My eyes have always shone when the organizations in which I have worked have considered promoting innovation and I have been an active part of the implementation of the method and culture to innovate. It is important to challenge yourself even when the company is growing at a good pace to be able to surf the waves of the market efficiently.

But my experience has also taught me that the day-to-day, putting out fires, complying with self-imposed timings by the organization and short-term objectives are at odds with allocating resources and time to find new solutions that are truly adapted to the needs of the consumer. Actually, this past June, Ana Viñals, Director of the Innovation Minor with Design Thinking at EAE, offered me the opportunity to be part of the teaching team and this forced me to recycle myself (teaching is the best way to learn) and to reflect about why it costs so much to carry out this type of project in companies.

There are two principles of the culture of innovation that I would like to highlight: moving from “top-down” innovation imposed by the company’s management to “bottom-up” innovation empowering employees to turn good ideas into projects. And try to go beyond incremental innovation (doing things in a similar but more efficient way) to reach disruptive innovation (getting services or products that make the current ones obsolete).

How to catalyze innovation?

1. All the high Direction of the company has to believe in the process and in the method
2. The strategic aims have to be very clear to be able to innovate with sense
3. The culture of the company has to be open, accept risks, and reward to the emprendedores
4. It has to involve all the company of transversal way, with a high degree of work in a team
5. HHRR has to find the way to provide time, an appropriate environment, and recognition to the people involved

How to begin?

1. Defining from Direction the strategic frame on which wants to work
2. Allocating resources to level of Budget for the projects, and ideally a Project manager for his follow-up
3. Involving and forming to the employees in the culture of the innovation
4. Applying method, as it can be the Design Thinking
5. With help of a consultor external that guide and support to the teams through the distinct stages of the method

Which qualities stand out in the collaborators with "innovative profile"?

1. Divergent thought and curiosity
2. Passion
3. Perseverance
4. Enjoy of the work in team
5. Predisposition to assume risks

And in what consists the method of the Design Thinking?

It is a method of innovation centred in the user or potential user that bases in understanding to the customer and pose challenges for afterwards redefine them in base to the deep knowledge of this same user and identify alternative solutions that are not obvious in a first moment. For this works in 5 phases of iterative way (no linear), since in a lot of occasions the results of some phase force us to repeat part or all the process.

1. Phase of empathy: once defined the challenge, have to put us in the skin of the user and understand his feelings, emotions and motivations. As Ana says, to innovate is not for selfish people. They exist diverse methods like the observation, the interviews, the immersion and the desk research that allow us identify "insights" instead of mere information. The insights are true discoveries that will carry us to detect opportunities in a more advanced phase. In this phase define the "user person", work the "empathy map" and describe the "customer journey" of the user person defined.
    
2. Phase of definition: it is a critical phase in which it is easy to make a mistake. It treats of reformular the initial challenge with all the learnings of the phase of empathy applying the suitable method. A suitable reformulation of the challenge is key to arrive to original creative solutions, that contribute value the user and to the company.
    
3. Phase of ideation: they apply distinct methods to generate ideas by means of creative thought. In this phase is important that do not censor the ideas of other members of the team by very crazy that seem. It initiates with a divergent phase in which the quantity of ideas is important, to finish with the selection of the ideas by means of methods of convergence. This is another critical moment in which an excess of rationality can finish with the previous creative process.
    
4. Phase of prototyped: once the idea that seems most interesting to us has been selected, we prototype it. The prototype allows tangibilizar the idea, happen it of the abstract to a physical object that we can see, touch, smell…. But we do not fall in the temptation to do it perfect neither invest a lot of money because it can suffer a lot of modifications and even be refused. When doing the prototype are following with the phase of ideation, exploring with our hands and understanding better as it will interact the user with our product or service.
    
5. Phase of test: finally, we will test our prototypes with potential users to see how they interact with our proposal as a way of learning to detect areas for improvement and feasibility. With the results of the test decide if apply light modifications to the prototype to go back to testar or go back to make some previous phases (iteration) until achieving that our solution constitute a satisfactory and innovative experience for the user.

I have resumed the method to the way almost of telegram but expect to have woken up the curiosity of the one who have not had the luck to experience it and encourage you to activate the true innovation in your organisations.

I take advantage of these lines to appreciate to Ana Viñals (founder of Siakara, consulting of projects of innovation and leadership) that has entered me and taught on this method with a lot of patience and with which have collaborated in distinct projects of innovation in the companies in which I have worked.