Wear a Blue Hat to generate ideas, with customers
Start-ups
The mantra for a start-up is Ideate / Innovate / Incubate.
The mantra for an excellent organization is Faster / Better / Cheaper / Different. In order to be Different, one must Ideate / Innovate / Incubate.
Last Sunday, at the IIT Bombay E-Summit 2020, this was my key take away.
While mentoring four different start-ups, individually, I realized that the budding entrepreneurs needed help in validating their ideas. Just as excellent organizations still do.
Performance Excellence
Excellence is achieved when all customers are satisfied: External / Internal / Society / Mother Earth. There is no option.
As a first step, we need to ideate about what would delight our External customers? These customers are the reason for our existence. These customers defines the Quality required from our outputs, by voting with their money. These customers are the final inspectors. These customers pay our salaries.
Think of any excellent organization. There is every likelihood that the core competencies of this organization are:
Start-ups should benchmark such excellent organizations. More specifically, in understanding the needs of External customers.
Focus Group Meetings
I strongly recommend the use of Focus Group meetings for understanding External customer needs.
A focus group is a marketing tool that organizations use to find out how members of the public receive a product and how the product can be improved.
During the focus group, a facilitator asks participants questions about the project, and the participants provide their opinions and ideas in a free-form style.
This market research is not a post-mortem study. It is an ideation exercise in collaboration with the External customer. It is Faster / Better / Cheaper. In most cases, it may also be Different.
Different
How can one make a Focus Group meeting different? I suggest following the Six Thinking Hats methodology authored by Edward de Bono.
The Six Thinking Hats method may well be the most important change in human thinking for the past century….. and more. After all, ‘thinking’ is the ultimate human resource.
Each of the Six Thinking Hats has a colour. The colour of the hat is also related to its function.
The Blue Hat facilitator in a Focus Group meeting, allocates defined time for the group members to wear a specific coloured hat. The sequence of hats defined by the facilitator, ultimately generates breakthrough ideas.
The Six Thinking Hats methodology has been applied at Tata Consultancy Services.
Random Thoughts