Running a deep dive, particularly using a technique like the one pioneered by IDEO, involves a structured process to thoroughly explore a problem space and generate innovative solutions. This process, as outlined in the reference, focuses on understanding the context, observing users, envisioning possibilities, and refining ideas through prototyping.
Here are the key steps for running a deep dive:
1. Understand the Market, Client, Technology, and Constraints
The foundational step is gaining a comprehensive understanding of the environment in which the problem exists. This involves looking at various internal and external factors.
- Internal & External SWOT Analysis: Analyze the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats relevant to the project, client, or market.
- Strengths: Internal positive attributes.
- Weaknesses: Internal negative attributes.
- Opportunities: External factors that could be leveraged.
- Threats: External factors that could pose challenges.
- PESTLE Analysis: Examine the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental factors influencing the situation.
- Political: Government policies, stability.
- Economic: Economic growth, exchange rates, inflation rates.
- Social: Cultural trends, demographics, lifestyle changes.
- Technological: Innovation, automation, R&D activity.
- Legal: Laws and regulations.
- Environmental: Climate, weather, environmental policies.
- PRIMO-F Analysis: Evaluate the six key areas of a business: People, Resources, Innovation, Marketing, Operations, and Finance. This provides a business-centric view of capabilities and limitations.
This initial phase ensures the team is grounded in reality and aware of the landscape before moving forward.
2. Observe Real People in Real Situations
Gaining empathy and uncovering unspoken needs is crucial. This step moves beyond data analysis to direct observation.
- Go into the field to see how people interact with products, services, or environments relevant to the deep dive topic.
- Pay attention to frustrations, workarounds, and unexpected behaviors.
- Conduct interviews to gather qualitative insights directly from users or stakeholders.
- Document observations rigorously through notes, photos, and videos.
Practical Insights:
- Look for "extreme users" who might push the boundaries of typical use cases.
- Observe not just what people do, but why they do it.
- Be open-minded and avoid making assumptions during observation.
3. Visualise New-to-the-World Concepts and Ultimate Customers
This is the divergent phase, where creativity is unleashed to explore potential solutions without immediate judgment.
- Brainstorming: Generate a wide range of ideas, even seemingly impractical ones. Focus on quantity over quality initially.
- Concept Sketching/Mapping: Use visual tools to represent ideas, user flows, or system maps.
- Persona Development: Create detailed profiles of potential "ultimate customers" based on research and observations, embodying their needs, motivations, and behaviors.
- Scenario Building: Imagine how new concepts would fit into the lives of these ultimate customers in various scenarios.
This phase aims to create a broad possibility space for innovation.
4. Evaluate and Refine Prototypes
The final step involves bringing concepts to life and testing them to gather feedback for improvement.
- Prototyping: Build quick, low-fidelity versions of promising concepts. This could be physical models, digital mockups, storyboards, or role-playing scenarios.
- Testing: Put prototypes in front of real people (often the "ultimate customers" or target users) to see how they react and use them.
- Gather Feedback: Actively collect feedback on what works, what doesn't, and what could be better.
- Iterate: Use the feedback to refine the prototypes and concepts. This step is often cyclical, involving multiple rounds of prototyping and testing.
This iterative process helps validate ideas, identify flaws early, and ensures the final solution is user-centered and effective.
A deep dive, following these steps, provides a robust framework for tackling complex challenges and fostering innovation by combining analytical understanding, empathetic observation, creative ideation, and practical testing.
