Persona Pain-Gain Map for Gove-Hybrid

Mike is a 35-year-old career man who has just had this second kid born, living in Massachusetts. Mike’s first kid is going to the first grade next year. He is choosing between several schools in the community. His wife used to work. But she quitted her job to look after the children. Also, he is still paying the debts for the house and his car. Right now, Mike is thinking of cutting down their usages on household to save money and even let his wife go back to work. He talked with his friends with his difficulties. His wife asked suggestions from the neighbors on how to save money. What they got are suggestions like using coupon, selling the car and choosing a cheaper school. Mike struggles between saving money and offering the best to his family.

Mike wants to figure out a best cost-saving plan for his family while keeping his life quality the same level as before. Gove-Hybrid is the best solution for these people who have economic struggles.

For residential home owners who are interested in decreasing and/or eliminating their electric and heating bills. Gove-Hybrid is a Green renewable energy solar panel that captures electricity and heat. Unlike Sun Bug, One Block Off the Grid or Solar City, this product heats and powers your home up to 15% more efficiently.

Pain	Gain
When he arrived home from a hard working day, he received several bills and he’s short on money.	He will get a check from Mass Electric every month for the reward of using solar panel.
He stays up whole night thinking of how to cut down household costs.	Gove-Hybrid solar panel will power the home up to 15% more efficiently.
He has to limit electricity and heat usage of the home all the time to save money.	One time installation and saving money forever.
Short on cash	Available for financing

Persona Pain-Gain Map

Since I just reformed a business plan group with a new product. I still need time to communicate with my new team members and get to know the product. I will post the Persona Pain-Gain Map for that product later. For now, the following map is for my own business new idea.

Ting is a 23-year-old International student who has just been admitted to WPI. She has already spent several days on Craigslist trying to find an apartment and roommates. She has no clue of where to start and what to look at.

Pain	Gain
Spend all day online on different websites searching renting information and found no valuable information.	Easy interface of all renting information in one website. Comprehensive information in one profile of a house.
Afraid of landlord hiding information and be cheated by landlord.	Providing past tenants’ reviews on the house
Stay up whole night worrying about how to fit into the new environment.	Create online social circle of people who live around neighborhood
Information online are provided only by landlord.	Multiple information channels of houses and apartments

For people who are looking for apartments or house to rent in Worcester area, who has the need of finding the best suitable house, getting familiar with the neighborhood and making friends.

Worcester House and Apartment Social Network (Whas Network) is a house renting website and social network that gives each house in Worcester area an ID account, creates profiles for houses and apartment including basic information, tenant reviews and neighborhood information, and provides renting services. Houses and apartments that are in the same area can be included in a same circle. Past and current tenants can update news and statuses of what’s going on in the house and invite people in the neighbors to join the activities.

Unlike other house renting companies’ website, the product has the unique differentiation that gives house and apartment identity. Customers can not only acquire house information and make renting decisions on the website; but also fulfill their social networking needs.   

Problem Solving Mechanism—A3

A3 is a simple mechnism that Toyota designes for problem solving and deeper thinking. To better understand the pros and cons of A3, I reasearch other popular and widely used problem solving models to compare. I am going to compare A3 with two other models in this blog, General Problem-Solving Model and Cause & Effect Diagram (Fish Bone).

General Problem-Solving Model

This problem solving model is a quite basic process that people will go through unconsciousely when they meet a problem. After defining the problem, one will consider the possiblilites solutions based on facts, then creating an action plan and implememting to the problem. If the problem is solved, the process will be ended. If not, one needs to go over the process once again starting from gathering facts. It’s obvious that this process lacks efficiency and flexcibility and cause waste. Firstly, it’s aimless in gathering facts phase. People will waste time on gathering useless facts that won’t help with the problem. Secondly, one consider possibilities based only on facts but not on certain analysis. Thirdly, it only allow one action plan at a time. This whole process may be suitble to solve small problems that won’t involve with too many situations and changes.

Cause & Effect Diagram

 

The Cause & Effect Diagram is a problem-solving tool that focus on figouring out the cause and effect relationships. The first step is to identify the problem as other models (Fish head). The second step is to list factors that contribute to or affect the problem as many as possible. These factors (Site, Task, People, Equipment and Control) can be listed along side the main line as “Bones”. The third step is to identy the causes of these “Bones” and subcauses of the causes. The last step is to analyze the whole diagram and reach out conclusions.

The best part I like about this fishbone is that people will be able to figour out the the root causes of the problem. However, it requires further analysis on the situation. For example, which root cause is the most important one and has the biggest correlation? Further rearch is needed. Also, people won’t be able to figout out certain action plans from this diagram and the afterwards problem solving steps. It will require another model to figour the following strategy.

Toyota’s A3

Compared to the above two problem solving models, A3 is better in many aspects. Firstly, the model has many flexibilities. People can innovate on how to design the content by themselves. Secondly, by following the process, people will be able to understand the whole situation with the main goal in mind. Thirdly, as the article said, the model stimulate people to think deeper of the problem. With better understanding of the problem, people will be able to make better decisions on what actions to take to solve the problem.

In my eyes, if one can complete a comprehensive model of A3, it will be a very effective way to solve the problem. The possibility of the successful of solving the problem is also higher than using other models since A3 takes many factors into consideration, the background, the goal, the analysis of the problem, and the comparision of action plans. It should be noticed that one should avoid having a already-known solution in mind to the problem. Knowing where to go at the end will create bias for the analysis.

All in all, I become a fan of A3 model after reading the article and comparing it with other models. I think I will consider using this model in the future.

 

Reference

Toyota’s Secret: The A3 Report

http://www.thequalityportal.com/notes/A3Shook.pdf

Cause and Effect Analysis

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_03.htm

Trouble Shooting Guide

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/bts/4.4/troubleshooting/guide/01tg01.html

 

 

 

Examples of 7 sources of Innovation

The 7 sources of innovation is quite a mind blowing concept. By learning the definition, I listed some examples of each source.

The unexpected: The discovery of Penicillin as antibiotic. Alexander Fleming was studying Staphylococcus at that time. However, he accidently observed a phenomenon that Staphylococcus’s growth had been stopped because of Penicillin. This unexpected discovery changed Fleming’s path of research, and many other scientists’ path. This unexpected event is the source of many innovations, such as the isolation of pure Penicillin and the way to mass produce Penicillin as a medicine.

The incongruity: I really find the source incongruity gives me a hard time to come up with an example. It seems that many innovations are related to both incongruity and new knowledge. It is true that with the born of some new technologies, people started to look at things differently. However, I want to argue that some innovations are truly generated on incongruities and then people would look at the problems and find solutions. The innovation of credit card and checks is my example. The reality at that time was that people had to carry certain large amount of cash if they wanted to buy something expensive. The reality that was ought to be was that people should be able to carry a small volume of something that could be traded. The incongruity led to the born of checks and then cards.

Process need: this source of innovation is very common. In manufacturing industry, this kind of innovation can be spotted everywhere. The developments of almost everything acquire process need. The web interface became more and more user friendly because people have the needs of better using experience. The updates of many smartphone applications because of customers have continuous needs on better functions and son on.

Change in industry structure and market structure: There were times when a company would produce everything it needed by itself. Later, companies began to outsource part of their business or partnered with other companies. The increasing competitors and changing market were the source of this structure innovation.

Demographic: I come from a country with 1.4 billion populations. The innovations of how to better serve this huge number of people is quite common. How to better use the space is a big issue. Innovation on construction technologies to build higher building and innovation of parking building are all innovation derived from demographic source.

Change in perception, mood and meaning: The example I have for this source is that people’s perception on environment. In past, people didn’t care about environment and limited resources. But later, when people realized how precious our planet is, people started to innovate, such as clean energy.

New Knowledge: new knowledge is definitely a main source of innovation. New materials such as plastic are created. With time went by, different plastic were invented based on different need. Innovation based on plastics can’t be numbered.

SWOT Analysis on Google

Strength

Google has always enjoyed the reputation of innovation and creativity. The biggest resource of Google is its people. Tons of top engineers and talents are attracted to this giant. Google employees work under a very flexible and comfortable environment and company structure to make sure their creativities. Its technology team makes sure Google is always in advance of everything. With the best people in the company, Google knows what it is doing. Its strong brand identity also can’t be ignored. Google made “google” a verb that equals “search”. The equation that “Google=Search” brings Google tons of benefits. It takes controls of 6.5% internet traffics, which makes it reach out huge population. Also, Google create its own eco-system in which Google won’t rely on any other channels or companies.

Weakness

As we all know that now Google is everywhere. It’s now in search engine, social network, mobile devise, tablets, software, TV, and even car business. There is an old saying in Chinese, “Things will develop in the opposite direction when they become extreme.” In my eyes, Google now is in too many areas but its major profit only comes from advertisement on its search engine. Google’s focus has been distracted to many places. No one can make sure that all the investment will get returns. Costs in R&D and human resources are very high. Wastes are created to drag Google’s speed back.

In addition, Google Android can also be regarded as a weakness of Google. Android is an open system that others can get the code and modify for free. Compared to its biggest competitor iOS, which is a closed system, Android lost tons of profit. Even though Android has bigger market share, it lost profit.

Opportunity

If Google can turn its weakness around, opportunities occur. As I talked in Google’s weakness, Android system right now can’t help Google make money. How to improve the system or the formation and how to use Android to make sustainable profit are key issues. Right now Android is used as a platform to provide Google’s services such as Google Map and Gmail. The essence of these services is still advertisement based business model. The real benefit of Android operating system is hidden. It’s an opportunity for Google. Google now has both software (Android) and hardware (Motorola). With these resources, Google has the opportunity to compete with and win Apple. In addition, Google TV, Cars, Glasses and Cables are all undergoing. Once these products find a profitable and practical business model, it will be very promising with all the innovation and first mover advantages.   

Threats

When it comes to threats, the first thing comes to most people’s mind will be competitions. Google faces even more fierce competition than any other companies since Google has too many fragments. In each field, Google faces different competitors, some of which are very strong such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook and AT&T. Google is the best in search engine, but not in portable devices and cables networks. The threats from these strong competitors of market share and profit won’t make Google as easy as its in search engine fields.

Patent problems also threat Google. Apple just won Samsung a big one. What’s next?

With the whole SWOT analysis above, my suggestion on Google’s strategy is to invest more on its R&D department to look for an exit for its Android operating system and focus on it. Keep make smart decisions on acquiring companies. Use its huge influence on Internet to attract more attention on what it is doing.