Convergent thinking is the third and final step of the DOC Process. The aim of the Converge step is to narrow the organized group of information down to a single choice, the “best” choice. In order to choose the “best” factor of the General Problem to address, or select the “best” solution to that problem, we need to first define “best.” That criteria must be clear, concious and public. We do not want to make intuitive, visceral decisions, but rather conscious, rational and reasonable ones. In order to accomplish that desired outcome, we need to choose a complete set of selection criteria.

Before applying the criteria, we need to create a level evaluation field for all concepts that will be judged by ensuring that all the organized concepts are described in enough detail, with respect to the criteria, to ensure they can compete equally against each other. This may mean returning to the Organize step once the convergent criteria are set. Generic criteria for Problem Identification and Solution Formulation are offered in this chapter. Selection tools ranging from t-charts to paired comparative analysis are also described.

The second step in the DOC Process is Organize. The Organize step is the transition step between the divergent and convergent thinking steps. The Organize step has characteristics of both the divergent and convergent steps, but is much more than solely a transition step. This is the step where the information generated in the Diverge step is synthesized. This step requires holistic and integrative thinking. It is a crucial step in either refining a problem or a solution. This step is also key to creating personas from the abundance of needs, wants and desires that are uncovered during open-ended interviews.

The Organize step has three components–categorize, connect and cause. Information generated via the divergent-thinking activities are first categorized. In the connect phase, idea-fragments that were previously categorized together are combined. Connections between categories or natural sequences are also identified. The connect phase is a critical component in persona development. The final phase of the Organize step is cause. In this phase, causal relationship between the data categories are uncovered.

The aim of the planning level of The Innovation Pyramid is to develop a creation and delivery plan for the designed innovation. Delivery is critical, for without adoption of the designed innovation there will be no impact. There are four components to the plan. That plan may vary in detail, depending on the complexity of the innovation, but it must always contain those four components. The Operations component of the plan can range from a simple scope document to a detailed Gantt chart. The Delivery portion can range from a description of the innovation's pathway to the adopter to a full-blown marketing plan. The Resources section can be a commitment list of key required resources to a complete project financial analysis. Finally, the Risk portion can range from the identification of key project risks to strategies for their mitigation. Regardless of the complexity of the innovation project, if a precise plan cannot be crafted or the necessary resources cannot be committed to the project, then the design must be altered. This chapter also covers various means to pitch the plan, necessary to gain project support, from the elevator pitch to the full-blown project pitch.

The two design stages of The Innovation Pyramid work together to ensure that a complete and detailed design is crafted before any implementation is attempted. The second design stage focuses on Solution Formulation. Before any solution is crafted, the general group directly suffering from the root problem is segmented and a target adopter segment identified. The target adopter segment is described psychographically--based on common unmet or under-met needs, wants and/or desires – versus demographically. Personification of this group segment allows the innovation designer to fully appreciated how the adopter will interact with their innovation. Just as the root problem was gradually honed in on, so too is its solution. A general approach to resolving the target adopter's issue that the designing organization is willing and able to pursue is first identified. A detailed solution is then crafted which has attributes or features that align with the adopter's specific needs, wants and/or desires. This alignment of solution features with adopter needs is at the heart of the innovation's value proposition. The entire pathway through this second stage of design, Solution Formulation, requires multiple, iterative, non-linear steps.

This chapter lays the foundation for the book; defining innovation (impactful problem-solving leveraging something new) and comparing and contrasting it with creativity, entrepreneurship, discovery and invention. The need for innovators is far-reaching: business, government, education and in our personal lives.

Innovating requires three elements: people, environment, and methodology. While the people and environmental aspects of innovating are definitely challenging, it is often the lack of a methodology that makes or breaks our ability to repeatedly create and deliver new impactful solutions. The lack of a method will lead to inconsistent results; similar to the lack of correlation, that global consulting firm PwC found, between a company's research and development spending and their ability to create compelling new products and/or services. First and foremost, this book is focused on a methodology for innovating. A method that separates design from execution, problem identification from solution formulation and planning from implementing. A method that takes into account multiple points-of-view and perspectives while integrating assessment throughout. A user-centric, design-thinking method that utilizes creativity-based processes.

Anyone, or any organization, can improve upon their abilities to become serial innovators. Innovators are both problem-identifiers and problem-solvers. Innovators create new, impactful solutions to clearly identified root-cause problems. Creative problem-solving is not enough. To generate impact those solutions must also be adopted. No adoption, no impact. No impact, no innovation.

Innovating is a learnable, not an innate, skill. Innovating takes the right people, in the right environment utilizing the right methodology. The focus of this book is the description of a learnable, repeatable, non-linear, iterative, knowledge-based methodology for generating innovations. It is the oft-missing guide necessary to becoming a serial innovator. A guide that integrates creation and adoption. A guide that includes root-cause problem identification and solution formulation. A guide that can be adopted by individuals, groups, or large organizations.

The design-thinking based Innovation Pyramid methodology is laid out in the first half of this book. Its implementation utilizes the creativity-based DOC (Diverge Organize Converge) Process described in the second half of this book. The appendices, in turn, describe specific techniques that apply to the DOC Process.

The Innovation Pyramid, like any tool, comes down to how well we learn to use it to improve our collective judgement. Reviewing innovation projects allows us to better understand the linkages between the specific-level decisions and the overall project outcome. This deeper discernment requires a critical analysis of the entire innovation system – every decision taken between the initial situation and overall desired outcome must be reviewed. Fortunately, the structure of The Innovation Pyramid is equally useful in guiding the identification of the well-rationalized choice made during the design and execution of the innovation that inadvertently caused us to veer away from our overall, macro-level, desired impact of the original situation. This chapter lays out a structure to systematically review the project elements that could be associated with the variance between the actual and forecasted impact of the innovation. The guidance that The Pyramid provides for a project's post-execution review must often be augmented with additional research. Firms should consider this additional research an investment in their emerging core competency of serial innovation.

An overview of the creativity-based DOC (Diverge Organize Converge) Process is described in this chapter. The DOC Process is an important sub-process necessary to reduce the design stages of The Innovation Pyramid to practice. It will be applied multiple times, in a variety of different ways, during the innovation design stages. The DOC Process can also be applied to a multitude of other non-innovative challenges. The DOC Process has three distinct components: divergent thinking, organizing and convergent thinking. It is the combination of all three that makes the method powerful. While most are familiar with divergent thinking, particularly brainstorming new solution ideas, the DOC Process is as useful for identifying root-cause problems as it is for ideating new solutions. The Diverge step expands from the original solution idea or problem situation. The second step of the process is the often ignored Organize step. Once the Organize step is completed, the process moves onto the Converge step. Converge narrows the organized concepts down to the “best.” Criteria for choosing “the best” problem or solution must be conscious and public. Unless agreed-upon criteria is defined for choosing “the best,” each of us will apply our own measures, ensuring a chaotic outcome.

Divergent thinking is the first of three essential steps in completing the non-linear DOC Process. Like all DOC Process steps, divergent thinking applies to both the problem and solution spaces. It simply requires different techniques when seeking to identify a root-cause problem versus attempting to come up with a new impactful problem-solving approach.

Identifying root cause issues begins with broadening our purview to ensure we are not overlooking the disease by focusing too closely on its symptoms. Divergence occurs as we zoom in from this broad purview; identifying factors or causes of the identified zoomed-out General Problem, then factors of the identified factors, then causes of the sub-factors, and so on, until the root-cause level is reached.

Divergent thinking for solutions occurs on several perspective levels: feature, function and system. In addition to ideating new and improved features of existing solutions, substitute solutions should be considered. Potential substitutes perform the same function as current solutions, but do so in a very different way. New technology is often the enabler of substitute products. System level thinking diverges solution ideas by strengthening or streamlining system connections or linkages at the broadest purview.

Carrying out the innovation creation and delivery plan that was created in the first execution stage is the aim of this final level of The Innovation Pyramid. Launching new innovations has challenges beyond those of a typical internal-company project in that they generally involve collaborators and adopters outside the innovation-creating organization. This means that multiple environments and multiple points-of-view, in addition to the innovation-creator's internal environment and point-of-view, must be appraised. A modification of Drucker's core management-by-objective framework is introduced to assure alignment of all the people and activities associated with the plan's successful implementation.

The remainder of the chapter focuses on performing a post-execution variance evaluation of the plan's implementation. Such a review allows the implementation team to hone in on the learnings attained from carrying out the developed plan. All four aspects of the plan are reviewed: Operations, Delivery, Resources and Risks. A poor plan execution does not automatically mean the implementation team underperformed. The issue may lie with people or environments well beyond the core team.

The Innovation Pyramid is an inverted triangular pyramid. The methodology for creating impactful solutions to real problems separates the innovation's design from its execution. It further bifurcates design into identifying the real problem before crafting a solution to it. Execution is similarly bifurcated into execution planning and implementation. The four stacked levels of The Innovation Pyramid, from top to bottom, represent Problem Identification, Solution Formulation, Planning and Implementation; two design stages followed by two execution stages. The Pyramid has three faces. These three pyramid sections address three different aspects of designing and executing impactful solutions:

What: What is the desired outcome at that level?

How: How will this be accomplished or enabled?

Who: Who will lead the activities and/or is impacted by the outcome of this level?

This structure streamlines innovation creation as well as providing a structural means for diagnosing the cause of the variance between the actual and forecasted impact of the innovation. This diagnostic aspect is especially important when we may be traversing The Innovation Pyramid structure multiple times, once for say, prototype development, and a second time for the final product launch.