Innovation method development

Coming from a design background, Doblin recognized that proposed strategies could be more powerfully understood by making them tangible. We therefore worked with top design firms to create prototypes of the offerings, environments, and communications that would result from a proposed strategy concept.

Doblin exhibit of a gas retailing strategy for a major oil company in 1991

In the late 80s, we added primary social science research to our capabilities, and pioneered its application to the realm of offering and experience design. Earlier, during project work done in collaboration with Xerox PARC, we observed firsthand the value of primary user research to inform design, and the value of video to be able to both develop insights and show clients their customers' behaviors.

Proprietary software application we developed beginning in 1989 to help us capture, annotate and analyze video of research subjects

We found that innovations come to different industries at different times, and that one path to conceiving innovations in a specific industry context is to reason by analogy: "What would it be like if we did something like company x did in their industry?" We added formal library science skills to find "precursors" from other industries to inform concept development.

Precursor cards we recently developed for use in concept development workshop exercises

In our early years, we used a "do and present" engagement model in which we took assignments from clients and showed them our progress in a series of presentations. To better harness our clients' deep knowledge of their businesses and increase uptake of ideas in their organizations, we developed a workshop process in which we first immersed clients in research discoveries and and then co-developed concepts with them.

Workshop led by Doblin's Larry Keeley, and some content prepared as inputs to the workshop

After identifying the Ten Types of Innovation™, we used them to track industry innovation patterns over 10 year periods. Seeing their industry's patterns helped our clients avoid the low returns on innovation associated with following the dominant industry pattern and to instead innovate differently than competitors to earn a greater return on their innovation investments.

An Innovation Landscape^TM showing the patterns of innovation over the years 1997-2007 in the pharmaceutical industry

To help senior leaders align around innovation strategy and ambition, we began facilitating one and two day workshops informed by our innovation diagnostics and precursor research. These workshops identify specific initiatives to pursue and start to craft alternative futures.

Materials created for use in Innovation Intent workshops that imbed protocols designed to foster innovation understanding and alignment

Requests from clients to take on aspects of innovation that were new to us provoked us to seek a comprehensive view of innovation. We therefore developed a comprehensive framework to encompass all the parts and pieces. It facilitated productive discussions concerning where to start, how much is enough, and how to avoid errors of omission. It also helped us identify areas for our own growth.

An early depiction of the discipline of innovation

As more clients inquired about a disciplined method to go from a blank slate to a well-bounded set of innovation initiatives, we developed an approach that helped them define opportunity areas and agendas to explore them. Agenda items were tractable and sufficiently defined to handle as discrete projects.

A top down analysis of emerging opportunity spaces is combined with a bottom up analysis of client aspirations to yield a prioritized set of opportunity areas

Working with our parent company Monitor we developed methods to diagnose the internal innovation condition of a client, estimate their most likely failure modes, and deliver actionable plans for avoiding them.

The Doblin Innovation Maturity Model^{TM, a tool we use to assess current innovation skills and create innovation program plans}

As companies recognize the value of being able to innovate on their own, we have begun helping our clients establish the systems, capabilities, and structures that are right for their organizations. This includes governance structures, incentives, metrics, and more vigorous partnering with organizations that have complementary offerings and brand reputations.

Proposed organizational structure for a client's core innovation unit