© 2010 McKay Explore

The Four Disciplines of Innovation

- Using design methods effectively in organizations.

mckayexplore mckayexplore · 1
change through innovation
 i4 booklet vers. 2.0 (c) 2010 by McKay Explore, all rights reserved
Text, Illustrations and Layout: McKay Explore Consulting Aps
Images: Jonathan Drewsen

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 Contents
Intro: 4
What is the i4?
Overview and philosophy
Co-creation and
Virtual Creative Collaboration

Framing the challenge: 9

Insights: 10
Gathering data
Pattern recognition

Ideation: 12
Creating 100’s of ideas
Filtering of ideas

Iteration: 14
Prototyping
Iteration Cyclus

Injection: 16
Communication Analysis
The Pitch

Conclusion for i4: 18

i4 Vocabulary: 20
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 Introducing ”the four disciplines of Innovation”
Innovators in organisations often face many challenges: They
need to understand the real needs of their customers and organi-
zation, they need to create appropriate ideas that can make it to
market under the given circumstances, they need to mature these
ideas into whole, strong concepts and they need to promote these
ideas to senior management. McKay Explore Design & Consulting
has matured a design process for these innovators: i4 - The Four
Disciplines of Innovation. This booklet captures the essence of
this approach to innovation and design. We hope it will inspire
and motivate our readers to start innovating themselves.
When it comes to innovation today, many different schools of
thought exist, and many different approaches are practiced at
different specialist companies. The i4 Disciplines were created
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from 12 years of innovation work in a corporate setting,
working in the fast paced, expanding telecom industry.
Innovation has been defined in many ways from Schumpeters
Creative Destruction to Christensens Disruptive Innovation.
This practical approach views Innovation as a series of events -
the Y-model as we call it. The basic idea is that consistent inno-
vative ability in organizations happens when a constant stream
of NEEDS are mixed in to a stream of constant development of
CAPABILITIES in the organization. This is done in a systematic
CONCEPT MAKING process combining the needs and capabilitites.
Innovation is secured through a strong IMPLEMENTATION process.
The four disciplines, Insight, Ideation, Iteration and Injection
are seen as main mindsets/disciplines for succeeding in corpo-
rate innovation.
Imagine an organisation - mastering four disciplines,
leading to successful innovation

INJECTION: Storytelling of
innovative ideas into the
organization. Understanding
the core of the idea and
communicating this
INSIGHT: Scoping, planning effectively.
and executing a consumer/
stakeholder interview and
building insights from this.

IDEATION: Advancing beyond

the thinkable. Utilizing data
appropriately for generating
100’s of relevant ideas. Broadly
founded processes involving all
the wisdom of the organization.
ITERATION: Being experimental
with ideas. Staying within the box:
Shaping and forming fragmented
opportunities into presentable con-
cepts, utilizing economic, market
and industry frameworks.

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 The Premises of Innovation

Co-creation How to succeed in the

organization
To do co-creation in a virtual corporrate setting requires significant focus and change of
ways of doing things. To cocreate, you have to develop and mature habits and methods
that opens your thought process towards others, specifically the “unusual suspects” -
customers, vertical partners, opinion leaders, colleagues and others. You have to find
ways to work that enables you to get input and use input at the right time in your
projects. Use several roles in your project (10 faces of Innovation).

To co-create, develop habits and methods that opens

your thought process towards the “unusual suspects”

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The Premises of Innovation

Virtual Creative Collaboration

In order to create true creative collaboration through virtual tools requires special attention.

Some activities are just better done while present. Find a local team of supporters to pull together for these
types of acitvities while keeping up with your virtual team through online collaboration tools. You need to
choose which activities to do locally and which activity to do in virtual collaboration:

Activities best done in physical presence: Activities suited for online collaboration
* Interviews * Status updates
* Ideation sessions * Decision meetings
* Complex filtering and pattern recognition * Light ideation, filtering and pattern recognition sessions
* Advanced Video (proto) Storytelling * Planning activities

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 The i4 flow. How the disciplines interrelate
Insights Ideation Iteration Injection

Data Pattern Idea Filtering NABC’s and Analysis Communi- Pitch

Gathering Recognition Generation prototyping - Protobuild cation
- test cyclus analysis

This is how you do:

The i4 disciplines are Divergent* Convergent* Divergent* Convergent* Divergent* Convergent* Divergent* Convergent*
all front end methods
and does not have to be
used in any particular
order. To understand
them, compare them to
the different disciplines
a n explorer needs
to master in order to
succeed. Each disci-
pline can be utilized
in random order, but
the general flow of the
events would center
around this line up of
activities: *) Divergent: Thinking that opens up the situation and adding more possibilities. Expanding and asking even more questions and giving even more opportunities.
Convergent: Thinking that leads to narrowing down the openness in the situation. Filtering and decision making.

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Framing the challenge ”Where to start”
When given a challenge, the first thing to do is to get an overview and form a
stance towards to task.
Framing the challenge. What seems to be going on? What could be the issue? What
is really at stake here? Who are the players? What is the big picture? Climbing on
top of the balcony to see the challenges as they really are.
Understand the context. Look for strategies inside and outside the company.
Gather trends from market and analysts. Work with your Market Researchers to
understand backgrounds and details..
Write up a framework for insights. Your research questions - which area seems
important, where do you need to start you insight gathering. It is important to
allow for other signals to arrise.
What seems to
be going on?
This is how you do:
Find strategies and vision statements – What is the
grand plan of your organisation? What is the context?
Build driving questions – From your analysis, build
a set of questions that lead you into your project
statement. What is critical, where is the burning
platform?
Test your problem statement, Test your assumptions
and questions. Don’t test conclusions but rather tune
your curiosity to fit that of your sponsor.
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 This is how you do:
Gather many data formats – interviews, images, brochures,
statistics, market data, trends, strategies, thoughts, sketches,
videos ....
Remember to photograph, get names, dates and record inter-
views for transcriptions. Authenticate the data!
Different ways of getting data: Interview, Fly-on-the-wall, par-
ticipatory observation, conferences and more.

Insights 1 Synergy: Suggestions for how to utilize your existing reserve in

markets, for instance sales forces, local R&D branches, universi-
ties, local agencies.

Why don’t we ask good questions?

Powerful questions Gathering data ”User Interviews”
How is that?
3 X why How to address external people - to
Describe it please
lightly spoken. If you enter this phase
Tell me more
How (show me)
know customers better than they know with already made conclusions, they
What
themselves. will overshaddow the really important
Who, When, Where
issues.
Which, Yes/no questions
The primary objective is to go into the Remember the Gorilla-exercise. Don’t
task, exploring and discovering the let your predetermined ideas make
Less powerful questions
different facets. To forget your pre-de- you loose sight of the Gorillas of the
terminations, to empty your head from reality. Look for Pain Points, Paradoxes
ideas already present. The voice of
‘Don’t ask the user what they want but observe what they need’. and your own Curiosities.
From your framing of the challenge, prepare an interview the customer is often very subtle and
guide to help you stay with your topic. Agree with your users
to record the interview.
Mindset: Sit at the feet of the customer

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Pattern recognition ”Framing
your development question”
Pattern Recongition is about creating
clarity from complexity.
Data download: What did we hear, what
did we learn from that. So how might we
deal with this? Develop clouds of mean-
ing. Find common themes, that keep re-
peating in different versions. These are
your patterns.
Strong Pain Points: When we discover
This is how you do:
Download your data – What did we hear? What did we
Learn?
Build many frameworks – See the situation from many
points of view. Users- Stakeholder- Government etc.
Draw pictures.
Use Bold Statements for insights, Be blunt in your
wording of what might be going on here. Don’t hold
back. Sort and find patterns from the insights.
Write down the framing sentence– a short, concise sen-
tence that points forward. Start with “so how might we”. Insights 2
strong elements of “pain”, meaning se- Pattern Recognition
vere discomfort and anxiety experienced makes Clarity from
Complexity. It frames
in the touch points, or lacking aid in con- the question for the
nected, undiscovered areas, we see a Pain next innovation steps.
Point. If we act upon the pain point, there
is a strong chance that the customers will http://www.istockphoto.com/
file_thumbview_approve/11704818/2/
accept the offer. The stronger pain point, istockphoto_11704818-questions.jpg
the higher chance of success. At the end, Find the strongest Pain Points,
make a strong frame for development
Paradoxes and Curiositites
through asking “So How Might We”...
from your data
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 This is how you do:
Do many sessions – during your ideation phase,
stage many ideation sessions. Make them max
45min of length! Involve colleagues, specialists,
customers and partners as possible in the dif-
ferent sessions. Facilitate ideation sessions on
your own site! Again, manage IP leak.
Frame the idea session, Make a strong sentence
or picture to frame. The stronger frame, the

Ideation
Insights 11 more loose and creative the flow can become.
Document afterwards Download data after-
wards. Ideas - themes - hunches.

Didactic Thinking
Didactic Thinking
Parallel Thinking
Parallel Thinking
(de Bono)
Creating 100’s of ideas ”Go for Quantity”
(de Bono)

Ideation. The translation of insights
into tangible ideas. Ideation relies
heavily on mindset and risk willingness.
Ability to be comfortable with being
uncomfortable.
Parallel Thinking is one key mindset to
Mindset: carry into this discipline: Getting the
Optimistic, minds of the ideation team to work in
parallel, to support each other. There are
The glass is
many ideation methods. Most imporatant
half full! is to try many out, invent your own!
- Brainstorming. No critique. No “yes,
BUT”, rather “yes, AND”. Be proactive -
pick up where other s left.
- Ideation Flow: Make 50 ideas. Then
make patterns, Then make 50 more.
Repeat.
- Hollywood Brainstorm, imagine what
famous actors or other people would
have done.
- Probing: Add strong images, thoughts
or other stimulus to the team and
see what happens. Example: Handling
physical Lego Bricks to a group discuss-
ing Data Centers results in stackable
concepts!
- Analogous Situations: think of similar
but non-alike situations, like Race car
Pit Stops and Emergency Rooms.
Mindset: There are no limits and no
stupid ideas. You may have to go to
nonsense to make real sense!

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 This is how you do:
Constantly evolve your frame and filters test many
filters and keep running variants until you realize what
works. Constantly use the framing questions for your
project to test if you are on the right path. Combine
sessions of zooming in- and out.
Be visual Filtering is hard. Share the load by using vi-
sual graphics to better engage the team and externals.
At the end of the day: Decide which idea(s) to evolve:
Remember that you can’t calculate and evolve it all.
Document the unused ideas well and go back if needed. Ideation 2
2x2: Venn:

Filtering of ideas ”Selecting the ideas to mature” Feasibility

Desirability
From 100’s of ideas, apply strong filters at technical implementation point of Desirability Viability

to separate meaningful ideas from the
noise.
Develop strong filters, that are made
view). The discipline is about evaluating
many filters and keep creating sense.
Eventually you have to decide on
which concepts to mature. Depending
Feasibility
Examples of 2x2’s: Desirability-Feasibility, Ease of Implementing-Impact, Time to market-Innovation
height, User preference-Company preference, Ease of use-Cost, Innovation height-Ease of implementation

from both industry frameworks - Vi- on project resources, go for max 3,

ability (what makes a great solution
in the future industrial marketplace?),
Desirability (what are key criteria
for creating user value) and techni-
cal filters - Feasibility (how does a
good product or service look like from
preferably 2.
The few ideas that are chosen is then
translated into a meaningful value
proposition. We use the NABC - Needs,
Approach, Benefits/Cost and Competi-
tion (SRI)
NABC Value Propositions:
Needs: What is really needed?
Approach: Which avenues will we travel to fi nd our soluition
Benefits/Cost: User benefits and costs come fi rst, then other
aspects, such as business and government.
Competition: Which concepts will the marketplace favor, if
your concept is NOT developed? How strong are they comp-
ered to yours?

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 This is how you do:
Plan your prototype phase – What are your main
issues with your idea? Which prototypes can
help developing these? Video, mock up, func-
tional technical prototypes, sketches, enact-
ments etc, Think of fidelity and resolution.
Build flexible models – Understanding the areas
you may have to move in to and plan for this in
your prototype.

Iteration 1 Make it simple – The faster and less precious

the better - avoid “falling in love” with your
creation!

Prototyping ”Visualizing the idea”

Superficial
R&D The Rapid Prototyping process concerns many different formats. We deal with
magazine
Hi

protobuilds
add’s getting as fast as possible to a repre- Fidelity (how much of the concept is
Resolution

sentation of the idea, that can be tested shown in the prototype), Resolution
“text with the main stakeholders and users. (how precise is the prototype). Invite
Paper, glue, based”
stakeholders and users to co-creation
Lo

light descriptions
etc
We need to understand that a proto- by building Low Res + Low Fi proto-
Lo Hi type can have many dimensions and types.
Fidelity

A prototype can be a sketch, a picture, a story, a videoclip, a box of wires, a lego-

brick, a Profit & Loss XLS sheet, a play, a cardboard box. Only your imagination sets
A two minute digital video is far more viral the limit!
than a 100.000 USD physical prototype!

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The physical mock ups play a bigger role
than pure illustration: By handling the
model, many details of the concept surface.
Iteration Cyclus (Testing, Analysis & update)
Iteration means the act of repeating a
process usually with the aim of ap-
proaching a desired goal or target or
result. Each repetition of the process
is also called an “iteration”, and the
results of one iteration are used as the
starting point for the next iteration.
When iterating in the i4 framework, we
are staying true to the framework and
maturing the concept to better deliver
on the basic promise. We continuously
This is how you do:
Gather many data formats – similar to user
interviews, use many formats. Plan what you
want to learn with each test.
Remember to photograph, get names, dates
and record interviews for transcriptions. Au-
thenticate the data!
Test often and don’t tell the users what they
shouldn’t know! Be clever at not telling the
full story to any single user. Involve partners
for more intimate discussions. Iteration 2
evolve the concept based on analysis of tions as much as possible. Focus on the
test results. storytelling aspect of Video Prototypes
Use the Watering Hole technique to rap- to create winning user experience inno-
idly tap the wisdom of your colleagues vation.
in the organization. Use frequent user
Mindset: Many cycles
testing to make sure you stay within the at shortest cycle time
desirable area of creating user value in
your concept. Practice the act of telling
just enough to each customer for them
to comment on the idea without taking
valuable insights and potential IP away
from the interview. Repeat your itera- Invite for Co-Creation!
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 This is how you do:
Perform a stakeholder analysis – Gather who you
need to inject to. What is the path of your idea
to success? Use NABC, Story telling 3-act frame-
works etc.
Involve the key people, Pre-meetings, pre-
acceptance and clarification of drivers are key to
delivering the right pitch.
Test with peers Prepare a test plan for your idea

Injection 1 - who needs to see it, how should you react to

their comments. Practice the speech1-2 times to
improve flow and quality. Time your talk.

The Senior Management team will have Communication Analysis

to make it their own idea to engage
”Where to inject?”
The challenge of Injection.
Yourself Creating strong, viable solutions is
Middle managenment not enough. Ideas do not migrate very
Organizational boundaries efficiently by themselves. On the other
hand, internal marketing for own ideas
Your helpers: The Champion, The Entrapreneur and The Investor The path of ideas in organizations.
is not an ideal! The Injection disci-
pline covers the planning, shaping and
When Injecting, you only have a few attempts, then the idea is practise of the Pitch. Both to peers,
worn and you will have to rescope it. The senior managment team superiors and externals. The Injection
will have to make it their own before it is implemented.
discipline is one of the most important
enablers for implementation of innova-
tive solutions in the organization.
Injection consists of making strong
alliances to form the right preparedness
for recieveing the idea. Then a thor-
ough communication analysis, under-
standing each stakeholder’s needs and
points of view. Finally it comes down
to creating a strong, precise, focussed
pitch, which is not in selling mode but
invites for co-creation towards the
senior investors of the organization.

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 This is how you do:
Use many formats – stimulate all senses -
audio: speech, visual: video and images,
tactile: models and products etc.
Speak in CEO tongue - Think like a CEO.
Talk ROI, MEUR/MUSD, Strategy, Context,
Market, Industry, Business Case, Revenue
Stream etc.
Make a strong impression Both communi-
cate on emotional and rational topics to
get the full attention and “surrender” of
the recepient.
Injection 2
The Pitch ”Telling the story” The pitch is the most
critical element in
The Pitch requires attention to details, a critical one is missing, the pitch can it! You will have to make them believe securing buy in from
strong concept and a willing audience. fail and you should avoid performing it not only that this concept fits to their the organization.
You have to touch
at all before the right audience is there. strategies, that it is viable, feasible and both emotional and
When pitching, you have to keep close Investigate how the investors want to desirable, but that you are able to see rational elements as
well as giving visual,
attention to the details. Prepare the be “courted”. the project through. This requires that auditive, tactile clues
session well in advance. You only have Build the pitch from a skeleton of you are honest about risks and chal- for the different
preferences in the
1 or 2 chances in total! If you miss the the NABC - and remember to lift the lenges in the implementation outlook.
audience.
pitch, you may have to wait months conversation up towards the strategic Otherwise you render untrustworthy and
before next opportunity arises,. level that CEO’s and Sr Managers typi- the pitch is dismissed because of that. You have to be short
and sharp. An eleva-
The pitch requires the right conditions: cally reside in - this is most effective. tor pitch is only 1-2
The right audience - check out what A good pitch is less than 15 minutes How do the investors minutes long!
senior managers are required. If the long! Make sure you look like you mean like to be “courted”?

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 Conclusion
Innovation is hard. It is difficult. It is tough, it carries significant risk of failure.
However it is the only way you can stay competitive and flexible as an organization
and as individuals.

With the i4 disciplines, you are prepared for entering the world of innovation.
Practicing and failing forward, you will learn and eventually your team becomes a
practitioning team in the 4 disciplines and it will be so natural, that you can’t stop.
Spread the gospel - involve others, That is i4 Passion for Innovative Solutions.

We wish you the best of luck using your new skills!

Michael McKay

McKay Explore · Design & Consulting

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 mckayexplore
change through innovation

McKay Explore enables businesses and organizations to

utilize the intuitive thinking of the creative class. There-
by significant competitive advantage can be achieved.
Innovation is on everyone’s agenda these days. And rightfully so: The
world is getting complex and so are the challenges that organizations are
facing. McKay Explore will help you leverage innovation as a competitive
factor through optimizing innovation processes, liberating creative flow
from employees, customers and other people and organize for innovation.

concept making practitioners. Contact us: +45 5118-0967 info@mckayexplore.dk

mckayexplore · 19
i4 Vocabulary 2x2(two-by-two): A simple way to sort
multiple datapoints in a 2-dimensional
matrix. Make several 2x2’s to see more fa-
cets of your data. Use often, and mostly
during pattern recognition and filtering.
SWOT is a typical 2x2. FeasibilityxDesira-
bility is an other.
Analogous Stories: Your challenge is not
unique – find similar cases from other
worlds to get inspired from. For instance
is a pit stop at a racetrack an analogous
situation to the incoming reception in an
emergency room at the hospital.
Analysis: In i4 analysis is used as a non-
creative, logical thinking process in the
iteration discipline and other areas. Ana-
lysis is the process of breaking a complex
topic or substance into smaller parts to
gain a better understanding of it. Keep
decision making and analysis apart.
Approach: What is the unique approach
to the user’s need? Approach in i4 re-
presents the general direction that the
concept is taking, and allows the de-
velopment team to discuss vague ideas
around the solution and avoiding locking
in to specific details too early. Part of the
NABC value proposition.
Brainstorming: The classic ideation
method that includes rules such as no
critique allowed, all ideas are good,
building on other ideas, go for quantity,
go outside the box. No ideas are crazy.
Postpone and withhold your judgment of
ideas, Encourage wild and exaggerated
ideas, Quantity counts at this stage, not
quality, Build on the ideas put forward by
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others, Every person and every idea has
equal worth.
Co-creation: In this approach, the
company does not just try to please the
consumer but works with consumer to
co-construct the service experience to
suit his/her preferences. This will involve
joint problem definition and problem
solving in an environment in which con-
sumers can have an active dialogue and
co-construct personalised experiences
(Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004a).
Collaboration: Collaboration is key to
all i4 disciplines. Development phases
towards collaboration goes from depen-
dency to independency over interdepen-
dency. In i4, the goal for collaboration is
co-creation.
Commitment: It is important that the
company, the stakeholders and the team
members are committed to the task. Be
very open and symbolic on gaining com-
mitment before engaging in cross- orga-
nizational innovation.
Convergent Thinking: The overall thin-
king that leads to narrowing down the
openness in the situation. In i4, each di-
scipline has a divergent phase, followed
by a convergent phase. Teamwork is most
effective, when all members agree which
phase you are in!
Cross Pollenization: To take ideas from
one area and replant them into other,
non-related areas. For instance ”Jazz is
fundamentally the cross-pollination of
individual musicians playing together
and against each other in small groups”
(Ralph de Toledano).
Design Thinking: Design thinking can
be described as a discipline that uses
the designer’s sensibility and methods to
match people’s needs with what is tech-
nologically feasible and what a viable
business strategy can convert into custo-
mer value and market opportunity..“….
design thinking converts need into de-
mand” (Tim Brown and Peter Drucker)
Desirability: The User/Stakeholder point
of view towards valuing a concept: Will
they love it and be passionate about it?
Diverge: The overall thinking that leads
to opening up the situation and adding
more possibilities. Expanding and asking
even more questions and giving even
more opportunities. In i4, Divergent
thinking is applied many times, and the
fluctuation between Divergent and con-
vergent thinking can be very fast paced.
Again, teamwork is most effective, when
all members agree which phase you are in!
Evolutionary Innovation: The design
philosophy about adding small steps
onto existing solutions to gradually evol-
ve into better areas.
Failing Forward: The design image which
is about failing as fast and lightly as pos-
sible, to allow for experimentation and
learning from mistakes while the design
process is active.
Feedback: Giving and receiving feed-
back is a key to improving performance.
Beware that your own actions and habits
as an organization and individuals deter-
mine the success of the feedback loop:
See feedback as a present, offer feed-
back with the notion that the recipient
does not have to act on it. Receive the
feedback as a gift and make sure not to
be defensive in the moment of receipt;
this will foster feedback to happen more
often. Feedback and trust are main ingre-
dients of the Watering Hole.
Feasibility: The degree to which the
concept is doable. Does it violate the
laws of physics? Can we produce it? Do
we have the technologies that it takes?
Can we make it in time?
Filters: Filters are used to actively re-
duce the number of opportunities during
a convergent phase in the i4. Test many
filters and apply them in sequence to get
down to the desired amount of opportu-
nities.
Framework: Is used to describe the bo-
undaries of design tasks. You can use
textual frameworks such as “how might
we…” to drive ideation, or you can use
numerical frames to keep design work
within certain boundaries. Make sure
you design your frameworks with enough
sharpness and focus to allow the ideation
within to blossom and grow.
Front End, Fuzzy-: Front end represents
the area of product and service develop-
ment which happens before product re-
quirements and company strategies are
frozen. Often Front End happens AFTER
technology development and other back-
ground, periodical research processes.
We talk about Fuzzy Front End and Front
End Tools.
High Fidelity: A High Fidelity prototype
describes in detail how a concept is reali-
zed. It is rich in visualized functionality.
Hollywood Brainstorming: The brain-
storming technique, where participants
ask each other “so how would nn think
…”. Using persona’s who are known by
all members. It can also be politicians
and known role models. i.e “How would
Hitchcock have told this user story”
Idea Scout: Copy and improve with pride.
In i4 we train teams to keep low barriers
for colleagues and other project teams to
enter and copy. We also encourage teams
to visit other teams for inspiration. De-
ploy “Idea Scouts” to hunt for ideas and
return to report.
Ideation: The Discipline of creating ide-
as based on relevant insights.
Ideation Methods: Several methods
exist for creating ideas, and no ideation
method is better than the other; it is the
idea that counts; not where it came from.
Ideation methods covered in the i4 Boot
Camp includes brainstorming, ideation
flow, Probing, Hollywood Brainstorming,
Analogous Situation and Systematic Ide-
ation techniques.
Injection: The Discipline of delivering a
concept with the right timing, the right
angle, to the right person (s) with the
right tonality in order to see the concept
adopted by the organization and imple-
mented into the market. The Injection
process is sensitive to many issues and
implies orchestration, agility and atten-
tion to details. Injection can only hap-
pen a few times; then the idea has to be
rephrased.
Innovative Behaviour: The overall habit
of being open and creative, noticing the
minor details, living in the question and
continuously developing, discussing, ma-
turing and sharing ideas.
Insights: The result of a reflected data
gathering process. Insights are learning’s
and development questions that will
drive the innovation process further. In-
sights can be both weak and powerful.
The most powerful insights in i4 are Pain
Points, Paradoxes and Curiosities.
Inspiration: A collection of material
that can probe thinking in different di-
rections than the ordinary. Make it into
a habit to collect inspiration for yourself
and your team whenever you leave your
desk. Whether this is a photograph of so-
mething you saw yourself, a physical ob-
ject you bring, a website you discovered
or a person you quote. Make inspiration
sharing an everyday event in your team
and in your life in general. Collect even
without knowing what to use it for.
Interview Guide: When entering an
open ended interview, bring an interview
guide. Do not stick to it too literately but
rather use it as a map to navigate your
interview into the right areas. Compare
interview guides with your team mem-
bers, be thorough about designing the unusual suspects are ways to step out-
scope and framework into the guide. side the box.
Involvement, user- and stakeholder-: Partnership: Agreements along the ver-
The i4 disciplines rely on outside invol- tical lines of the industry. Strategic Part-
vement, such as colleagues, users, stake- nerships are often key to successful in-
holders, partners and other. Make an in- novation. Decide which partnerships are
volvement strategy in your project – who needed and co-create with these.
do you need to involve to learn what?
What will the do in the project, how can Passion: Find your passion and use it!
you bring in the right competences? Use both creative tensions, willpower,
urgencies, burning platforms, competi-
Low Resolution: The resolution of a pro- tive spirit and other means to grow your
totype is defined by the way the proto- passion. No innovation has ever been
type is refined. A crude prototype, which made without the presence of passion in
is not refined with right materials, scale, some sort. Beware that Passion can back-
dimensions and weight has a lower re- fire if not managed and lead properly.
solution. Low resolution opens up for
interpretation and is therefore ideal for
Co-Creation.
Low Fidelity: See High Fidelity. Low fi-
delity opens up for interpretation and is
therefore ideal for Co-Creation.
NABC: NABC is the format i4 uses for Va-
lue Proposition. The NABC is a collection
of Needs paired with Approach to the
needs, paired with an analysis of Bene-
fits per Cost and finally an analysis of the
competing concepts. (Stanford Research
Institute)
Outside the Box thinking: Within the
Ideation Discipline, the thinking and
reasoning need to leave the standard
patterns in order to find new ways to
resolve the challenges. It is important
to see the standard way of thinking and
consciously leave this. Probing, inspira-
tion, change of scenery or inviting the
i4 mckayexplore · 21
 Probing: In Design Thinking we use Pro-
bing as a term for introducing specific
resources or notions into the process.
Probing is often very effective for crea-
ting radical concepts. For instance we
asked a team to hold LEGO bricks during
an ideation session for a Data Center, and
the team ended up developing an idea
about stackable, unified Brick like, self
contained Blocks…
Prototypes: Representations of solu-
tions, both products and services and
other. Prototypes can represent both the
physical object, the system and the user
experience. Prototypes have 2 dimensi-
ons; Resolution and Fidelity. Go for Low
Resolution and Low Fidelity to create the
best prototypes for Front End Innovation.
Radical Innovation: The design philo-
sophy about taking giant, unexpected
leaps into new, uncontested markets.
Inventing completely new categories and
stimulating needs that were not expres-
sed earlier. This approach is typically
more risk oriented but Radical Innova-
tion is a game-changing activity, which
can dramatically change an entire indu-
stry. Established companies find it hard
to launch radical concepts, since they
often disrupts their own, existing pro-
duct lines.
Research question: When entering into
a business anthropologic insight phase,
use the research question to focus the
interviews and other information gathe-
ring processes. For instance: “Is it true
that the main annoyance to using the
xxx concept is the lack of yyyy”. Don’t be
22 · mckayexplore
i4
blinded by your research question, should
valuable new data present itself.
Scenery, change of-: To drive creativity
and outside the box thinking, often a
change in scenery can help. For instance
if doing products or services for televi-
sion consumption, a change of scenery
into a television studio or for instance
the Cannes Film Festival as a venue for
ideation can be quite fruitful. Smaller
changes, such as going outside or moving
to another room will also work.
Staying In the Question: (living in the
question). The idea that you do not an-
swer or do any decisions but rather keep
questioning. Pretend you come from
Mars and have landed here on Earth for
the first time! Everything will be about
questioning. Often used for Insight and
Ideation.
Storyboard: The systematic method
used for documenting a theater or mo-
vie script. We use it in i4 to create rapid
video and enactment prototypes. The
Storyboard consists of a series of process
steps, each depicted by a sketch, a de-
scription of roles and props. The Story-
boarding process itself is a powerful tool
for maturing an idea and is good at cap-
turing user experiences.
Strategic Industry Frameworks: When
creating concepts it is important to use
Strategic Industry and Company under-
standing along with the User Perspec-
tive. In the i4 Boot Camp, we showed
a couple of them: “Value Migration”,
Experience Economy, Pine&Gilmore,
“Innovation types compared to Industry
Maturity”, Dealing with Darwin – Geof-
frey Moore, “Disruptive Innovation”,
Clayton Christensen, “Freeconomics”,
Chris Anderson. The idea is to find, in-
terpret and use many frameworks to un-
derstand how the concept will fit into the
industry and market in the future.
Systematic Ideation: Using a framework
for understanding a solution complex
can lead to valuable systematic ideation.
Tools such as Morphology, Solution/
Means trees and other can capture the
room of solutions effectively.
User Experience: When using a product
or service, the user has a series of expe-
riences, that are called User Experience
(UX). User Experience Design and Inter-
action Design are areas, that address the
User Experience primarily, determining
physical and functional requirements
towards the rest of the design process.
By designing the UX first, designers can
precisely determine how the user feels
during the use of products and services.
Significantly important for mature mar-
kets.
User test: A test performed with a con-
cept, testing user reactions. Beware what
you show to which users, think about
protecting IP by splitting up intelligence
between several users. Use Partners to
intimate testing.
Unusual Suspects: are the people and
organizations that typically are NOT in-
vited to co-create. They are relevant but
often forgotten. For instance, if creating
a service concept often the telephone
operators are forgotten in the testing
or when designing a utility building, the
janitor can offer valuable insights. Think
Unusual Suspects every time you invite
for insight, ideation and iteration ses-
sions. Receptionists are often unusual
suspects.
Viability: The dimension of a concept
that talks about the business side. Can
we make money on this? How is the ROI?
Does our current channels and business
models accommodate this concept?
Watering hole. A specific innovation
methodology, which offers a systematic,
iterative concept maturing environment.
In the Iteration Discipline we use it to
enable outsiders of the project to help
building the concept with the team, whi-
le staying within the framework of the
idea. The Watering Hole technique of-
fers many other added benefits though.
(Stanford Research Institute)
Wildcard: To contain the intuitive, curi-
ous nature of Innovation further into the
innovation process, wildcards are intro-
duced to allow the team to add the “ideas
that won’t fit the metrics but drives our
curiosity and wonder”. Use Wildcards to
allow for the different, non-rational ide-
as to live longer in your project.
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