| You must have seen the festive puzzle with nine | | | | How do you handle the missing information? |
| dots (three dots in three rows)o o oo o oo o oand | | | | Having listened to her customers, we still had gaps in |
| your task is to trace through all the dots in four | | | | the information we needed to design the new |
| straight lines without lifting your pen from the page? | | | | products. For many small businesses, many decisions |
| (The solution is below.) | | | | are taken with incomplete information because they |
| What does this teach us about creative solutions? | | | | do not have the time or resources to research |
| Well if we allow ourselves to be limited by what | | | | decisions fully before taking them. |
| appears to be the box made up of the outside dots, | | | | So we adopted four more resolutions (in order of |
| we cannot solve the puzzle. However if we challenge | | | | discomfort) to help us flesh out the skeletal ideas we |
| our apparent limitations and several of the lines begin | | | | had: |
| or finish outside the box, the solution is easy and | | | | - Let us guess lucky about the missing information - |
| obvious. | | | | we can fill gaps with several alternatives and check |
| How different will tomorrow's products be? | | | | how permutations of these guesses work as we |
| The other day when I was working with a client | | | | develop our ideas. |
| whose products are successful today. I felt that this | | | | - We can think how greed and fear may bias our |
| was (naturally) constraining her thoughts and she was | | | | ideas - then we can construct best and worst cases |
| having difficulty in seeing her customers' needs with | | | | for the performance targets. |
| fresh eyes. | | | | - We can brainstorm the choices other companies |
| I used this dotty puzzle to help her recognise that | | | | might use - and use our experience with our |
| how success was condemning her to incrementally | | | | competitors to help us get ahead. |
| improve her products rather than radically replace | | | | - We can choose our box and decide what limitations |
| them. She could then see that new entrants to her | | | | to accept - by changing our question, we ourselves |
| industry can see what her customers want and are | | | | to get a find answer. |
| already designing tomorrow's products. | | | | How to put this into practice? |
| How do you change your innovative focus? | | | | If what I have said about innovation is a foreign |
| As we talked and worked on this insight, my client | | | | language, please do not ignore it; find someone to |
| made three new resolutions: | | | | help you understand it because my experience |
| - Iwill ask my customers what their issues are and | | | | shows that this approach to product innovation is |
| what they want to improve. | | | | important. |
| - I will suspend my judgement and listen to my | | | | If you need a clue to solving the puzzle: draw three |
| customers' ideas and comments carefully. | | | | lines from the top left corner, allowing the vertical |
| - I will be curious about their reasons for the features | | | | and horizontal lines to extend outside the box, then |
| they want and learn from the benefits they are | | | | draw a diagonal line through the untouched dots to |
| looking for. | | | | join these two 'out of the box' lines. |
| We then designed an innovation program where my | | | | I hope this puzzle has stirs you to taking a new view |
| client approached a dozen of her key customers and | | | | on your problems - I really enjoy coaching business |
| spent a couple of hours with each of them, asking | | | | people who create wealth through new ideas. |
| for their ideas and listening to the help they gave. | | | | |