Sanctuary 3

Sanctuary 3 is a tool to generate alternativeness. When a system is working well, as a matter of routine it should be used to encourage to think of 10 alternative ways of doing it better. This is an important and interesting tool to prevent stagnation.

Imagine a company caught by high cost during a downturn. Now develop five ways to reduce costs. For example:

· Ask people to work for three days a week

· Encourage people to take an unpaid sabbatical.

· Encourage working from home or telecommunicating.

· Get vendors to supply completed parts and components to the assembly line. This will eliminate the need for stores and inventory.

· Get customers to sell to other customers for a small fee.

Sanctuary 2

Sanctuary 2 is very similar to attribute matching. They help us to put together dissimilar ideas and expert solutions from different fields. Example: If you would like to get fresh ideas on education compare it to a motor car. The attributes of a motor car are,

1. It moves

2. It should be regularly filled with petrol

3. It can carry people

4. It provides a good view of the country

5. It has four wheels

Applying some of the ideas to education will ensure that we get a whole group of creative ideas like educational programme should put different types of people together in close proximity (as in a motor car) and enable them to share ideas in a time bubble away from others.

Education should provide regular inputs from an outside source (like petrol). May be ideas from people in government or agriculture or nuclear physics.

Working With Wild Ideas

A germinal idea requires the sanctuary of a mindspace that is totally nurturing. It requires a space to grow so that its wildness is not nipped in the bud. Who knows which weed will become the coffee bush? Let the wilderness flourish in a totally non-threatening atmosphere. Let the ideas grow high and tall. Leave all pruning for later. New ideas need to play freely, with no discipline. Suspend judgement, postpone reaction, extend effort.

Hindustan Lever has its innovation centers. Cognizant has budgets for its mavericks and no stop signs within those budget allocations. Mr. Lakshminarayan, CEO speaks of an innovation department that co-ordinates this.

Ask all the participants to make an impossible wish: zero cost, zero rejections or double productivity. Then proceed to tame the wish bit by bit using the innovation tools already learnt, like 6M. This process can be extended as you learn all the tools. So go ahead and spend time setting impossible goals and developing wild ideas.

Idea Generation

‘There is always a well-known solution to every problem – neat, plausible and wrong.’ H. L Mencken

It is worth remembering here that the rules for thinking are totally different from the rules for dong. You can set up a 100 million dollar factory in your mind, study the mathematical implications and destroy it without losing a single dollar. However, as soon as the first brick is physically laid, or the first employee hired, you start losing money.

Do not analyse your thoughts during idea generation. Remove all boundaries. Apply analysis only in the fourth stage of the creative thinking process. It is ideal to train trainers in the thinking tools and then encourage them to deliver training to the teams.

Product Development in the Marketplace

When you take the germinal product into a protected test market, observe the way it is used by customer. Try different version of it, if possible. For example, a manufacturer of metal furniture is carrying out hands-on experiments with customers in different retail formats whilst developing wooden furniture that customers can accept as easily as the furniture made by the local carpenter

Once a new product idea germinates, it needs time and space to grow and develop that idea. The immediate reaction is to remove all elements that make the product new and different. Most groups will rush to protect familiar aspects of the product. If it is wild idea, there will be a concerted rush to domesticate it and retain its age old and familiar attributes. Fiercely protect the wildness of the idea by enclosing it in a sanctuary. Allow it to roam free in the sanctuary for a few days. Don’t touch it. Remember if everyone loves an idea, it is probably 200 years old.

Insist that unfamiliar, strange, unusual elements are developed. Use tools like springboards, turn it upside down. Support the Champion, tone down the attackers. Work on taking it to market fast on a small investment with the possibility of a profit. Don’t try to create the perfect product in the lab.

Test Product Specifications in the Competitive Marketplace

Carefully calibrate the product, creating a balance between what the customer wants and what the competitive market will bear. On a new product, make small investments, change and react to what happens in the marketplace. Like a potter uses his hand to shape wet clay, refine your product as it makes its way tentatively through market place.

Remember, a kite can only be tested when it flies. Don’t keep your product too long in the laboratory – launch it, test it and improve it as you go along. Be hungry for early profits. Let the product evolve to achieve customer delight.

Work out a new source of revenue from an activity that has just been introduced. See how you can turn a cost centre into a profit centre.

Service Is the Differentiator

While products or services may be similar, it is possible to differentiate your product by offering a unique service. For instance, while all airlines are the same, Kingfisher Airlines distinguishes itself with the way helpers take care of luggage and especially in the way the passenger is treated as a ‘guest’. All hospitals aim to cure but the motto, ‘Our work is an offering to God’ at th Sathya Sai Hospital in Whitefield, Bangalore, differentiates it from more commercial institutions.

Use the plan as per the table given below to revisit existing product service packages and explore how products and services can be differentiated.

Product Differentiation Chart

Areas of Customer Supplier Manufacturing R&D Marketing

Innovation

Product design

Packaging

Price

Place of sale

Promotion