BUSM4369 Accounting Business Design Project 1
TOPIC 5: TOOLS FOR DISCOVERING
AND REFINING IDEAS
1. Nine Windows Technique
2. Resource Optimization
Technique
3. Functional Analysis
Technique
Topic 5: Discovering and refining ideas
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• Successful innovation is about capitalizing on an opportunity to fulfill
unmet client or manager expectations in a superior way. But finding that
superior way is challenging, because at the core of most unmet
opportunities lies a problem requiring an innovative solution.
• In the ideation phase of the innovation process, your goal is to generate
substantive ideas for closing outcome expectation gaps (or innovation
opportunities) within the confines of a smartly scoped project.
• SIT identifies opportunities by (1) identify components (2) question
Function follows Form principle ie Should we do it? Can we do it ?
• May need to redefine or refine the opportunity using the Nine Windows,
Resource Optimization and Functional Analysis techniques to overcome
functional and other forms of fixedness which we have previously
addressed.
• Then you will need to bring out the best of what’s in your mind and
accelerate the creative process using the Brain-writing technique.
Unfortunately this is difficult to perform on-line! Refer to Silverstein
(2012).
1. Nine Windows
Nine windows is a design tool or technique that helps examine an innovation
opportunity across the dimensions of
• Time (past, present, future) and
• Scale (subsystem, super-system)
• The subsystem represents the individual components or characteristics
that make up the present system or artefact. This is similar to the ‘closedworld’ principle and ‘zoom-in zoom out’ concept to increase or reduce the
‘closed- world’ boundaries.
• The supersystem represents how the present system or artefact interacts with
the surrounding environment. This is similar to the ‘outside the closed world’
concept under SIT.
Provides nine lenses or perspectives or frames through which we can look at an
opportunity or problem that requires a creative resolution.
The dimensions of Time and Scale are also reflected in the design tool Attribute
Dependency Technique we looked at last week. Recall Attribute Dependency
Technique is about what happens as one thing changes and another thing changes
as a result of changes in time ( transition lenses change as time/light changes from
day to night ) or scale (traffic lights change as number of cars on road changes ).
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Nine Windows
Nine Windows is a simple grid or matrix consisting of
nine cells or windows.
The centre cell is a statement of the present system or
process.
The eight cells around the centre cell provide additional
perspectives on the present system/process or artefact
to help decide how and at what level to apply
innovation.
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Nine Windows
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Job Statement:
Nine Windows – working with windows
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Job Statement:
Nine Windows
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4. Complete the matrix
• Fill in the four corners – the past and future states of the
super-system and the sub-system. You don’t have to fill in all
corner boxes but it is worth trying.
5. Reassess the innovation opportunity
• After filling in the nine windows, assess the innovation
opportunity to determine if you should focus your efforts at the
system, sub-system or super-system level, and which
temporal dimension.
6. Generate solution ideas for the window(s) of focus (see Exhibit 8.2)
Nine Windows
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1. Fill in the centre box – i.e., the present system or process
2. Identify the sub-system and super-system (i.e., the middle
column)
• The sub-system breaks down the present system or process
into the components and characteristics that constitute it.
• The super-system relates to how the system or process
interacts with the surrounding environment.
3. Determine the past and future (i.e., the middle row)
• What the present system/process looked like before its
current version and what it could look like in the future.
Nine Windows
Example 1 (see Silverstein et al. p.57-58)
• The JTBD is to maintain clean floors inside the firm’s retail store;
• The present system is use of fan dryers and floor cleaning
materials
Example 2
• The JTBD is to maintain financial compliance for business
clients;
• The present system is use of clients’ accounts from their various
book-keeping systems to prepare and submit their quarterly
BAS statements.
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2. Resource Optimization Technique
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• We addressed resource optimization when we looked at the Task
Unification Technique. Recall the examples of the coffee maker (filter
performs filtering but also acts as a measure or the shopping screen in
South Korean train stations where bill boards also serve as a virtual store.
And the people who visited Thomas Edison, what did they do?
• Resource optimization is the use of existing resources to solve an
innovation problem and increase the value of a solution relative to
existing options.
• The key is to list as many as many resources as possible within and
outside your immediate system or sphere of focus. Example: the upside-down shampoo bottles used the free resource of gravity to solve the
problem of getting the last drop out with ease and no frustration.
• What are the components? Include people, intangible things like air, heat,
etc
Resource optimization technique
• What is a resource? Machines, equipment, buildings,
people, money. But also sunlight, air, vacuum, gravity and
waste. Under SIT, these are referred to as ‘components’.
• Resources can be identified inside the system
(subsystem), but they also need to be considered outside
the system (supersystem).

resources; Field resources; Space resources; Function
resources.
Resource optimization technique
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• STEPS
1.Formulate the Problem – what JTBD is the focus of your innovation
effort? What are the client (or manager) outcome expectations? Have
you created a job statement?
2.Compose a List of Resources. List all known internal resources,
and external resources. For a format to list categories of internal and
external resources, see Exhibit 14.2 on p.105 (The Titanic)
3.Analyze the Resource List. Narrow the list of resources down to
only those that have the most leverage or potential to change the
system in a way that solves the inventive problem, without creating
unwanted complications, costs, or other side-effects.
Ways of analysing the resources list are:
–Resource utilization: convert existing resources into new resources
(e.g., convert individual work into team work, use the sea’s tide to
generate electricity).
Resource optimization technique
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– Resource accumulation: use a device to increase the amount or
capability of a resource (e.g., provide training to employees, use a
dam to accumulate water)
– Resource combination: add one resource to another (e.g., add an
environmental scientist to a financial accounting team, add methane
to petroleum).
– Resource concentration: use a field to concentrate a resource to an
effective level (e.g., laser for eye surgery)
– Resource evolution: envision the evolution of a system – what
resources might evolve with the system (e.g., using plants to
generate oxygen)
– Resource scaling: change the magnitude or scale of a resource
property (e.g., concentrated vaccine dilutes after injection).
3. Functional Analysis
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• Functional analysis is a process for assessing and
improving system values. It focuses on retaining or
increasing useful functions, mitigating or eliminating harmful
functions, and improving inadequate functions.
• This analysis involves a function diagram that shows all the
causal linkages in a system and indicates whether they are
desired, undesired or insufficient.
• Once a function diagram is completed, it is easier to work
out where available resources can be employed to improve
a system, or trim unneeded functions.
Functional analysis
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• STEPS
1. Define the problem – What is the JTBD? What resources are
available to solve the problem?
2. Develop a Functional Model of the System (Function Diagram)
– A ‘Function’ is defined as an activity, action, process or condition
that operates between two variables – the input variable and the
output variable. In between input and output is a value
transformation. By virtue of the function, value is added.
Functions in a system can be sufficient or insufficient in
performing value transformations. Functions are performed by
elements that reside either inside or outside the system.
– The function diagram depicts all relevant functions in a causeand-effect style. See Exhibit 15.1 on p.111.
– Start by identifying the primary desired function. Then ask: does
the primary desired function produce another function? Is this
other function undesired or insufficient? Also ask: is the primary
desired function produced by another function?
Functional analysis
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• STEPS
2. Developing a function diagram continued….
2. See example of a ‘real estate transaction process’ in Exhibit 15.2
on p.112.
3. Performing the Functional Analysis
– Review the function diagram and modify it in ways that will make
the system more value-added. What desired functions can be
increased? What undesired functions can be removed? What
insufficient functions can be made sufficient?
– To do this, use a ‘trimming worksheet’ See Exhibit 15.3 on
p.113. This worksheet lists the functions, whether they are
desired, undesired, insufficient or necessary. Then trimming
questions are posed as follows: 1. Could the recipient of the
function do it by themselves – how? 2. Could some other
resource perform the function – how? See example of a
Function diagram after trimming in Exhibit 15.4 on p.114.