101 Design Methods: A Structured Approach for Driving Innovation in Your Organization

by Vijay Kumar

As creators of the new, innovators need to have the mindset of continuously keeping up with the pace of change whether political, economic, social, cultural, scientific, or technological. Changes, especially in areas where others have not yet fully explored, often indicate fertile ground for innovation. But, in our information-intensive world the challenge of finding new and unexplored opportunities is huge. The torrent of news and data can be overwhelming, and we must think about where to gather information, how to categorize it, and how to relate it to the goals and strategies of the organization. We should actively monitor various information sources—periodicals, websites, books, broadcasts, podcasts—and opinions of leading experts and thought leaders. We should regularly debrief about what these sources and experts are saying, and discuss what trends we see emerging. It is important not only to spot changes in trends but also to understand how those changes have occurred over time, so that we can foresee how changes might happen in the future and tell us something about how our innovations will fit.

So important to make sure we practice this mindset and not grow irrelevant! Especially important, I think, is the debrief/discussion aspect. Maybe a quarterly brown bag to go over emerging trends, exciting new products and services.