One of the simplest ways we can explore the future is through trends. We can read about trends. We can find entire websites devoted to trends.
But, if we look at isolated trends we miss most of their potential to help us disrupt the future.
You see we’re rarely taught how tease out the impacts of multiple trends interacting with each other over time.
In this post we look at a simple way to collaborate with teams to explore multiple trends and use them to create innovative products.
Step 1. Identify your trends
Bring a few colleagues into a room and ask them to spend 10 minutes writing their top trends on Post It notes. One trend per Post It is ideal.
For example, ‘changing customer behaviours’, ‘growing use of mobile phones’, ‘increased privacy concerns’….whatever the trend, put them all down.
At the end of the time, ask people to stick what they’ve written on the wall.
2. Select the highest impact trends
Then, ask your group to filter the trends on the dimensions of ‘potential impact’ and ‘uncertainty’.
When I do this with groups, I recommend they choose a timeframe of 2 to 5 years….in other words “What is the potential impact and likelihood of this trend to eventuate in the next 2 to 5 years.”
When this is done, ask people to nominate the top 3 trends they wish to think about more deeply. I find it most useful to select the most uncertain, highest impact trends.
If your group is not able to agree which ones to select, here’s a simple solution. Just ask three different people to select one trend. Remember, it’s just an exercise, so with luck people will be flexible.
3. Create and describe the future world
The intersection of the three trends you’ve selected represents your future world.
They key question for the group at this stage is:
- “What would happen in a world where all three trends were a dominant way of life.”
It can be helpful to provide people with additional prompting questions, such as….in this world:
- How would customers behave differently?
- What services and / or products would they expect?
- How would our business be different?
- What challenges and opportunities be available?
- How would the way we work be different?
- Which companies would be ideally positioned to capture the opportunities presented in this world?
- Which companies would struggle or not survive?
I’m sure your group will come up with other great questions as part of this activity.
The purpose of this task is to use the future world to reflect on your business today, and how it may need to change to accommodate possible change.
4. What Product would Win In This Future?
We can all imagine a time when Apple foresaw the intersection of ‘miniaturisation of computing and storage’, ‘the digitisation of music’ and ‘the growth of walkmans’.
When Apple executives saw this future they didn’t put their pens down. Instead they kept going and defined a winning product – the iPod.
By this point you’ve fleshed out a future world in detail. So you also have a good idea of what will be successful and what will fail in this world.
You could stop here, but this is an excellent time to be creative. Ask your team what products they would invest in to win customers in this future world. In doing this, you’ll be able to define products that are several steps removed from what we experience today, some of which may not have been invented.
So often the way we plan products its based on ‘iteration’, and how we could create ‘the next extension’ of something. By breaking us away from today’s reality, and forcing us to live in a future that is several steps beyond our own, we have a greater chance of creating something new.
-End
Image: Jared Tarbell, laser cut geodesic test assemble. flickr.com/photos/generated/942343705
