DiD is a simple framework for promoting innovation in your organisation. It starts with the definition of an outcome and requires a cross-functional team with the space, resources and autonomy to work towards the outcome, using short, iterative loops.
Starting in Discovery, the team builds context and understands the problem to be solved.
After building a clearer picture of the problem space, they start to Ideate solutions and move into Delivery. The first iteration is a simple prototype. They build it, test it and learn from the feedback.
Not quite hitting the mark, they resume Discovery and Ideate alternatives or variations of the prototype. They build and test, this time moving a little closer to their goal.
As they cycle through more iterations of Discovery, Ideation and Delivery, the team are learning what works and what doesn’t. This enables them to hone in on the best solution and build a solid, user-friendly service around it.
DiD is flexible and scalable
The best thing about simple frameworks like DiD is that you can adapt them to lots of different uses.
DiD is used to bring new products or services to market. It’s also used to improve an existing service or be used to solve very specific people, technical or operational issues.
In this example, a financial services company has a pension service that is under-performing.
They need to boost user engagement by 40% to meet revenue targets and set up a multidisciplinary team to work on this goal.
The team start Discovery, including:
- Clarifying / refining the target audience and user personas
- User research interviews
- Reviewing existing customer data
- Mapping the customer journey
- Competitor analysis
- Analysing operational performance data
They draw insights and refine their understanding of the problem to solve.
Then they Ideate.
Working with stakeholders, they run a series of workshops to produce and refine solution ideas into hypotheses.
The hypotheses are prioritised and prototypes are created. Delivery involves a series of experiments to create educational content journeys for people in their 40s and 50s who are worried they’re not saving enough for retirement, but don’t know where to begin.
Whilst initial feedback from user testing is positive, there’s a major gap where people are consuming the content, but are still hesitant to take action.
Further Discovery and Ideation leads to a new prototype for users to enter details about their current financial situation and receive a bespoke retirement plan and a free consultation call.
Testing of this concept shows a positive jump and the team begins to build a service proposition based around the educational journeys, bespoke plans and consultation calls.
A simple, problem solving tool
In reality, DiD is just a reflection of the way we solve problems in life. When faced with a problem, we:
- Work out what’s causing it – Discovery
- Think of a way to solve it – Ideation
- Put in place the fix and see if it works – Delivery
If the first idea doesn’t work, we’ll try something different, until the job is done.
Like other agile, lean and MVP methodologies, the key is to keep things simple and ensure the team is empowered to innovate and deliver.