Customer Centered Innovation Map

While going through material on Innovation to engage a full term for students on Effective Innovation, I came across this excellent paper in Harvard Business Review by two practitioners from the industry.

They introduce a term called job mapping. Job mapping is different from process mapping in that process mapping maps the various steps in the process that is being carried out. This has been done for more than a hundred years. 

In Job Mapping, the goal is to try to identify what the customers are trying to get done at every step, not what they are doing currently. 

For example when I am driving a car to go to work in the morning, what I am essentially engaged in is to get in the job of transporting myself from home to office in the car.

There are many alternatives I can resort to in getting to the office on time.

Sequence of steps offering many opportunities to innovate, credit to HBR

1. If I can get a lift in my friend's car to go to office, I would not mind taking it.
2. If the office is willing to pick me up from home and drop me in the office, I do not mind taking it.
3. If there is a convenient public transport from near my home to the office and if it takes me less time than what it would have taken in private transport
4. A Mass Rapid Transport System (MRTS) like a metro train would be cool ..

5. If I am a health freak I do not mind walking or jogging to the office on time and get ready to attend to work after a shower
6. I can use a sega wheel and go to office
7. I can stay near to the office avoiding commuting altogether
8. i can use an air balloon to go to office
9. I can use a jet pack which takes me to the air and in the shortest path and time, I can reach office.
10. If I can get enough bandwidth on my internet link, I can digitise myself at home IP address and transport me over the high bandwidth and download myself at the office IP address and get to work in matter of a few minutes..      The possibilities are limitless..

The question that arises here is, is there a better way to  see that I reach the campus from home ?

Innovation opportunities likewise abound in many many ways even for small tasks we do at work or at home.

A culture of carrying out innovation by looking not at what is being done and trying to improve upon it, instead to what is being done to get the job done and how can it be done better, opens up a whole lot of innovation opportunities and is more important.

George ..

Ref : Customer Centered Innovation Map -  - Harvard Business Review, Bettencourt, Ulwick, May 2008.