Observing Skill

Innovators are intense observer and they carefully watch the fields, problems, customers, ideas, process, company, technology, services, business models It help them gain insights into and ideas for new ways of doing things.

• Effective observation requires putting yourself in new environments

• It involves watching customers to see what products and services they hire to help them do their jobs

• It involves looking for workarounds —partial or incomplete solutions—that customers use to do those jobs.

• It involves looking for surprises or anomalies that might provide surprising insights.

• As observers identify workarounds and anomalies, and dig deep to understand them, they increase their odds of uncovering an innovative solution to the problems they observe.

• What makes someone a good observer? How can someone get better at observing?

• Anthropologist’s role is the biggest source of innovation in IDEO

• Tips for developing observation skills

• Vuja De

• How Intuit’s founder used observation from Apple’s Lisa to start up his company

• Most innovators are of intense observers

• Observation is not a one aha day, but observing the world around them and asking questions all the time

• Observing someone in a particular circumstance can lead to insights about a job to be done

Observation(knowing what) vs insight(knowing why)