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The times of pure Design Thinking are over: Certainly, the last years have seen the rise of Design Thinking and similar processes (most lately design sprints)
that help entrepreneurs and managers to create more user-centered
products and services. They are great tools to spawn desirability in
customers. Nevertheless, they often fall short in creating a sustainable
business model. Business Design is the remedy to this problem.
Fig. 1 — Innovation happens at the intersection of business (viability), design (desirability) and tech (feasability)
A business idea is not yet a business model
Business
Design is on the rise. In the last years a series of influential books
has been published with a clear focus on the creation and development of
business models (see “further readings”). They got special notice in
the startup scene and beyond.
Fig.
2— Business Design uses a special skill set and information on the
status quo to develop a business model. (This is the first of a series
of representations of Business Design throughout the article that are
based on discussions among Business Designers at our company.)
The
business model has always been an important part of doing business, but
recently the designing of businesses got a new urgency. It is the
advance of startups, quickly changing markets, and evolving
technological possibilities that make it ever more important to develop
innovative business models and rethink traditional ones. These
circumstances shorten the time that old business models can stay viable.
Today there are technological opportunities that enable lean
implementation of business models and make them change too fast for the
long cycles of traditional R&D.
Business
Design provides the tools and methods to develop and test a business
model. At the same time it makes the difference between a service that
is just a marketing stunt and one that is a sustainable business.
Fig. 3— The tools and methods of Business Design can be ordered on two axis to create a 2x2 matrix — one of our favorite charts.
Following
that openness, I will not give a fixed definition of Business Design
but present variations that we use in in our daily work at Service Innovation Labs.
Business Design …
is the application of design methods and processes on the development and innovation of business models.
is about value creation and capturing.
transforms a value proposition into real business value.
making sense of new value creation by thinking in relations.
Fig. 3 — Business Design realizes a value proposition in the system of production, distribution, customer benefit, and price.
The Business Design process
Business
Design is foremost a new systematic approach. It is based on
articulating assumptions, testing with prototypes, iteration and fast
learning. Usually we follow these three steps:
Understand the market, its players, constituents and forces; translate cross-industry best practices and articulate assumptions.
Develop a business model prototype, evaluate it and identify the most critical assumptions.
Test your model, learn, and iterate.
In
our daily work we closely collaborate in teams with service designers
and software developers to deeply integrate our business model with the
value proposition of our product.
Fig.
4 — Business Design (1) analyzes outside-in capabilities and inside-out
opportunities, (2) iterates with research, synthesis, concept and test,
and (3) structures and orchestrate process and progress.
Conclusion
Business
Design provides a perspective to entrepreneurs and managers to think
creatively about their business model and develop it further. The
systematic approach allows to test the viability of new ideas with few
resources. In the future this will be the critical competence that
decides on success in an accelerating market.
At the same time, Business Design is still a developing field. Join the discussion and tell us in the comments:
What is your (working) defintion of Business Design?
Further Readings
I
collected a list of books that made contributions to the shaping of
Business Design. I will publish another article with an extensive
reading list on Business Design later.
Business
Model Generation, Alexander Osterwalder — Osterwalder publicized the
Business Model Canvas as an easy way to draft and iterate your business
model.
Lean
Startup, Eric Ries — Ries introduced the “scientific method” of
experimenting, testing and iterating into the startup world.
The
Business Model Navigator, Oliver Gassmann et al. — the book discusses
the constituents of a business model and presents an (allegedly
exhaustive) list, written by a team of St. Gallen University.
We
tend to think of life in terms of accomplishments, rather than
experiences. But life is meant to be live with the “goal” of being
present in the moment.
This
is how to live a meaningful life. Not by having goals and doing things
merely to reach those goals, but to live in awareness.
For the most part, society is distracted from this principle. Society tries to derive meaning through status, material wealth, and arbitrary goals.
Take the pressure off. Forget about your goals and plans and just be in the moment. Let each moment guide you.
This
isn’t about being undisciplined. That’s a different type of letting go.
This is about not trying to control everything. It’s about allowing
inner wisdom to guide you.
Goals
and plans are often disrupted by reality anyway. Having a general
direction makes sense, but details written in stone don’t.
It
is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most
intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to
change -Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin theory states, 'Survival of the Fittest’, which means that the fit survives till the end.
If we do not adapt changes prevailing in our life, we might not be able to survive Irrespective of our HIGH IQ and EQ…
Adaptability
is the ability of an individual to respond to his changing environment,
it shows the ability to learn & improve from experiences.
By
being adaptable, we can easily survive, adopt new changes, learn new
skills, gain practical knowledge, and be successful in our work. In many
organizations, logic is the only rule, where emotions does not have any role to play….
Adaptive quotient(AQ) individual can offer a practical path to solving problems, they have the capacity to handle changes and are open to new ideas. They take on new challenges at a shorter notice and deal with changing priorities.
But if, an individual is intellectually intelligent it means, his/her
knowledge is limited to only a particular part of his/her skill. It’s
not a complete measure of a person’s worth. It indicates only one
limited type of ability.
I’m ready to play a bet …that adaptability quotient (AQ) will soon become the primaryindicator of success, with IQ and EQ both taking a backseat to how quickly we’re able to keep up with constant changing world.
EQ & IQ are important, but it’s only two legs of the stool. What I Learnt by Reading Books of great People is both IQ and EQ are not fixed properties, but rather can be developed through dedication and hard work. I guess…AQ
works similarly — some of us are born with higher AQ potential, but
each of us can work to alter it over the lifetime. We can see example
around us like We all have that friend who dislikes changes and another
friend who thrives on the new experiences. This leads me to suspect that
we are already subliminally aware that AQ exists
and that it has variance, but we’re not talking about it. Furthermore,
we don’t have a hardcore way to test or improve it.
The reason I say So is because when I used Google to search for “adaptability quotient” …. I received short Inc article written by the leader of a change-management consulting firm, along with a 2011 Harvard Business Review article titled “Adaptability: The New Competitive Advantage” (worth a read). Beyond those, other are useless…
Adaptation
gives an opportunity to grow. It gives us more experience. We are
living in the age of technology, where everything is changing. It does
not matter how much we try to get used to things, every new day will
bring a new challenge.
Creative Destruction
According to Why Nations Fail by
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson the reason nations fail or succeed is
political institutions. They theorize that there are two kinds — “extractive” institutions in which a “small” group of individuals do their best to exploit the rest of the population, and “inclusive” institutions in which “many” people are included in the process of governing.
The reason that inclusive states are far more successful than extractive ones is Creative Destruction. It
means challenging vested interests to develop a better way of doing
things. It means replacing the old with the new, new sectors attract
resources from old ones, new firms takes business from established ones,
new technologies make existing skills and machines obsolete.
Here is a Real Life Example for Creative Destruction… Fortune 500 firms 1955 v. 2016: Only 12% remain, thanks to the creative destruction that fuels economic prosperity
First case where Apple was designing iPhone and Second case where Nokia was selling half a billion phones each year.
Google bought
a company called Android and announced an Open Handset Alliance, a
grouping of industry players who would come together to build an open
source OS for smartphones. Nokia was invited to join but refused to
demean itself.
Soon after Apple launched an Apps Store that began to take off, attracting tens of thousands of developers, and then customers.
Within two years of these events Nokia was already in crisis. In
2007, Nokia had a market capitalization of €110 billion; by May 2012
this had fallen to €14.8 billion. Those figures illustrate the extent of
the decline over 5 years, years in which Apple and Android came to
dominate smartphones.Nokia/Symbian also launched an Apps Store, Horizon,
now happily forgotten, and after six months it had the sum total of 60
apps in it.
And
Nokia launched its own Apps and Content store – Ovi, in 2009. But Nokia
had no real platform experience to compare with Apple’s. The platform
was shaky and it tried to launch simultaneously in 35 countries –
because that’s what dominant players do. It was a disaster and the tech
press called it out as such. Nokia was faced with a gale of criticism
for the first time.
2) RYAN DAHL— Creator of Node.js and Now a AI & ML Researcher at Google Brain
Ryan Presenting the Original Node.js Paper
Dahl grew up in San Diego, California. His mother got an Apple 2C when he was six years old, one of his first experiences with technology. Ryan attended community college in San Diego and later transferred into UCSD where he studied mathematics. He went on to attend grad school for Mathematics at the University of Rochester where he studied algebraic topology, which he once found “very abstract and beautiful” for a couple of years but later got bored of it because “it was not so applicable to real life.”
Once he realized that he did not want to be amathematician for the rest of his life, he dropped out of the PhD program and bought a one-way ticket to South America and lived there for a year, where he found a job as a web developer. He worked on a Ruby on Rails website for a snowboard company
Ryan Got into JavaScript Development around 2007–2008 , The Hottest topic for the season during that time for JavaScript plus ASync I/O.
Coming From a Non Software Background , It was Difficult for Him to
achieve Wonders in Computer science.. He Taught Himself Every bit of
Programming and Slowly and Steadily Developed a Programming Language
Named Node.jswhich is one of the Most Popular Programming Languages.
Image Courtesy : indeed.com
Ryan
Did not Stop , After Spending Years with the Node Community , He
Decided to Step away from the Node Project and Join The AI & ML
Revolution. He got into Google as a Software Engineer and Started
Working on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning .
This is Inspiring as Ryan being a Non Computer science grad Adapted to Industry Trends to gain Success…
This
is an Example of How People Have adapted to changes even if Their
Previous Background Did not Support that.This is an Example of HIGH AQ.
The New York Times published a fascinating article
last week on Robots and How Sweden Differ on thier Views.One of the
Swedes interviewed is Mika Perrson, a remote mine operator testing
self-driving vehicles to replace truck drivers.Below is the Link :-
“Mr.
Persson, 35, sits in front of four computer screens, one displaying the
loader he steers as it lifts freshly blasted rock containing silver,
zinc and lead. If he were down in the mine shaft operating the loader
manually, he would be inhaling dust and exhaust fumes. Instead, he
reclines in an office chair while using a joystick to control the
machine.” — New York Times
Persson
and the nation on the whole do not fear the automation of existing jobs
because of strong social safety nets — the government provides health
care and free education, plus employers finance extensive job training
programs.
According to the Swedish minister for employment and integration, “The jobs disappear, and then we train people for new jobs. We won’t protect jobs. But we will protect workers” (NYT). Furthermore, unions in Sweden “generally embrace automation as a competitive advantage that makes jobs more secure” (NYT). I think Sweden would receive an extraordinarily high AQ score.
Contrast
Sweden with the Rest of the World, however, and I become deeply
concerned about us. In Most of the countries, the healthcare system is
dependent on our employers, so “losing
a job can trigger a descent to catastrophic depths. It makes workers
reluctant to leave jobs to forge potentially more lucrative careers.”.
With this mindset, it’s no wonder that 80% of “Americans were ‘worried’ about a future in which robots and computers substitute for humans”(Pew Research survey in the NYT) as compared to the “80% of Swedish Population that express positive views about robots and artificial intelligence, according to a survey this year by the European Commission” (NYT).
Conclusion
Above
Examples are enough to convince me that we might be well on our way
toward a future High AQ being the Most important Factor :-
In a macro sense, I think Three things are likely to happen:
We will certainly agree that adaptability is an important indicator for future success and we need a metric for it — AQ.
A sizable industry will emerge to boost our AQ ..
A good Mix of EQ , IQ and AQ is Required for Long Term Success.
‘To
do’ lists can be deadening and demotivating. We all have things we have
to do and some of those things are routine and don’t set the world on
fire. But all too often we allow those things to take far too much time
and energy. So what can we do to transform ‘to do’ lists so we don’t get
stuck spending most of our time on the small, time-consuming stuff?
1. Think about your use of time
A
great journalling exercise I did recently was to make a huge list of
all the ways I spend my time. Then I divided the list into three groups:
essential tasks that use my skills and are enjoyable (B)
the core goals that I’m most passionate about (A)
For
me, the category C activities are things like emails and routine admin.
This includes organising book launches, doing business accounts, buying
train tickets etc.
I
estimated I was spending around 40% of my time on category C
activities. With another 40% on work, that left 20% of my time for
family, relaxation, writing … How can core goals and values be so
squeezed and thrive? Of course, they can’t. So the questions then
became, what could I eliminate? What could I automate or streamline? And
what could I delegate?
One
of the things I noticed was that I was repeating the same information
to lots of people in serial emails. I set about writing a series of
information sheets for authors. These covered what to expect during the
publishing process, information for launches etc.
They are all online and available for authors to download on a resource page.
We
added an invaluable office manager to our team at Cinnamon Press. We
employed a virtual assistant to do a routine task uploading competition
details. And I started time blocking so that emails are all answered
once a day. I batched other admin too, so I’m not wasting time going
back and forth between different types of activity.
My
category B is either work-related (editing and mentoring, for example).
Category B activities are harder to limit in some ways as they are more
essential and more enjoyable.
I
love my work, but I don’t want to be co-terminus with it. Having
supportive authors who help with these tasks makes a huge difference. I
gain a lot from editing the work of others, but I’m also grateful to
have trusted editors to delegate part of the process to.
I
get huge satisfaction from teaching and mentoring, but sharing the load
is also rewarding. I have no desire to cut the category B activities
from my timetable, but a team can achieve much more than an individual.
Once again, time-blocking enables me edit and mentor when I’m most
focussed.
And
I’m learning to say no. Loving my work does not mean I have to take on
more and more until it overwhelms me. Greg McKeown asks:
Have
you ever said yes when you meant no, simply to avoid conflict or
friction? … the very thought of saying no brings us physical discomfort.
We feel guilty. We don’t want to let someone down. … But these emotions
muddle our clarity. They distract us from the reality of the fact that
either we can say no and regret it for a few minutes or say yes and
regret it for days, weeks, months or even years.
We
all have the same amount of time each day, but how we use it makes the
difference. We can spend a bigger percentage of our time on the
important things if:
we eliminate non essential activities (no one needs to be available to a phone or messages every minute of the day)
streamline and/or delegate some of the routine activities
use blocks of time for different types of activity so you focus on the important things first and one task at a time
build a team to share the more essential and rewarding work
don’t imagine we can do it all and learn to say no
These
strategies have helped me shift from spending 40% of my time on the
routine ‘to do’ list to around 20% and I aim to get that down further
this year.
This
frees much more time for editing and mentoring, but also for my
category A activities. These include writing, travel, learning, family
time and relaxation.
2. Think about why certain activities are important to you
We
all have different goals, different category A activities that are more
‘quest’ than ‘to do’. It’s sad that the pace of life often relegates
these to the ‘add-ons’ that we hardly have any time for. But the more
passionate we are about these things, the less we will find excuses for
not doing them.
As I said in recent post:
Your goals should be your passion and, if they are, then it’s no longer a matter of forcing yourself on by dogged willpower.
It helps to know why we we value certain activities over others. This is what Benjamin Hardy advises:
Think about what it is you want, and ask yourself this simple question:
What about ___________ is important to me?
If your goal is to work from home, then ask yourself the question:
What about “working from home” is important to me?
Your answer might be something like, “to have a more flexible schedule.”
You then put THAT into the previous question.
It’s good to go at least 7-questions deep into this exercise.
Don’t overthink it. Let the answers come and move on and you’ll find your thinking is much clearer than you imagined.
For me:
Writing
is the most meaningful and transformative activity I undertake. It’s
fundamental to how I reflecting on life and connect with others.
Becoming a different story is my life’s work.
Travel puts me in unfamiliar places and situations. This in turn stimulates creativity, writing, thought and deeper work.
Family (including
an extended family of close friends) makes my world make sense. These
are the people who teach me to live from abundance rather than scarcity.
These are the people who confirm for my that generosity is the key
virtue.
Keeping fit
facilitates other goals. I’m less than 5 feet tall and have a slow
metabolism so to maintain my energy I need to be fit, of moderate
weight, flexible and well-nourished. It’s about valuing my most basic
resource: myself, so that I can give.
Personal development
is also foundational to my goals. When my daily rituals, habits,
learning, attention to values and relaxation are in harmony, the rest
follows.
If
we are clear about what matters most and why these things matter, we
are more likely to live life as an exciting quest rather than a tedious
to do list.
3. Think about building your life on values rather than ‘oughts’
When
we face a long list of things we have to do, resistance sets in. Life
becomes drudgery sustained by a diminishing supply of willpower. Even if
we manage to achieve everything on the list, we’re not likely to take
much pleasure of pride from it.
When
we manage our time by eliminating, streamlining, delegating, sharing,
time blocking and saying no, we find we have ‘more time’.
When we know what we are passionate about and why, we release energy that is much more effective than willpower.
And
when we act from our deepest values rather than ‘oughts’ imposed on us
from outside, then this energy increases beyond our imagining.
Living
from values gives us this bigger vision. Living from values comes from
intrinsic motivation rather than from something imposed on us.
As
with goals, we will each have different value sets. But something I’ve
found useful is to use a system attributed to Benjamin Franklin. He
decided on thirteen key virtues and each week of the year would focus on
one of them so that over the year he’d concentrate on each value four
times.
I’ve
written my values into a tiny book (less than two inches square) that I
can carry with me. The first two for me are generosity and abundance.
It was fascinating to spend time journalling to reach my list of
thirteen. And starting each day thinking about how I can show that value
in my life is much more motivating than starting the day thinking about
a to do list. It doesn’t mean that there are no routine jobs to do, but
it keep them in perspective.
4. Think about taking time out
When
you know how you want to live and why; when you know the values your
life rests on, life becomes a quest rather than a mundane list of
demands on your time. This is exhilarating and motivating and it demands
that we redirect our energy to what matters to us. How do we do that?
i. We need to take space to think
I’m currently rereading Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own—
it’s an important text and the idea that we need a dedicated space in
which to write is essential. Over the last week I’ve set up a dedicated
writing room in which to work. It has 23 years of past journals, all the
books I’ve bought but still need to read, and important texts that have
informed my current thinking. It’s a place I can go to think or write.
If you can’t take a whole room, find a desk, a corner, any space that
you can call your own and where you can think and write.
ii. We need to create a mindset that helps us to focus
Whatever
your daily commitments, journalling morning and evening can make all
the difference. Five minutes of writing about how you envisage your
future. Five minutes of reflecting on how you have used your time, lived
your ‘why’ or values, makes an enormous impact on how you see the world
and interact with it. Take time every day to affirm and reflect and
watch your world change.
Environment is crucial to our perspective and when we take control of it, things happen.,
iii. We need time in other environments
This
is why travel is so important to me. It places me in unfamiliar places
and stimulates creativity, writing, thought and deeper work. If you
can’t leave the country, go for a long walk; swap houses with a friend
for a week. Do something that shifts your perspective and in the
unfamiliar situation you will find yourself having new thoughts.
In short
If
you want your life to be a quest rather than a mere ‘to do’ list; and
want to make a difference, there are a few simple strategies:
think about your use of time — you have as much time as anyone else and it’s up to you how you use it.
think about why certain activities are important to you — dig deep until you find what matters to you.
think about your values and build your life around intrinsic motivation, not what someone says you ‘ought’ to do.
think
about taking time out, whether in daily journalling or unfamiliar
environments that challenge you to adopt new perspectives.
When you begin to make these changes you’ll find life is no longer a mundane to do list, but a quest of your own making. Enjoy!
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These are the 3 areas to focus on in order to ensure your company’s success #ShortcutYourStartup
One
of the greatest feelings an entrepreneur can experience is when his or
her product or service finally gains traction and begins to gain product
market fit. It takes an immense amount of effort and time to get to
this stage, and you may be tempted to pause, reflect, and enjoy the
moment.
Don’t.
This
is the time when you should be putting your foot on the gas and trying
to relentlessly improve. This is one of the things we learned running
our company and something we talk a lot about in Shortcut Your Startup.
While
the marginal improvements may seem smaller at this stage compared to
the ones you faced when you were initially starting your company, the
magnitude of their effects will now be greater.
To
make this more palatable, consider the analogy on the power of compound
interest, or what Albert Einstein (may or may not have) called “the
eighth wonder of the world.” It’s well known that incrementally adding
to your retirement account when you’re just entering the workforce in
your 20s has huge ramifications on your savings when you retire 40–50
years later.
This
same logic applies to the incremental decisions you make at your
company — seemingly small improvements (and mistakes, too!) have huge
effects down the road.
From
our perspective as both the founders of VEEV and investors in companies
like Pinterest, Lyft, Bonobos, and Warby Parker, we realize how crucial
the small, 1 percent improvements can be to a company’s success.
We realize that these changes can be difficult to identify, so we have outlined 3 key areas to keep your eyes on:
Your Team
Your Product
Yourself
Your team is your company’s most important asset. Always think how it can be improved.
It’s
worth reiterating that your team is something that should always be
focused on building a culture of improvement. Specifically, we cannot
overstate the importance of hiring team members possessing an
ownership-building mindset, which means that they have a vested interest
in the company’s success and don’t solely focus on performing their
daily tasks.
Next, consistently test your product. Adopt the mind of a customer: what could be improved to make your life easier?
Testing
your product, your landing page, or your cart checkout page is often
easier said than done. We recommend dividing the responsibilities into
three parts. Assign somebody to own and oversee the test, another party to design the test, and a third one to analyze the results of the test.
Why?
Clearly dividing responsibilities engages more of your team and sets
the stage for your company to review its product more objectively and
critically. Iterations are a necessary part of any business, and your
team must have a systematic decision to implement and make sense of
these tests. While these processes will help keep track of your
business, we also must stress the importance of keeping track of
yourself.
Finally, continuously focus on improving yourself.
If
two of your goals are to improve your business and your team, it’s only
natural that you pay attention to improving yourself. This is something
that is always ongoing but is extremely worthwhile to pay attention to.
Know
your strengths and weaknesses. Beyond that, realize how your strengths
and weaknesses can affect your company. Part of your hiring strategy
should revolve around hiring team members that complement your skillset.
In addition to your strengths and weaknesses, seek to expand your
network. While connections in your industry are important, consider how
you can learn from others in a completely unrelated field, as invaluable
lessons aren’t solely constrained to your industry.
In
the end, launching your product, receiving favorable press, or reaching
a financial milestone is no reason to let up on the gas — in fact, it
is the time to keep pushing. This desire to constantly improve is a
shared trait of successful companies.
If
you focus on your product, your team, and yourself, your odds of
success will increase dramatically! We talk more about this in our book,
Shortcut Your Startup. Join the conversation!
