[SOUND] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] In this lesson, we are going to be doing a number of exercises in order for you to evaluate the ideas and narrow down to a concept. To develop up an augmented solution and to design an ecosystem. Now just to recap, an idea is just something preliminary, piecemeal Any element of a solution. It could be the beginnings of a solution. A concept is more detailed. It's self contained. And it's usually good to represent it in the form of a picture or a figure. Now let me use the example of a low cost prosthetic social enterprise called IPT. It's formally called IPT and it's currently called Bumped. And I want to talk about a project that they did with us in one of our classes. They came up with a number of ideas that you see on this particular slide for upper-arm prosthetics for people living in India who have amputations. But how did they go about arriving at these ideas? They first developed a problem tree, both from the top down perspective of their organization, and from the perspective of subsistence, consumers, communities, and stakeholders. There are a number of ways to do this, and what I'm going to show you is how to decompose the need or the problems into questions through forming this kind of a problem tree. Now, let's start with the person with an amputation in subsistence marketplaces. When we try to deconstruct their needs from the bottom up, we start by taking on their perspective. So for example, in this particular case, we talk about the need to survive, so I need to survive. That is my most basic need. And that means I need to be comfortable in social settings. I need to provide for my family. I need to feel content with myself. So this has implications, as well. So if I need to be comfortable in social settings, I need to have an inconspicuous arm. I need to not be perceived differently. I need an arm that will not hurt anyone. If I need to provide for my family, that's about my livelihood. I need to maintain a job. I need to be able to do certain functions in that job. I need to feel prepared for the future. And then, my self image is very important to me. I need to feel content with myself, I need to be capable of doing many things. I need to be realistic in my expectations. And I also need to enjoy the things that I do, so this is what we mean by bottom up need construction. Now why is this important in subsistence settings? Well, first of all, it's important because we are generally unfamiliar with these settings, and secondly it's important because of all the uncertainty that we have in these settings. This is not like going to a different country. And designing a solution for somebody in a middle class household there. This is much more than that. This is a setting where there's uncertainty in a variety of ways, so we need to understand not only the need, we need to understand the drivers, we need to understand the context. We need to understand not only the consumer but we need to understand the community and the larger context as well. So that's why we do this kind of analysis to really push home on this bottom up philosophy that we mentioned earlier on. Now the same deconstruction of needs can be done from the top down. So IPT can look at their own needs. So IPT needs to provide solutions for amputees that improve their quality of life. So what does that mean? They need local expertise and support. They need to identify amputee needs and expectations. Now what does it mean to have local expertise and support? They need partners for manufacturing and distribution, they need positive word of mouth from trusted experts, and so on. So this is what we mean by top-down need understanding. Now our point is not to say that we should just be bottom up in our understanding. Our point is to say that the bottom up needs are what are often neglected. They're often very difficult to do, so our point is that the bottom up has to meet the top down. If we just take our organizations' perspectives. Then we are not going to really serve that amputee with the proper solution. And very often what is neglected is a bottom-up understanding of people in subsistence. So that's what we try to emphasize. And the bottom-up has to meet the top-down. So this is one way to go about deconstructing the need. Here's an exercise that would be useful for you to do in order to identify needs. It'll be useful to write down needs as statements in the first person. So it will be very useful for you to take the role of the end beneficiary. It will be good to write down each statement on a separate card, and then try to combine these different cards into groups. That are similar, that are on the same topic. And then to try to label these groups of cards in a certain way to identify a particular need. So that will give you one layer of analysis of a need and all the different, smaller needs that it breaks into. It will be good to revise and review these groups repeatedly till you are satisfied that you have covered all the needs involved in that larger basic problem or need that you're serving. Now, we can do a slight variation on need deconstruction by looking at problem trees. In this particular case, we start off with a question or a statement, and we break that question or statement into other questions and statements, and move down from there, and we want to make sure that we cover all the different topics involved in the problem, but at the same time we want to make sure that there aren't overlapping questions as well. So for example, with a bottom up problem tree. In the form of a question, how can an amputee in poverty improve their quality of life? That's the fundamental problem that IPT faces, and IPT believes that the amputee faces from the bottom up. That breaks down into, how can I perform day to day tasks? How can I earn a living wage? How can I feel socially comfortable? And so on. So this is just a variation on putting down needs. And here we have put down statements or questions just to clarify needs in a, in a better way. Similarly, we could have a top-down problem tree. How can IPT improve the lives of amputees? And that can break down into a variety of questions as well. Now these needs and this kiund of de-construction stays with us throughout as we think about the solution. The solution is not in a separate compartment, and the moment we do that, we lose track of the need that we are trying to serve. For example, consider your focus need, and let's do an exercise to try to identify the criteria by which you should evaluate your ideas. So draw a bottom up figure of what you expect the end user to look for in your solution. What is the need being served? Develop criteria or attributes representing how you will satisfy different aspects of the need, and then consolidate attributes. For example, I need to survive. That's what the person with an amputation feels in the project with IPT. So what does it mean? Well it means I need to provide for my family. So one of the criteria is to function in certain occupations. Similarly, I need to feel comfortable in social settings, so social acceptance is another criterion for this particular solution. I need to feel content with myself, and self-image matters as well, so the appearance and aesthetics of the prosthetics matters as well. So these are some of the sample criteria that could be developed from the bottom up analysis. Here's another way to go about developing criteria. And criteria are nothing more than why people will opt for your solution. They are the reasons why people will opt for your solutions. They are ways in which their needs are being served. One way to think about it is to take your ideas, and just rank them. Now work backward. What was the idea that you rank the highest? Why did you do that? That's another way to try to work back and try to list out criteria as well. Now using this kind of bottom up analysis and top down analysis you can also think about how to augment the basic product design. So when you think about the prosthetic solution, are there certain features that could be added to it, maybe for storage, maybe for a number of other things, maybe for certain types of features that will help in the the workplace, and so on, and this is a good way to think about how to augment the product as well. Are there certain needs that you've left out, that you could not address, which could be done by augmenting your core solution. So, this is the IPT prototype from the class project, and it has a number of features, and through this kind of bottom up and top down analysis, it may be useful to think about ways in which it could be improved. Does it have aesthetic appeal? Will it be socially acceptable? Is the solution meeting some of these basic criteria? This bottom up and top down exercise is also useful to try to understand how to augment the basic solution. Now, the same analysis can be used to develop up an ecosystem around the core and augmented solution. Why is the ecosystem important? It's important because people living in poverty are deprived on multiple fronts, and it's not just enough to offer them a solution because they are missing the infrastructure, they are missing the institutional mechanisms, they are missing all the things that we take for granted and resources and settings, and so an ecosystem is also something that has to be thought about. In the case of IPT, they use the same bottom-up and top-down analysis, to develop up a resource network. So because I want to be part of a, social network, because I need to make sure that I'm socially accepted, and because I need education about the product, what IPT came up with was a resource network. So people could call into the network, they could get education, they could have their product repaired, and they could feel part of a larger community of people with amputations as well. So their solution was not just about the core product. The prosthetic. It was also about the community in which the person will be using the prosthetic, and the need for a network for that person. So this is the way to think about an ecosystem. It could be in the form of a network of farmers, a network of women who exchange information, and so on. But you have to try to figure out what the ecosystem is that will go around your solution to enable people to use your solution. These kinds of ecosystems are taken for granted in other settings. But very often, they are missing, they're lacking in subsistence marketplaces. And finally, as you come up with your ideas and narrow them down to a concept using the criteria, it's also important to gain insights about these ideas or the concept that you choose. So apply the learning from lesson seven about gaining marketplace insights. Prepare for your interaction with end beneficiaries, by developing pictures representing your ideas or your concept and some questions as well. It's a very important to think about the end beneficiary in terms of their thinking, their feelings and the way they relate to the marketplace and cope. Ask about the need. Ask about current solutions. Ask about shortcomings and what an ideal solution would look like. So in other words, be very open ended at the beginning so that people give you a sense of what the ideal solution looks like. Then show them the concept in pictorial form, and obtain an open-ended response. This is very important, so you don't lead people to respond to certain aspects of the solution. Start out broadly. Start out in an open-ended way. And then narrow down to more specific questions after you've given the respondent a chance to provide an open-ended response. Ask specific questions on how they would change the solution? What about additional features? What about support? How much will they pay? How will they receive communications? Any other suggestions? Now don't stick to this script, but be creative. But most importantly, we have to adopt a mutual learning mindset. We have to set the stage for the interaction where the end beneficiary, the low literate, the low income subsistence individual feels empowered and feels like an expert in responding to your questions. That is very important a because of the difference in status between you, the person asking the question and the respondent. Very often people are going to come into the setting thinking that there's a right or a wrong answer and that you may scold them for giving you the wrong answer. And this is where the mutual learning mindset is very important. You are an expert in certain things, but they are experts on survival. So if you could create that environment, then you're going to find that the end beneficiary co-creates the solution with you.
