​This question helps you uncover the assumptions embedded in an idea.  Often assumptions for programs and services are hidden in three key areas: audience, problem and solution. For the idea to be a good one, you need to have found the right audience, correctly identified an important problem and designed a solution that is viable.

Let me give you an example. Using a design thinking approach to design new offerings for key segments of our organization’s audience, a team I led at my last association was able to design experiments that gave us feedback in each of these three key areas.

In one instance, we had designed a program for one audience segment. After we tested the idea with the target audience and received positive feedback, we proceeded to run a pilot.  After successfully offering the program to one segment the association’s audience, we were able to replicate it for another audience.

​Often this area is the most likely to trip you up. Have you identified a problem that is worth solving? Or a problem that is really critical for your target audience? Or is it just something that would be nice to solve? When hard choices are made about time, money and energy, this challenge gets put on the back burner.
 
To test our understanding of the problem, we wrote a problem statement or description of what we thought the problem was. For example: “association professionals often have a clear understanding of the views of their highly engaged volunteers, but are not sure that these reflect their average member.” Through our experiments, we were able to get feedback on how important each issue was.  With feedback we were able to eliminate a number of ideas that addressed problems that were not seen as critical.

​When is the last time you got caught up in your idea and created something more elaborate than was really needed? In one case of one program we were testing with members, during the brainstorming stage, the design team had envisioned an executive leadership development program with an extensive online wrap around component. After testing and customer feedback, we learned that members were interested in the in-person aspect of the program. They doubted, however, that they would use the online components. Thus with a short testing period, we were able to eliminate a costly aspect of the program that would have be time consuming and resource intensive to create. It would have also necessitated increasing the program price, yet our research showed it did not provide sufficient value.
 
By testing early, getting feedback from customers we were able to learn and iterate, saving money and staff time by eliminating options that sounded promising at the white board but proved to have faulty assumptions. 

Want to talk about how this might apply to your organization? Request a free coaching session.

​You have probably heard that word a lot recently. Whether you are talking about adaptive management, design thinking or lean start up, each approach involves iteration and experimentation. Creating a prototype – something much simpler and less expensive than a pilot project – is easy to imagine when you are talking about a tangible product. But what about a program or service your nonprofit or association plans to deliver? How can you create a low cost prototype of that to get in front of your customers/members/audience?

​Nonprofits and association staff often rely on describing their program – whether to their board or in a grant application – through words. It is then up to the listener/reader to imagine what they are talking about. And usually the focus was on convincing those with money to support this new venture.  If the pitch is successful, the program is then funded, usually as a pilot program is developed over a few years. 

This approach has multiple flaws that are easily addressed.

1. The first is the audience. While it is important to get support of key stakeholders including your board and funders, they are unlikely to be using the program so their impressions of its validity and likelihood of success need to be taken with a grain of salt. Instead getting feedback from the people you have designed the program for this is much more useful and too often overlooked.
2. The second is the advocacy stance. You think you have a great idea and you are pitching it. When you are in the mode, it is challenging to hear feedback about the program. If you are less attached to the idea and in a position of inquiry – you are ready to investigate the underlying assumptions embedded in the program’s design and listen to feedback. 
3. Third is jumping immediately to the full development of a pilot program. Even with full funding, this is a high risk endeavor. It takes considerable time, human resources and organizational effort involved in fully developing a pilot.  Taking a less risky intermediate step of creating a prototype for the program and testing it with the target audience can save substantial resources.
4. Fourth is relying solely on the spoken or written word.  Creating a visual representation of the program makes it much easier for people to literally see what you are talking about.  Storyboarding is a very accessible method for creating this visual.

​Movies, videos, TV shows are all story boarded before filming starts. The storyboard is a sequence of drawings that show how the shots will progress. For a program you have imagined, you draw the steps in the storyboard that a program participant would take as they complete your program. Think of it as the comic book version of the program you want to create. 

​When I worked with the design teams a number of team members were reluctant when we got to this set because they said they couldn’t draw. I reminded them that this wasn’t the purpose – we were not looking for artistic ability. Just clear enough stick figures to show what would happen as part of the program. Here is an example of piece of one of our first draft storyboards. No awards to artistic merit here! We then worked with a professional illustrator to create clearer versions to put in front of our audience.

• It is easy to produce. The first hand drawn versions took about 20-30 minutes for team members to create. Taking this step had the added benefit of nudging team members to push their concepts from just vague ideas to a program with concrete elements.
• It is inexpensive. Even after working with an illustrator and printing the panels out on very large paper for our focus groups and interviews, we spent less than a couple 100 dollars.
• It creates a visual story for your target audience member to react to.  By adding pictures to the descriptive elements, the proposed programs come to life in the minds of those we tested them with.

Download the e-book that walks through the approach and tells you how we tested our concepts.

Let’s talk. I work with associations and nonprofits to help them lower the risk out of launching new program and service development initiatives by coaching them on using human centered design innovation approaches and tools.

​Most organizations believe they keep their end user, audience, members or customers front of mind when they are creating new programs or service offerings.  Yet often this is based on preconceived notions about members, beliefs developed from a staff member’s time in the field, or based on interactions with a few of their volunteer leaders.  It is rarely based on an in depth exploration of the day-to-day work life of their members. Qualitative research digs into their experience and has the opportunity to uncover unmet needs. 

​Organizations may have survey data and other feedback from members and participants.  This is useful for setting a baseline of knowledge but doesn’t often provide the insights into the challenges that your customers really need help with.  Using a human centered design approach for innovation provides tools to investigate what is really keeping your customers up at night and getting in the way of them achieving the success they seek.  Identifying these ‘pain points’ provides you will the opportunity to brainstorm how your organization might help solve the problem.

​Start with your customer and learn about their lived experience today. You can do this by interviewing them, getting them to tell you about they interact with your organization - their customer journey -- and how they feel about it or providing them with a way to capture their experience each day for a specific period such as a video or web journal.  With this rich information in hand, a program design team then analyzes it for themes, looking specifically for the pain points that participants describe. These pain points are rarely uncovered from a direct question, such as, “what do you need help with?”  Too often people say they need something and then when it is offered, they do not end up buying it.  It is the challenges that emerge through inquiry that is less direct that are usually more fruitful for program or service development.

​For example, I was working on a project to design new offerings for a niche audience key to the association’s future. Other smaller organizations were providing services to this influential audience and the association did not want to lose their participation and membership. We started by interviewing 12 people that represented a cross section of this audience.  With the interview narratives complete, we gathered a group of staff to analyze the interviews for insights. We asked each person to note 30 items of interest on post it notes. Then we split the groups into teams and each team was to come to agreement on 4-6 themes that they saw in their insights. Engaging this wider group of staff had additional benefits of sharing the insights from the research with those beyond the core program development team. From the five sets of themes, our core team then synthesized the information, especially looking for statements of need. One need we identified was the need to connect with colleagues at their career level outside of the organization’s main conference. With this in mind, we created a number of options. After vetting and iteration through focus groups, the organization then launched a topic-focused retreat using the ‘unconference’ model. The program has since been successfully expanded to other senior audiences.

Taking the time at the front end of an innovation process to really dig into your member, your audience, your participants, your customers’ world sets you up for success.  Program or service prototypes still need to be tested with your end user before full development occurs.  But this important step helps ensure that you are looking for ways to solve problems your customer actually cares about.
 
Want to learn more? Let’s talk. I work with associations and nonprofits to help them put the customer at the center of their new program and service development initiatives.