1. Remove barriers

To find opportunities for innovation, look at what’s holding people back in their experience. Identify the obstacles to getting the jobs done at each stage. Table 1-1 summarizes key types of barriers to overcome, with examples and how to identify each type.1

Be sure to consider emotional and social aspects as well. For instance, if you are looking at the experience of attending a conference, you may find that people fear embarrassment when asking a question of a speaker. How might you overcome this emotional and social barrier?

At each stage in the diagram, consider how to remove the primary barriers people have from getting the value they need. As you move through the diagram, pose the question: how might we overcome obstacles? This focuses the collective energy of the group and points to sources of deeper change.

2. Challenge industry assumptions

Meaningful change comes from breaking the rules. To help foster a disruptive mindset, identify the prevailing industry assumptions, or those unwritten rules that define an industry.

First, generate industry assumption statements using this formula:

Everyone in the <industry or category> knows that <assumption>....

Then, think of ways to change or overturn each. In his book Disrupt, Luke Williams points to three ways to twist assumptions (which he calls clichés):

• Invert.

What can be turned upside down? Take the assumption and do the opposite.

• Deny.

What can you get rid of completely? Try intentionally denying some aspect of the assumption by simply removing it from the equation.

• Scale.

What is scarce that could be made abundant and vice versa? What is expensive that could be cheap? Challenge assumptions of quantity and scope.

Finally, brainstorm possible solutions that invert, deny, or scale the industry assumption statement (Figure 1-7). Try forcing the group to do each for the most important assumptions.

Here are some examples of game-changing innovations and how they broke industry assumptions:

Figure 1-7. Challenge industry assumptions in a workshop.

• Everyone in the mop category knows that a mop was a one-time purchase, until P&G introduced disposable mops with Swiffer. (Invert)

• Everyone in architecture knows that plumbing, electrical services, and air vents go on the inside of buildings, until the Pompidou Center in Paris put them on the outside (Figure 1-8). (Invert)

• Everyone in the airline industry knows passenger seats are preassigned, until Southwest made seat selection first come, first served. (Deny)

Figure 1-8. The Pompidou Center inverts conventional architecture.

• Everyone in the luxury hotel business knows that offering a wide range of premium services justifies a high price, until Citizen M omitted many of the typical 5-star hotel services so they can offer accommodations at a lower price. (Deny)

• Everyone in the car rental business knows you have to see the customer, rent by the day, and complete a lot of paperwork, until Zipcar made it possible to book online without paper and pay by the hour. (Scale)

• Everyone knows that doctor’s offices treat a wide range of conditions, until CVS’s Minute Clinics treated a limited number of conditions that don’t require a doctor to diagnose. (Scale)

To change the game, you have to first know what game you’re in. This exercise forces your organization to consider doing the opposite of what the rest of the market is doing. This increases your ability to provide unique, meaningful value.