Tasked with filling the innovation pipeline in multi-sided business model (consumers and professionals) for a F500 client in the construction industry, The Garage Group and client team set out to identify opportunity spaces, generate ideas using curated Trends and Analogs, and rapidly optimize and test those ideas against consumers and professionals. The end result was a number of iteratively-built, consumer-vetted, actionable concepts to fill the client team’s pipeline for 2017.
The Garage Group facilitated a deep-dive training to equip the broader team to think and operate like an entrepreneur. This training leveraged The Garage Group’s own Hustle Handbook, which includes skills and tools that are key for teams to hustle like a startup and act courageously.
In order to ground the client team in the root of consumer and professional needs, The Garage Group conducted a training on Jobs To Be Done theory, and then provided custom templates for the client team to translate consumer/professional pain points into jobs.
The Garage Group kicked off the session by synthesizing all existing knowledge and previous initiatives the client had pursued to identify innovation platforms to action against. They also leveraged key experts within the organization to speak to certain trends or capabilities in the works.
The Garage Group conducted a Digital Ethnography with both consumers and professionals to quickly but thoroughly build an empathetic understanding of potential innovation spaces. By engaging with respondents online, The Garage Group was able to have them record a store trip or a day "on the job,' along with other online activities. Once the team gathered the key insights, The Garage Group worked with the team to translate painpoints into ripe Jobs to be Done for innovation.
The session was kicked off by sharing key findings from the knowledge sharing and digital ethnography. Then, The Garage Group lead a rapid-fire, engaging session of curated Trends and Analogs specific to each innovation platform, along with thought-starters on how the client might re-apply analogs or respond to trends. The team used Trends and Analogs as external inspiration to generate breakthrough ideas.
To further identify and understand market needs, The Garage Group moderated two panels to discuss key pain points and opportunities related to the priority areas. The first was with 4-5 target consumers, and the second was with 4-5 professionals, who are on the front lines of addressing consumer pain points and wish-fors. This allowed for real-time insights into the consumer and retailer experience, equipping the team to further develop solutions to meet those needs.
At the end of Day 1, the entire team walked through all ideas generated, refined them, and identified the top ideas that have the highest “right to win.”
Participants were broken into “startup” teams and assigned a top idea to further develop. They built out a custom Business Model Canvas that helped them think through every facet of “what needs to be true” to allow their idea to be successful in market. Along the way, live consumers were available for 1-on-1 interviews so that teams were able to receive input and further refine their idea.
Teams then turned their Business Model Canvases into succinct, polished “pitches” that clearly laid out the opportunity, key assumptions, and next steps for their idea. Teams presented their pitches to leadership and key stakeholders in order to decide which ideas to turn into concepts in the next phase of the project.
To quickly enable the top 4 ideas to progress toward market readiness, The Garage Group created, optimized, and assessed concepts with consumers and professionals. Leveraging a combination of qualitative and quantitative research to craft consumer relevant language around each idea, these insight/benefit/RTB combos were then paired with a custom visual to bring each idea to life.
We recruited target consumers to participate in 30-minute 1:1 interviews (online, video chat with document sharing) to assess and optimize concepts based on the top ideas from the Explore phase. Along the way, we collected key input around overall appeal, uniqueness, believability, and value. Afterwards, The Garage Group created recommendations for final concept language, along with optimized visuals for each component of the overall idea.
In just three sessions, the client team had consumer-tested, refined concepts and visuals that went on to be further built out into robust business model canvases and clear path-to-consumer/professional plans. By utilizing The Garage Group’s lean, startup-inspired approach, the client was able to rapidly identify which ideas had the legs to win in the market with support from internal leadership, without dedicating large sums of resources and time to ideas that did not.
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