Slides for a 1 Day Workshop on Innovation in Retail. I worked with a diverse group of attendees on new ideas for a leading consumer electronics retail chain utilizing Design Thinking.

1. Retail Innovation
Workshop
powered by
Design Thinking
Nicky Szmala

2. Our Agenda for Today
o Get to know each other (in a slightly different way)
o Warm-up exercise to fire up our braincells
o What is Design Thinking
o Some Best in Class Global Retail Sharing
o Mind Map Presentation
o Brain-Pool Exercise & Idea Voting
o Prototyping & Learning Launch Planning
o Recap

3. Our Checklist for Today:
Good Mood (aka can do attitude)
Pencil
Paper
Voting Stickers (10 x each)
Phone & Apple Watch off
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓

4. + 10 years experience working with brands on global marketing
campaigns as well as product- and business model innovations.
Hi, I’m Nicky.
I help organizations solve business problems using design thinking.

6. Feasible Economical
Customer
Centric

7. Research + Workshop 1 Homework + Workshop 2 Implementation

9. Today We will use design thinking*
tools and frameworks to:
o Generate & Enhance Ideas
o Evaluate Ideas
o Further Iterate & Optimize
o Prototype & Plan Learning Launches

10. Design Thinking ≠ Design
Design thinking is a methodology that uses different frameworks and tools to solve
unstructured, complex problems with the customer perspective at its center.
You don’t have to be a designer to apply it.

11. The Good news:
Retail isn’t dying, it’s evolving.
The Bad news:
Customer expectations are higher than ever.

12. Experience
Curation
Community
Convenience
Service
PS: Often its not one solution but the novel
combination.
PPS: Technology can enhance all of the above but it’s
usually not the main driver.

13. Retail Best
Practices

14. Try-before-you-buy

22. #6 FastCompany
most Innovative
Companies
~ US$1bn annual
revenue
Fast Growing

24. Let’s get creative.

25. There are 2
types of ideas:
Moon ShootsLow Hanging
Fruits
✓ All resources are
available in-house
✓ Takes days or weeks to start
Learning launch
✓ No or only small
budget required
✓ Needs partners
✓ Takes weeks to start
learning launch
✓ Requires larger investment
We are looking for both today!

26. Let’s present our mind
maps (aka homework) to
the other team members

27. Please do not judge ideas in any way
(verbal or nonverbal).
We will sort out the best ideas later.

28. Pool

29. Let’s vote using
Dot.Democracy

30. When analyzing the ideas, do it from
your customers perspective.
Walk in their shoes and try to feel
whether the idea adds meaningful
value and solves a real problem.

31. Let’s Prototype

32. Let me introduce the
tools we will use today.

33. Business Model
Canvas

34. Play-Doh
Prototyping

35. Are we adding value to the customer experience?
Is what we are trying to do authentic to our brand?
Are we just following a trend?
Are we willing to fail and iterate
(almost nothing is great from the start)?
Do we have enough resources/ budget to make it truly
great?

36. Ideas = Hypothesis
Learning launches validate
a hypothesis

37. Confirmation Bias
(Don’t fall in love with your idea)
Quantity of data
Quality of data
Group Think
(Diverse team + skeptic)

38. State your Hypothesis
State your Key Assumptions
Customer Value Feasibility Defensibility Scalability
Prioritize Key Assumptions
Design Test for Key Assumptions
Test
Confirming Data Disconfirming Data Data
Iterate Pivot
LearningLaunchProcess

39. Key
Assumption
Owners How Duration Investment Results Next steps
Learning Launch Template

40. Recap &
Next

41. The best way to
predict the future is to
create it.
Abraham Lincoln
Let’s create the future together.
Nicky Szmala
謝謝！