The Qualiteg Approach: 4 Must-Dos for Idea Deep-Dives

Hello to everyone visiting the Qualiteg blog — I'm Michele. In my work on AI-driven new business development and marketing, there are questions I hear from clients again and again. Through this blog, I would like to offer my own answers to the challenges commonly faced by anyone considering building a business with AI.

Creating innovative products and services requires both generating strong ideas and digging into them thoroughly. At Qualiteg, we combine user-centered design thinking with data-driven analysis to help our clients get the most out of their ideas.

In this article, we explain in concrete terms what Qualiteg believes you should — and should not — do when deep-diving into an idea, and introduce more effective ways to go about it.

1. Thoroughly Understand User Needs

The starting point of any idea is always user needs. Deeply understanding who your target users are, what problems they face, and what kind of solutions they are looking for is the first step toward making an idea succeed.

At large companies, we often get the impression that people treat investigating user needs as a chore.

At companies with generous budgets for new business development, the person in charge often starts by building a near-production-level prototype app driven by their own mental image, and in some cases even conducts user interviews with it.

At the initial-hypothesis stage, you should keep open the possibility of changing the app itself later. For that reason, rather than a fully working app that costs time and money to build, we believe a paper prototype is the better preparation — at Qualiteg, we strongly recommend running user tests with paper prototypes or cold mockups. (Besides, if you polish the app too much up front, you will not want to change it later...)

• Conduct user interviews:
  Interview target users directly to gain a deep understanding of their needs, problems, and latent desires.
• Create personas:
  Based on interview findings and other inputs, draw a concrete picture of your users to deepen your understanding further.
• Create customer journey maps:
  Visualize how users come into contact with your product or service, and their emotions and behaviors along the way.

Innovation-Cross from Qualiteg Co., Ltd. is a co-creation support program that brings clarity to the process of generating innovation. Our approach consists of four steps: first, a thorough analysis of your company's current state; next, formulation of a strategy for creating value through external collaboration; then, definition of a concrete roadmap and KPIs; and finally, strong support for execution.

Through a rich menu of services — idea workshops, hackathon planning, the use of AI technologies, and more — we steadily drive each stage of innovation creation. Experienced consultants work alongside you, charting a clear path to the kind of innovation that is "hard to achieve in-house alone" through collaboration with external partners.

2. Bring In Diverse Perspectives

When deep-diving into an idea, it is important to draw on a variety of perspectives, not just your own. Hearing from people with different backgrounds and areas of expertise can lead to new discoveries and insights.

Because the concept of diversity came to Japan by way of the United States, it tends to be understood mainly in ethnic terms. Client companies often ask us how, in practice, they should go about incorporating diverse perspectives.

• Run brainstorming sessions:
  Bring together a diverse group of members and generate ideas freely.
• Interview subject-matter experts:
  Hear from experts well versed in specific fields to test the idea's feasibility.
• Conduct competitive analysis:
  Analyze competing products and services to clarify how your idea differentiates itself and where it can improve.

Activities like these help you take on multiple viewpoints. When running them inside a company, it works well to gather around eight people from different departments, job types, and roles. Planners, marketers, engineers, administrators, designers — even a difference in job function often means a different source of inspiration, and during a deep-dive this can produce unexpected home-run ideas. Highly recommended.

3. Build Prototypes and Validate

To give an idea concrete form and let users actually experience it, build a prototype. In the early stages, a simple prototype made of paper or clay is perfectly fine. What matters is gathering user feedback and improving the idea.

As mentioned in the previous section, over-polishing even a paper prototype can defeat the purpose: you grow attached to it, become reluctant to change it later, or simply burn out. Think of the paper prototype as something casual — as long as it conveys the idea well enough, it is doing its job.

• Paper prototyping:
  Express the idea visually using paper and pen.
• Digital prototyping:
  Use design tools to create more interactive prototypes.
• Run user tests:
  Test the prototype with users to validate its usability and identify issues.

4. Make Data-Driven Decisions

Throughout the deep-dive process, user interviews, prototype tests, and other activities yield a wealth of data. It is important to analyze this data and evaluate the idea objectively.

People with little planning experience — or those who are a bit thin-skinned — tend to crave the customer's "likes" in user interviews.

But should a polite, flattering "like" really serve as the basis for a new business decision involving tens or hundreds of millions of yen? When supporting clients, I make a point of (steeling myself and) advising them to take a cool-headed second look.

In addition to qualitative data from user tests, carry out proper quantitative analysis, such as surveys, so that you find the best answer now and avoid costly rework later.

• Quantitative data analysis:
  Analyze numerical data such as traffic and conversion rates to measure the idea's impact.
• Qualitative data analysis:
  Analyze the opinions and impressions gathered from user interviews and surveys to deeply understand user needs and problems.
• Run A/B tests:
  Compare different versions of a prototype to validate which designs and features are more effective.

One thing I do not want anyone to misunderstand: just because your initial hypothesis was a little off, nobody thinks you "have no talent for planning." I want to say that loud and clear.

On the contrary, I believe that those who can calmly analyze their own proposal at this point and objectively judge what needs to change are the true planning professionals — and I consider it my mission to help develop planners of that caliber.

Summary

By putting these "must-dos" into practice, Qualiteg helps clients deep-dive into ideas effectively and create innovative solutions.

For our clients at Japanese companies, this may feel a little uncomfortable at first, but keeping an open mind and welcoming diverse opinions makes it easier for fresh thinking to emerge beyond conventional frameworks. Repeatedly asking "why?" and making use of visualization lets you get to the essence of an idea and organize complex concepts.

Prototyping and feedback also give you the opportunity to make ideas concrete and validate them early. This makes it possible to efficiently select and refine the ideas with the greatest chance of success.

Furthermore, by setting aside time and space for creative thinking, we create an environment where employees can step away from daily work and concentrate on deep-diving into ideas.

Through these initiatives, Qualiteg continuously drives innovation and develops innovative products and services that meet market needs. In addition to supporting idea creation, we also take on prototype development projects, so please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Let's create new businesses together and energize Japan!

Thank you very much for reading this column to the end. At Qualiteg, we provide training and consulting on AI technology and methods for planning new businesses. If this has sparked your interest, or if you have specific needs, please feel free to reach out through the contact form here.

We also offer a popular workshop for those who want to learn the steps of new business creation firsthand. The training focuses on having each participant think about the business from an executive's perspective, and it is designed not only for planning staff but also for their counterpart engineers, designers, and marketers.