I-Mod Technical Note:

Project Challenge and One Well-

Focused Need-State
ETR 500: Entrepreneurship and Innovation – Innovation Module

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 Discussion Outline

The I-Mod Challenge

Understand the Team-Based Design
Project
1
One Well-Focused Need-State
Explore Uncovering an Unmet,
Unarticulated Design Opportunity
2

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 I-Mod Project Is the Action-Learning Arm of
ETR 500

I hear, and I forget.

I see, and I remember. Creativity
I do, and I understand.

Entrepreneurship
Innovation

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 A “Travel Experience” Challenge Is the
I-Mod Project’s Target
• Business and/or personal travelers
Target
• Context: The Travel Experience
Market
• See next slide for additional details.

• Product,
Target
• Service, or
Scope
• Product/service combination

• Products: Typical mass consumer retailer

Target
• Service: Available at the trip origin and/or destination
Channel
• Combination: Either or both of the above

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 The Innovation Module Project
(You saw this slide (#29) in the Kickoff Presentation.)

The Overall Context: The Travel Experience

The Details
Opportunity to observe lots of people experiencing the context in a public place.
The context is one that you, the students, routinely experience.
There should be lots of opportunities to come up with a product or service that improves
the human experience and makes the world a better place.
The potential solutions could be translated into a new venture (progress is not blocked by
regulation; hard to modify industry practice; the need of really large technology lifting; or
very large investments).
The learning experience is amenable to physical or conceptual prototyping -- that is, to
experimenting with ideas for possible solutions.
The outcome should be a product or service that can be purchased by the travelers you
observe.

5
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 The I-Mod Has Four Project “Chunks”
Process Deliverables
• User and Use Environment Findings
Observing users and the use
1 environment. Add interview and • One Well-Focused Need-State Week 3
secondary research data if useful. • Hierarchy of Need Attributes

• Brainstorming Results
2 Generating solutions  selecting • Concept Selection Week 4
three promising ones • Three Promising Concepts

Experimenting with “3Rs” • Prototyping Results

3 prototypes  selecting one most • One Most Promising Concept Week 6
promising solution concept • Concept Positioning Statement

Communicating the Concept and • F2F Project Presentation

4 the “Design Story” • I-Mod Project Final Report
Week 7

Week 7
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 All I-Mod Deliverables Use “Notes”
Presentation Format
Set of PowerPoint Slides Notes PPT Format
• Sparse slides: • Supporting evidence,
Headlines and reasoning and
conclusions” only citations

Effective Business Specifications

Presentations • Conforming: Applicable
• Applying: constraints on i) number of
slides; ii) Notes Page font
“Presentations” size and margins, iii)
technical note learning content; and iv) design story
values completeness; v) intended
audience and vi) delivery
deadline

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 Discussion Outline

The I-Mod Challenge

Understand the Team-Based
Design Project
1
One Well-Focused Need-State
Explore Uncovering an Unmet,
Unarticulated Design Opportunity
2

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 A “Need-State” Is What Motivates a
Consumer to Buy

Customers “hire” products [and or

services] to do specific “jobs”.

“Circumstances” are the dimensions

that customers find themselves in
when making purchasing decisions.

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One Well-Focused Need-State Guides Good Design

To be effective, an innovation has to

be simple, and it has to be
focused. It should do only one thing;
otherwise it confuses
people. Indeed, the greatest praise
an innovation can receive is for
people to say: “This is obvious!”

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Peter F. Drucker, “The Discipline of Innovation Harvard Business Review (August 2002): 9
One Well-Focused Need-State: An Example

Jane Fulton Suri + IDEO, Thoughtless Acts: San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2005
 Five Tips for Avoiding a Project “Train
Wreck”

1 “Gun jumping” to solutions thinking

2 Engaging in “inside-out” design

3 Interviewing before you observe

4 Wasting time on closed-end surveys

5 Forgetting KISS when you adopt a need-state

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 Our beginning…

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 The Course Instructor is a Guide and Mentor
• The I-Mod project unfolds in a “studio-based” learning
environment.

• In this environment, the course instructor is a guide and a mentor,

not a play-by-play coach.

• Project teams are expected to integrate the project’s supporting

resources and, then, “figure it out”…in part by “try it / fix it”.

• The instructor’s “quick turnaround” comments on each project

deliverable will guide and mentor as the project unfolds.

• The guidance and mentoring will be Socratic in nature…to the

extent possible.

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