrong---it only partially reflected our findings from the observations and interviews!  Although oftentimes the customer insight process felt like a mess where we weren't really picking up any patterns, having to re-establish exactly what the problem is helped my team and I realize that we had picked up patterns, and that we now understood what our target market was lacking much better than before.  I guess I would call the customer insights process a beautiful mess.  Sometimes, it makes your head ache and you feel like you fell down a rabbit hole into Wonderland, but once you climb back out of that hole, you realize you had a fantastical adventure where you were learning and growing the entire time.

Prototyping...I've always seen this as a solo activity.  Maybe it's because when we first did the Design Thinking Bootcamp, we created independently.  Or maybe it's because during previous experiences, I ended up having to do the prototyping alone.  Whatever the case, I quickly learned that actual prototyping is a team effort, and your creations end up much, much better when you collaborate.  Back in the ideation stage, we learned the importance of weighing everyone's opinions during strategies such as Blue Ocean.  Well, we found that the key to prototyping was continuing to employ those skills in listening and open-mindedness as we crafted the visual representations of our answer to the problem statement.  What began with a few bullet points ended in several creative graphics once we stopped to throw different prototype format ideas at each other and give feedback!  And looking back, throughout the entire, crazy journey down the rabbit hole and through Wonderland, one thing did stay constant: an amazing, considerate team.