Phase II: Playgrounds & Exploration
Based on the future we've envisioned for our customers and for our own organisation, the next phase is all about research and discovery. We define so-called "Playgrounds" within that future vision and explore them with genuine curiosity. Successful innovation projects rely on fresh and surprising insights from research. Learn more about what kind of insights we're looking for and how we generate them.
Bernhard Doll
Business Design Maverick
1. Purpose
Designing an ambitious Picture of the Future means admitting that some areas of that future are still unfamiliar to us today. Areas where we can unlock huge potential for the future business and for how we'll work. The job of a Business Designer is to dig into these "interest areas", surface exciting and surprising insights, and turn them into ideas the team can pick up in later phases of the end-to-end innovation process. We call these areas "Playgrounds."
A Playground usually combines one or more elements of the future business model — customer segments, for example — with a current opportunity or challenge, such as AI, that will act on those elements going forward. So we're deliberately combining two different time horizons. Opportunities come from things like new technological possibilities, a shifting regulatory environment, or societal trends, and you can deliberately act on these opportunities. Challenges work differently: they're problems you want to react to, like competitive pressure, limited resources, or inefficiencies.
Playgrounds are an essential part of an innovation strategy (among others).
2. Duration
Framing Playgrounds: 2 weeks
Exploring Playgrounds: 6 weeks per playground (if necessary)
3. Key Activities
These are the core activities of this phase:
Framing Playgrounds: Based on the Picture of the Future we've developed, we define Playgrounds. These become the foundation for the idea development that follows. Playgrounds usually don't prescribe a detailed solution space for your ideas. Depending on how ambitious your Picture of the Future is and how large your organization is, we typically derive around 9 to 12 Playgrounds from it.
Exploring Playgrounds: Not every Playground gets its own exploration. Where the uncertainty is low, take the Playground straight into ideation. Where it's high, you set up a dedicated team and start research to fuel the idea development.
As mentioned before, Playgrounds should be derived from a company's vision. This, however, is in many organisations a difficult endeavour. Why? Because many companies we have seen the last 15 years don't have a clear vision. They are excellent in managing their daily business but lacking an entrepreneurial idea for the future (well, apart from: "let's increase revenue by 10%"). If this is the case, we might end up in big troubles. Keep this in mind!