December 10th
We were meant to be out doing a full drone test today - but due to high winds all unmanned aerial vehicles have been grounded!
Instead we are inside planning for two Lab sessions tomorrow.
The day to day life of a Lab is not about coming up with ideas. It’s about understanding the problems that people are bringing in and helping them explore solutions.
Our job is not to be creative - but to unleash the creativity of others.
So it’s about providing the right environment and tools to allow colleagues to reimagine services.
One of of the tools we sometimes use is working backwards. This is where you start with the customer and work backwards until you get to the minimum set of requirements to satisfy what you are trying to achieve.
We love this fascinating post from Werner Vogels about how Amazon launches products by working backwards.
After an idea is generated they start by writing a press release as if the product or service is ready for launch. They bring it to life.
It’s mocked up with pictures of the product and quotes from (imaginary) customers about how life changing it has been. It’s passed around internally at the company, so that they can get feedback on the product, and to solicit any questions.
After getting an initial response (did it create a buzz?) and people adding their own ideas (building ideas – never destroying) it’s passed to a product development team to work it up.
When it comes to creativity - starting at the end can be a very good beginning.