Design Principles for Innovation

‘We are only small so we can’t innovate.’

Being part of a small organisation can give greater flexibility to innovate in a chaotic world. At Moneyline we follow the Design Council’s Double Diamond framework as it is people and culture centric, supports idea creation and encourages multiple iterations.

The challenge with innovation is making sure it doesn’t get mistaken for project management and slowed down by red tape. Of course, some documentation is required for audit trails, compliance and learnings, just don’t let it get in the way.

What’s first?

As always, it’s putting people first. Our customer personas help us to stay grounded in this – supporting our product design, customer journey, acquisition strategy and lots more. Here are some activities we do that help us create a rounded view of our customer:

Customer surveys: this gives structured input to analyse

Survey follow up calls: get in depth insight on specific areas

Call listening: hear what customers are telling us about their lives

Tracking software: see what customers actually do digitally v’s what they say they do

Application data: lots of information to help understand financial lives

All this helps us draw a picture of our customers and start to understand the problem rather than make assumptions about the issues..

❌Avoid getting caught up in statistical analysis – this is about understanding the day to day lives of your customer and not 100% accuracy

Create a culture that encourages ideas

Firstly, don’t worry if you think you aren’t creative – everyone can be creative in their way in the right environment.

A few weeks ago we did our Anti Money Laundering training (which is not usually the most exciting hour of the year!) and one of the tasks was for teams to create an AML rap in 10 minutes. I was overwhelmed by the creativity and relevance that was captured in such a short time.

Big ideas can come out of structured sessions, but equally, can also come out of those everyday interactions like huddles, training or going to the shops. Having a culture that nurtures small nuggets you hear and helps them grow is really important. There are no wrong ideas, just wrong time, place or organisation which is why it can be good to create a bank of ideas. Don’t bank everything, keep the ones that you may want to nurture in the future if it’s the right idea but wrong timing.

❌Avoid lots of big changes which create stress and large failure points for the organisation. Try and introduce a culture of small changes, with iterations which can encourage a culture that nurtures ideas.

Consider not following specific methodologies. We find that innovation can be more inclusive and not limited to specific roles this way. Pick and choose the bits you like from each methodology or framework to make it work for the size of your organisation.

Bringing it Together

Once you have your customer insights, created a culture to support innovation and defined the problem you are trying to solve, the next thing to do is start to develop your ideas.

It can be harder than you think not jumping to solutions. Try to get inspiration from lots of different places – internal and external to the organisation. Take time and space to explore without putting barriers of resource and cost in the way – that can come later but can really limit ideas if you bring barriers in too early.

Stop and reflect – pull at different threads that come out of your ideas to see where it takes you. This can lead to finding sub segments of problems and can even lead to you redefining the problem. That’s okay too and creates better solutions in the long run.

Let’s do it

Now you need to think about what ideas you are going to take forward that fit with your strategy and your resource constraints. Also consider how you are going to measure the change and make sure that people don’t think it’s failure if measures aren’t met – at this stage it could just need review and iteration.

This is not a linear process. Keep gaining insights and iterating as nothing stays still for long! Keep stopping and have a think about if you are getting the results you had hoped for.

❌Avoid tying into costly system constraints until you have tested things out – this can often mean you put in a manual process in the short term, but can save time and money to get learnings on the change before you go all in.

…now you just need to take a leap of faith and just start!