the power of creativity & innovation

kimberley bottomley / aviva / @freedbydesign

• user experience• design• problem solving• lean ux• minimum viable product• multivariate/ab testing• usability testing• workshop facilitation

*insert audience participation here*

say hi to jimmyAs a child, he loved getting his hands dirty, using colour and his imagination. Every picture he did, got pride of place on the fridge – He’s into Lego, but he doesn’t follow the instructions – to the frustration of his dad. Growing up, his mum was convinced – “Our Jimmy, he’ll do something with his art…”

education education education importance of qualifications was being drummed into him – by his dad by his teachers – and his grades weren’t top of the class in art and the he was told that maybe he just wasn’t good enough to do it at GCSE – so he focused on the stuff that would get him those much needed grades.

James did do well at school and went on to university, graduating with a respectable 2:1 – the first in the family to go to uni and now a corporate grad scheme beckoned. His parents couldn’t have been prouder – for them, the epitome of success was a 9-5 suited and booted office job.

James tried his best to keep his creative flare ignited through the odd spot of amateur photography alongside his 9-5 office job, although, by now he’s married, with 2 kids – you know how these things go, a shift in priorities, you just keep your head down, do the day job and get on with it, ride the wave of corporate restructures hoping that his job is safe.

But one day, fairly recently, James’s boss takes them into a meeting and announces, there’s to be a shift in strategy and the old ways and behaviours are outdated, the company needs to embrace innovation, creative thinking, different ways of doing things. As with any announcement of change, there’s a feeling a trepidation across the office.

*I’m not creativebut I’m not creative!- These are the people in large orgs – PM’s, your stakeholders, even maybe your boss!

- They follow the trodden path - arguably conditioned/institutionalised - used to business as usual

- Companies need creativity – they need to change – it’s not the strongest or the fittest who survive – but the most adaptable

- Their employees don’t like change – they don’t see creativity as anything other than an output – PROCESS

- NO TIME – between the day job, the appraisals, the team meetings and 1:1’s – how do they fit this in?

- We get creativity, relish a different approach, MVP’s, agile test and learn – we don’t care we don’t have all the answers right now – we’ll work it out!

- AND IT’LL BE FUN

“innovation? yeah, we’ve got it covered!”

A big corporation

70%over

are ‘investing in innovation’

(Harvard Business Review)

10%But under

get ‘excellent’ customer experience index scores

(Harvard Business Review)

Companies are applying a haphazard approach – and are typically focused on the output without understanding the creative process.

If you work for/with a big company – you need to understand the broader context of the challenges they face and what they might be doing about it.

- Focused on incremental change – which is fine (fix the basics) but it’s easier to make a profound idea reasonable than a reasonable idea profound

- Keeping up with the Joneses culture – fixation on competitor research

- Don’t follow a user centred design approach across the organisation

- Budget and time being wasted when things fail because the above not followed – therefore it becomes harder to secure future funding

- Innovation seen as risky and won’t pay off

aviva’s innovation journeyfirst, the stuff that didn’t quite work…

the innovation board

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNSW_first_council_meeting.jpg

What we did:- Website – colleagues submit ideas- Ideas were ranked/scored based on HIPPO’s- Ideas progressed to actioned if deemed good enough

Good:- There was an outlet for ideas – we have used the online posting forum in some of our

other initiatives- People could see others ideas and contribute via comments- If an idea was ‘good enough’ it could get some serious exposure

Bad:- typical large company, process orientated, hierarchical- good vs bad, picking winners, and that’s not what this is really about… NURTURE - TEST

and LEARN- Slowly less engagement – people don’t like being PUBLICALLY wrong- ‘The Board’ – while you want management support to progress ideas, you don’t want it

to feel elitist and old school – doesn’t scream hot bed of creativity does it?- MUST REMEMBER THE SUN PRINCIPLES - Suspend judgement, Understand and Nurture – to maintain engagement.

customer innovation teamWhat we did:- Dedicated team - – born from customer insights and marketing teams – great!- Focused on customer innovation

Good:- It was a dedicated team - awesome- Time and budget allocated - Someone championing innovation and customer centric thinking YOU'D THINK

Bad:- Erm… well not quite.- Still the old delivery focused habits- Starting from POV of BUSINESS not CUSTOMER

Sadly the main reason why this failed, was due to a company restructure – disbanded/redundancies etc.But what does that tell us – that the company wasn’t ready/didn’t fully appreciate the power of creativity and innovation?

customer cupWhat we did:- Group wide initiative – UK, Spain, France, Canada, Turkey, Poland- Again, submit ideas / selection process BUT- Exec level sponsorship – more kudos

Good:- ‘Extra curricular’ – employees are given time to participate- Teams are made up of people who might not ordinarily work together- Real chance of ideas being actioned and delivered

Bad:- For those not involved – it’s a bit closed doors- Wider engagement/observation is difficult – only really impacts those involved- It only happens every year or so – sense of occasion, but there’s a lack of continuous

presence

Although this continues, I’ve kept it in our ‘must do better section’ - It feels more like a veneer of creativity and innovation rather than being a core cultural belief.

innovation spanxWhat we did:- Overt approaches – owned by a hierarchy – hadn’t gone down so well, so this time our

approach was more guerrilla-esque- Spanx – was (like the underwear) to imply that innovation was going on – unnoticed

and would filter through the organisation via osmosis.

Good:- First time we tried a more JFDI/worse that can happen approach – first time we didn’t

have this listed as an objective or KPI- Small-ish team of people who were interested in this - Trying to engage with the outside community – via @innovationspanx

Bad:- Team not small-ish enough – over 10 of us- Cross site – hard to get commitment from people- People were looking for a champion, a leader to tell them what to do

Restructure number x and fell by the wayside.There was something in this guerrilla approach – spotting opportunities and just getting on with it – FELT DIFFERENT – UNAVIVA LIKE – RIGHT WAY TO BREED INNOVATION?

What we did:- Smaller team – 4 collocated – - About the techniques and methodologies about generating ideas – not about delivering

ideas - Acknowledged that we would hit constraints – no one was championing this but us –

agreed a social contract

Good:- Smaller team – collocated- Attitude – took advantage of the company in flux – spotted opportunities - potential- Showcasing the techniques – the process – not just the ideas

Bad:- Still done at the side of the day job – obvious challenges- We need to identify a delivery route for the ideas we generate – idea is worthless? –

LEAN UX

‘That’s not your role/priority; these are your objectives’ etc… But in the same breath – we want employees with autonomy, mastery and purpose – more ‘intrapreneureal’ spirit – and that’s what we’re doing.

Revealing the design process at the early part of the funnel - what we need to do as design practitioners show the methods we use throughout the process - COLLABORATION

What we did:- 24 hour hackathon events – submit an idea, idea is selected, IDEA LEAD (OWNER)

assemble your team and have 24 hours to build a working prototype, present to judging panel

Good:- On our second event – more teams, more ideas – OVER 150 ideas generated- Different ways of working – time restraints – MVP’s / LEAN / AGILE- Wider team engagement – voting, volunteering- Learning the feeling of lack of fear of failure- Osmosis effect – other teams are doing their own similar events without having been

involved in this

Bad:- Time box is good – limits the impact on delivery and the day job – but this feels again,

the event approach feels like a veneer rather than part of the DNA.- Delivery challenges don’t go away – how do we change, how we action these ideas?

Connection to START-UP – This approach is big in that community, the skills practiced are akin to start-up behaviours – what can we do quickly and cheaply – to get people to understand our idea and invest.

UX process – ideation/START with Problem/LEAN – it’s all about the MVP

d!srupt!ve !nnovat!onWhat we did:- Identified the start-up community behaviours and set to replicate them- Focused on the big DISRUPTIVE ideas – not incremental

Good:- @AvivaInnovation – Start-up weekends – Fintech – REALLY ENGAGING WITH THE

ENTRAPRENEURIAL COMMUNITY- Limited/no budget – WE’RE THINKING LIKE A START UP - So far feedback’s been good – not expected that this would come from Aviva

Bad:- Again, ‘alongside the day job’ initiative- Focused on the output – not the process – therefore more creative veneer than core

value?- Small group of us embracing these entrepreneurial behaviours – how long will it take

to shift the entire organisation to this mindset?? OILTANKER

Why is this important – shift MINDSET merging of big corporate and start ups – BARCLAYS INCUBATION – UX Design not yet industrialised in big orgs – we are at the start up end of the spectrum

Artist UX Designer

The Business

- Work with people who don’t usually work together – PERSPECTIVE – learn about people – spot Jimmy!

- JFDI – Attitude - if there’s a blocker – ideate on that as a problem and work around it - Nurture ideas – understand others point of view

Design skills if practiced, breed behaviours that corporates are identifying as essential:No fear of failureOwnershipAutonomy, sense of mastery and purpose etc.

As UX Design practitioners, we’re best placed to assist in this transition… This is what we’re most familiar with, right?

To summarise on the do’s and don’ts and pick up on why these link to the UXD field:- Start with problem or need – don’t and it’s just creative

veneer- Use process to guide non-creative through the messy

design process – show them that it’s not just OUTPUT- Ideation techniques- UCD Approaches- Lean- Iterative design

what was that?

what was that?So, to recap on everything…

We’ve met Jimmy, we now might be able to understand the people we’re working with in organisations – those we need to INFLUENCE

We understand a bit about the emerging new world that’s flummoxing the organisations traditional way of doing things – in order to appreciate the context the driving this change in order for us to help them with all our CREATIVE AWESOMENESS

And we’ve seen the highs and lows of a big organisations’ innovation attempts

Hopefully you can build on the things I’ve shared to help the companies you work for and with or avoid the same mistakes we’ve made. I hope we’ve found some solidarity – and if we haven’t well, I welcome the debate!

Finally, I hope I have shown you that there is so much we can offer – we just need to step up and show it to those who maybe don’t know they even need it yet …

Not just a presentation, this is a call to arms

We need to think about what we do as a wider skill set – you are more than just a job role and the full potential of user experience design is not being realised in large organisations.

As a professional discipline, we need to take some ownership of that and turn things around.

We need to show the CORPORATE powers that be – who know they need to change, who know that they need more creative thinking to drive innovation and be more relevant to their customers – basically, to survive, That UX Designers, the creative thinkers, the understanders of problems, design process followers – we can show non-creatives the art of the possible.

We have the skills and attitude that’s needed for this exciting new era. Where uncertainty rules we throw lean UX and iterative design at it – the design process is messy, but it doesn’t need to be scary – people just need to get it. And this is where I see we come in…

So, for all the creative black sheep in large organisations, be prepared to reveal the broad palette of your skillset and unashamedly share your creativity.

The call to arms…still feel like a wireframe monkey?

Because what’s our reality if we don’t? This??

Dancing to the beat of the stakeholder’s drum, handed a list of solutions not requirements, expected to create a tool or experience just because someone else in the market has the same thing. How many relate to that experience in a big org - FRUSTRATED

Does the internal UX and Design team have some affinity with Jimmy here? Has our empowerment been sucked out of us leaving us feeling like this little fella?

If all you take from this session is a sense of empowerment, I’ll be a happy bunny. Because - UX designers are more than this.

questions?