• The 7 principles for successful innovations that meet the WOW! test
• Tools to anticipate (and test) what customers want
• The key concept that makes innovation for service as easy as for widgets
• The #1 attribute every successful innovation has
• The Innovation Roadmap to customer love and competitor envy
• How to encourage divergent thinking of outcomes versus just convergent thinking about processes and feature

Much has been written about how to make improvements in processes and products. The bias many improvement practitioners start with is some known failure or disappointment. The identification of the cause(s) naturally leads to a better, more consistent result. Many methods (root cause analysis) and tools support this approach. There is nothing wrong with it. But the convergent thinking enabling successful improvement is not sufficient to achieve successful innovation. For that, we need divergent thinking which is not constrained by our preconceived ideas of what is possible.

• How do you design for WOW, as experienced by customers? These are the innovations we are most familiar with and we wish were ours.
• What easy-to-execute method always uncovers the mind of the customer, even when they couldn’t otherwise tell you? We may hear exactly what they said but still be clueless about what was in their mind. Customers often give us answers to just what we’ve asked, even when they are the wrong questions.
• How do you apply innovation to intangible service and knowledge work?
• How do you encourage divergent thinking focused on outcome excellence versus convergent thinking about process and product improvement? Technically superior innovation is often something only another producer would love.