Innovate, shaped.
In context: Stage 03 · Innovate
The stage where Discover’s evidence stops being notes and becomes shaped, tested directions you can take forward.
Innovate turns what you learned in Discover into real directions. Map the impact, cluster the findings, sharpen the audience, weigh candidate technologies and materials, size the market, then test early reactions. The output is a shortlist of directions backed by evidence, ready for Evaluate.
What the Innovate stage is
This is where the research starts to point somewhere. Discover gave you evidence about the problem and the people who have it. Innovate takes that evidence and turns it into shaped directions: who exactly the product is for, what it needs to do, which technologies and materials could deliver it, and whether the opportunity is big enough to be worth the work. The job is to widen the field of credible directions before you narrow it, so the choice you carry into Evaluate is made on findings rather than instinct.
For the £149 proofing box, this is the stage where Dan and Anna Hartley’s frustration became something we could actually build toward. I asked them to walk me through every loaf that had failed at home in Stockport, then we worked with the Sourdough School to separate the directions worth testing from the ones that just sounded good. No app, deliberately. We mapped the impact, clustered the findings, and shortlisted three directions to carry into Evaluate.
What’s in this stage
Seven activities take the Innovate stage from raw findings to shaped, tested directions. Work them roughly in order.
How it fits the bigger picture
Innovate is Stage 03 of the ten. It builds directly on the evidence gathered in Stage 02 Discover, and it feeds Stage 04 Evaluate, where the shortlisted directions are scored and one is chosen. Shape the directions well here, on real findings, and Evaluate has something solid to weigh; skip the discipline and Evaluate ends up choosing between guesses.
What it can do
It turns scattered research into a shortlist of credible, shaped directions, each tied back to a real finding and tested for early reaction. Done well, it ends with two or three directions worth evaluating and a clear record of why the rest were set aside.
What it can’t do
It can’t pick the winner; that decision belongs to Stage 04 Evaluate. And it can’t invent evidence. If Discover was thin or rushed, the directions shaped here will rest on the same weak ground.
See the full 10-stage process →
Try it yourself
Cluster your research into themes, then write three distinct directions the evidence points toward, not variations on one. Now name the single direction you would prototype first and the one reason you would back it over the other two. Then start with the first activity below to work them properly.
Or run the guided version. The Free Sprint covers the early stages; deeper innovation tools sit in the paid ladder. Start the Free Sprint →
— Start here → Impact mapping