Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Stage 3: Conceptualizing The Opportunity Stage Overview and High Power Brainstorming Robert Monroe Innovative Product Development March 12, 2012

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course By The End Of Class Today, You Should: Understand the basic inputs, outputs, and tasks undertaken during the opportunity conceptualization phase Be able to apply the principles of effective brainstorming and have experienced a high power brainstorming session Have generated a significant number of promising ideas for new products, services, or experiences to meet your customers' identified needs and desires

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Phase 3 Overview: Conceptualizing The Opportunity Phase 3 Product Concepts Gate 2 Gate 3 Phase 2 outputs: Prioritized value opportunities Detailed scenarios Prioritized product attributes Prioritized stakeholder list Phase 3 activities: Generating and screening product concepts Prototyping Paper and pencil Shape and form Technological Packaging decisions Detailed market research Phase 3 outputs: Single product concept with which to build detailed business case Prototype(s) that illustrate path forward for this product or service Detailed market analysis

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Phase III Process Overview Value Opportunity Assessment Refined POG Product Attributes Brainstorm lots of concepts Quick eval Select 3-10 most promising concepts Select one concept for Phase IV Detailed Eval: Define Test Refine, Repeat

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Concept Generation Goals: –Generate a wide variety of product concepts –Explore many different approaches to solving the problem –Narrow list to 3-10 concepts for detailed evaluation Tasks: –Brainstorming - encourage wacky, ‘out-there’ ideas The crazy ideas often hold nuggets of opportunity to build on Sometimes what has historically been crazy is becoming more feasible due to SET factor trends –Try to come up with different concepts that could address the identified value opportunities and product attributes –Capture and build on ideas that came up during the first two phases –Draw on your observations of how customers interact with the world and their current tools/solutions

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Concept Generation Example: Paper Fastening Identified product attributes: Fasten related pieces of paper together –Inexpensively –Quickly –Reversibly –In order –Holds for an arbitrarily long time –In such a way that a person can flip through the papers Allow ad-hoc disassembly, reordering, and re-assembly Identify concepts to address this opportunity

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Paper Fastening Example: Initial Concepts Images source:

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Paper Fastening Example: Further Concepts What did you observe about these concepts? Have I generated enough product concepts yet? Further ideas? Images source:

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Concept Filtering In Phase III VOA Refined POG Product Attributes Brainstorm lots of concepts Quick eval Select 3-10 most promising concepts Select one concept for Phase IV Detailed Eval: Define Test Refine, Repeat

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Concept Filtering In Phase III Initial filtering criteria: –How well does each product concept address the key value opportunities identified in phase II? –How well does each product concept meet the product attributes identified in phase II? Secondary filtering criteria: –Basic sanity checks –Technical feasability –Market sizing, readiness, likelihood of acceptance –Competitive landscape –… others?

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Market Analysis In Phase III Goals: –Determine business potential for concepts –Confirm that there is still a significant market opportunity –Evaluate customer acceptance of concept Tasks: –Market research –Surveys –Focus groups and interviews –Brand analysis –Customer/consumer sessions showing prototypes and observing customer reactions to and interactions with the prototypes

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Prototyping In Phase III Prototyping begins in this phase –Simple visual and functional representations Focus is on evaluating: –Customer reactions - desirability and utility –Technical and production feasibility (and difficulty) –Fit in customer’s technology ecosystems –Identifying early ‘gotchas’ Tasks: –Create storyboards to illustrate and refine concepts –Sketch out pencil-and-paper concepts –Identify key technical challenges, figure out a way to convince yourselves that they can be addressed –Do necessary prototyping to understand key technical challenges

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Some General Thoughts On Phase III Process Iterate, Iterate, Iterate! Refine, Refine, Refine! Customer feedback good Fail quickly and move on Believe in your concept by the end of the phase

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Conceptualization Exercise: High Power Brainstorming

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Product Opportunity Gap Over the past decade consumers have become more dependent on web-based retailers and service providers. To prevent fraud, web retailers and service providers need to authenticate that the customer making a purchase is who he or she claims to be. The standard way that web providers authenticate customers is requiring a userid and password to login. Consumers now need to manage many different passwords for many different sites, creating a hassle for consumers and a security problem for both consumers and web-based businesses.

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Identified Value Opportunities Legend Current: Desired:

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Identified Product Attributes Simplifies authentication process for consumers –Process of authenticating to a specific website or mobile service –Process of managing authentication information across sites and services Provides robust authentication – not easily spoofed Reduces security threats from consumer confusion, inattention, and inability to remember numerous pwd’s Simple to use with little or no training Difficult to use incorrectly Provides customers clear feedback that it is working Standard usage across most websites and mobile services Integrates with existing web and 3G technology infrastructure

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Conceptualization Exercise Form teams Brainstorm product concepts to address opportunity Develop a wide range of ideas Prepare a brief presentation to the class: –Quickly present a list of 8-10 solutions that illustrate a range of ideas your group generated –Present the 2 or 3 concepts that your group believes are the most promising

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Exercise Discussion How should we proceed from here? What else do we need to know in order to convert these ideas into a detailed product concept? –How can you get this information? What else do we need to do to develop the concept to the point that we can realize it as a prototype with a business plan and strategy behind it in phase 4?

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Challenge Problem 5 New groups Generate product concepts –Generate a list of at least 75 product/service concepts –Use the initial filtering ideas discussed to narrow to the 3 most promising product concepts for further investigation –Present those three top concepts, along with examples of other concepts you came up with but rejected, to the class next Tuesday in no more than 10 minutes Further details to follow on the wiki

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course References [CE09] Robert G. Cooper and Scott Edgett, Successful Product Innovation, Product Development Institute, 2009, ISBN: [CV02] Jonathan Cagan and Craig M. Vogel, Creating Breakthrough Products, Prentice Hall, 2002, ISBN: [KL01] Tom Kelly with Jonathan Littman, The Art of Innovation, Doubleday, 2001 ISBN: [SSD09] David Silverstein, Philip Samuel, Neil DeCarlo, The Innovator’s Toolkit, John Wiley and Sons, 2009, ISBN: