When things change fast, often the last thing to change is how we do things. Product design used to be a simple business. You could add new features, develop and launch a new product or service, and well before shipping, be able to estimate demand, sales and even ROI. Today your product may be obsolete before it even enters the stores. So how can we take a more agile approach?
Forget fancy workshops and weird consultants who promise to jumpstart your creativity. In my opinion, it won’t deliver you what you need. A thousand ideas are worth nothing if you don’t understand what your customer really needs. The best place to start is by asking yourself, as both a company and a brand, how committed you are to find solutions that are capable of creating amazing experiences for your customers and partners. No matter how strange or unusual,
This is the core of our mission at our studio, and to do this we have worked out a framework. Its not a panacea for all design problems, but it is a useful approach that brings all the different elements of the creative process together and provides a canvas to work with. In simple terms, this is the art of ‘imagineering’.
Here are the three elements of our model:
TRENDS
Trends are important if you want to understand not just where things are, but where they are moving to next. We normally start from some major changes like Consumer, Sustainability, Digital, Internet of Things, Technology, …. We investigate these different area’s in detail in order to come up with a reliable story about the direction of your products against the backdrop of consumer change. To achieve this, we like to think about stories rather than statistics.
BATTLEFIELDS
Once we understand the context, the next step is to start working on the different battlefields. We currently work in seven different areas (Vision, Brand, Product, Service, IP, Sustainability, Digital).
LINES
Finally, and perhaps most importantly are the lines – both at the top and at the bottom. The triple TOP line contains Desirability, Feasibility, Viability. As soon as we have some ideas coming out of the design research we check if these three give positive results. As soon as we decide to go for it we focus on the Triple BOTTOM line People, Planet, Profit.
In buddishm there’s a strong believe that you have to define the goal and then forget about it and focus on the process.
Het bericht A Framework For Change verscheen eerst op Studio Peter Van Riet.