Abstract
Innovation is associated with inspiration and creativity. While this affirmation is true, it is incomplete because innovation is a process that can be planned and systematically programmed and reproduced with specific methodologies, not just for the “chosen one.” But we have a problem. There are dozens of innovation methodologies, all of them theoretically presume to have the “key” for innovation. Many of these methodologies give very interesting information with similar approaches, but some other propose contradictory paths. For an executive, it is simple: too much information to decide which approach would be more appropriate or where to start can be a problem, so a common behavior is to try to use the business fashion almost by faith. However, among all these amorphous and even contradictory information, if we combine three basic methodologies: design thinking (DT), quality function deployment (QFD), and inventive problem-solution theory (TRIZ: Russian acronym for Теория Решения Изобретательских Задачque), we have a powerful proven process for a successful innovation, increasing the innovation rate of success for any company. This is explored in this chapter.
TopIntroduction
Our structure is unique: we do not operate as a large company, but as a series of small ventures, which makes everyone much more agile. Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO Expedia Inc. (Morales, 2017)
Let us return to the Stragile model to continue this journey of corporate innovation (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Source: Portillo, E. (2016), The Stragile Conscious Corporate Innovation Model. We have followed a linear process with the intention of providing clarity in the application of this methodology, even though we understand that the processes of generating creative solutions to problems do not follow a linear process at all (as Osterwalder described it at some point).
So far, the summary of the proposed steps has been as follows:
Once the information provided by the market has been filtered and simplified (taking into consideration that the internal factors of an organization are part of the overall market dynamics), the next step will be to prioritize processes and actions that will lead us in the short term to generate results according to our initial definition of mega—or ideal situation. In the previous chapter, we focused on defining the first three relevant aspects of the Stragile approach (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Source: Portillo, E. & Moreno, T. (2016), The Stragile Conscious Vision. In our adaptation of the Kurt Lewin “forces” model, these first three steps are defined at the center of our chart, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Source: Portillo, E. (2016), Forces Model Adaptation.