Empowering Innovation from the Ranks: A Guide to Design for Delight

The Elusive Quest for Innovation

Many entrepreneurs want their start-ups to be like Apple—design driven, innovation intensive, wowing consumers with fantastic offerings. Unfortunately, that kind of success always seems to require a powerful visionary at the top, which few companies have.

The Intuit Approach

Scott Cook, a cofounder of Intuit, realized that innovative design could be generated from the ranks if the frontline troops were empowered to develop their own ideas. Intuit created a team of 10 “innovation catalysts” to help managers throughout the organization work on design initiatives.

Design for Delight: A Proven Process

In a process known as Design for Delight, managers identify customer pain points through direct field research, brainstorm about how to reduce them, and swiftly prototype solutions.

The Benefits

The impact on Intuit has been huge: Net Promoter Scores, revenue, and income have increased substantially over the past three years.

Conclusion

By empowering innovation from the ranks, companies can achieve remarkable results without relying on a single visionary leader. Intuit’s approach demonstrates that even large organizations can be agile and responsive to customer needs, leading to increased customer satisfaction and business success.

FAQs

• What is Design for Delight?

Innovative problem-solving process where managers identify customer pain points, brainstorm solutions, and prototype quickly.

• How does Intuit’s approach differ from traditional innovation strategies?

Intuit’s approach is bottom-up, empowering employees to develop their own ideas, whereas traditional strategies often rely on a single visionary leader.

• What are the benefits of Design for Delight?

Increased customer satisfaction, revenue, and income, as seen in Intuit’s results.