Problems constrain thinking. When defined too early, they limit potential solutions. Innovators reframe problems to unlock creativity. Don't take the problem at face value. Question assumptions. Challenge existing constraints. Broaden the problem statement to reveal unseen opportunities. The right question is more important than the right answer.Frame problems as opportunities to explore many possible solutions.

The Problem with Problems

Assumptions hold creativity hostage. They anchor thinking to existing paradigms and assumed constraints. Release assumptions to unlock fresh perspectives. Be brutally honest about current beliefs. Ask "What if?" <ul><li>Identify orthodoxies. </li><li>Challenge sacred cows. </li><li>Question everything. </li></ul>Assumptions hide in plain sight. Expose them through reversal - assume the opposite. Reversing assumptions shakes loose hidden insights.

Release Your Assumptions

Speed trumps size. Get to market quickly with a basic offering. Launch small experiments to validate and improve. Think minimum viable product, not maximum product. Test elements individually vs. bundled. Pursue incremental innovation once core product performs.

Launch Fast and Small


Structure impacts culture. To thrive, innovation needs its own space. Protect creative teams from rigid corporate systems.  Enable innovation through independent units or teams with different processes. Maintain connections to tap company assets. Celebrate failure as learning. Structure follows strategy - organize accordingly.

Organize for Innovation: Autonomy feeds Experimentation

<ul><li>The future favors the bold. </li><li>Make future-focused innovation part of strategy and culture. Develop foresight. </li><li>Explore trends and scenarios. </li><li>Form a predictions database to guide innovation. </li><li>Consider diverse global perspectives. </li><li>Monitor the periphery for weak signals. </li><li>Craft 10-year visions. </li><li>Make futures tangible with models and experiential scenarios. Prepare for change. </li><li>Shape the future or be shaped.</li></ul>

Create a Future Focus 


Prototyping is more important than brainstorming. Instead of only thinking of ideas, we must make ideas tangible as early as possible in order to learn faster.

Prototyping accelerates learning. Don't wait for perfection. Move quickly from idea to prototype. <ul><li>Test concepts early with customers. </li><li>Prototypes expose flaws and opportunities. </li><li>They help fail fast and cheaply. </li><li>Making an idea tangible reveals insights theory misses</li></ul>

Prototype to Learn Fast

Customers are innovation allies, not passive recipients. Include them early and often. Collaboration unlocks insights. Customer immersion builds empathy and sparks ideas. <ul><li>Ask for feedback on prototypes. </li><li>Observe behavior.</li><li>Co-create with lead users who live in the future. </li><li>Leverage user communities to accelerate innovation.</li></ul>

Customers Speak Through Actions, Not Words

Seek stimulus from analogous worlds. Adjacent spaces reveal needs and ideas. Connecting disparate domains cross-pollinates creativity.   Zoom out and zoom in perspectives. Import ideas from other industries and contexts. Explore adjacencies beyond physical products into services, experiences and business models.

In "Better and Faster", Jeremy Gutsche shares his insights and strategies for thriving in today's fast-paced and constantly changing world. Drawing on his experiences as a successful entrepreneur, business consultant, and founder of the innovation hub TrendHunter.com, Gutsche offers practical tools and frameworks for innovation, change management, adaptation, and disruption strategy.

Out-innovate, outsmart and outmaneuver your competitors with tactics from the CEO of TrendHunter.com, Jeremy Gutsche. In our world of chaos and change, what are you overlooking? If you knew the answer, you’d be a better innovator, better manager, and better investor. This book will make you better by teaching you how to overcome neurological traps that block successful people, like you, from realizing your full potential. Then, it will make you faster by teaching you 6 patterns of opportunity: Convergence, Divergence, Cyclicality, Redirection, Reduction and Acceleration. Each pattern you’ll learn is a repeatable shortcut that has created fortunes for ex-criminals, reclusive billionaires, disruptive CEOs and ordinary people who unexpectedly made it big.  In an unparalleled study of 250,000 ideas, Jeremy and his TrendHunter.com team have leveraged their 100,000,000 person audience to study what actually causes opportunity: data-driven research that was never before possible. The result is a series of frameworks battle-tested with several hundred brands, and top executives at some of the most successful companies in the world who rely on Jeremy to accelerate their hunt for ideas. Better and Faster will help you learn to see patterns and clues wherever you look that will put you on the smarter, easier path to finding those breakthrough ideas, faster.