Innovation
Posted by Ben Cheston
Innovation isn’t a one off, it’s a process and a way of working that delivers multi-faceted value to all stakeholders involved in the process. While it’s often a challenge to create an environment that drives innovation, it’s essential!
We should always ask questions and push the boundaries, but innovation and design should also be fun. “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish”, a quote by Steve Jobs inspired me to share some of our thoughts on innovation. At Hi Mum! Said Dad we’re always looking for new ways to foster innovation, so here are some things you can do to drive it.
1. Call on other resources
I’m often asking the opinion of our designers, creative technologists, marketers, account management and strategists on what is good, bad or average. Asking your peers for their insight, input and direction will help you formulate innovation with wider and deeper context.
2. Rely on your instincts
Creativity can come from anywhere. So if you feel passionate enough about your idea, don’t be afraid to push for it and share it with people who can help bring it to life.
3. Play with things
Genuinely go out and experience marketing solutions, the guts of technology, ingest content and feel emotion to unlock thinking and approaches. Really feeling, enjoying, disliking, hating, etc… helps to drive deeper understanding, innovation and design.
4. Make and break stuff
Collaborate, draw, design, build, bend, break, and push your ideas. Whether it’s individually or as part of a team, building things within a process allows you to fail fast at an early stage and move towards an optimum viable product, rather than a minimum viable product.
5. Have fun
It’s important that people enjoy the work they do. Creating an open, fun and interactive environment will produce better outcomes.
6. Research
Gather information so that full context is given to any work undertaken. Understanding timely, accurate and relevant information obtained from internal and external stakeholders is paramount.
7. Use off-site locations
There are lots of distractions within office environments. Behaviour, attitude and thinking can be curbed by the regularity of the office. These can inhibit the innovation process and restrict freethinking.
8. Guidance rather than rules
Creating a ‘playing field’ with parameters focuses direction to innovation and thinking. If the spectrum for innovation is too wide, the output may not feature enough detail or validity. If the rules are too tight, innovation can be stifled.
9. Frequency
Innovation is an ongoing process and a way of working, it can always help you fix problems and generate solutions. Furthermore, your competition can’t plan against innovation, so foster it and use it.
10. Test the template
Make sure to track and test your process and progress. If you’re using a template, obtain feedback, optimise, break models and re-shape. Always ask questions to drive better outcomes and results.
If you’d like to know more about how we help brands innovate, create and design solutions for their business please drop us a line, we’d love to hear from you!
Originally published at www.himumsaiddad.com.