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Purpose, Pillars, Principles: the DNA of value

The in-between space of the founder's vision and the operational reality of a fast-growing collective.

Role
Head of Design
Client
The Innovation Loop (TIL)
Deliverables
Purpose, three pillars and design principles validated by the leadership team, brand book finalised by a writer, B2G storytelling and partner presentations
Period
2023
Context
Moving into scale-up, from 10 to 25 people, with the team set to double within a year
The foundation: three overlapping circles, what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and at the centre the reason for being.

The intent

In 2023, The Innovation Loop had grown from 10 to 25 people and was about to double within a year. Viewpoints and narratives were multiplying, and value was fragmenting: each expert presented innovation in their own way.

The work started from two observations. First: the innovation specialists all thought they knew the users. They had to move from “I have certainties” to “I have beliefs”, that is, hypotheses that can be checked. Second: the need to create a user research backlog.

My mission in this in-between space, between strategy and operations, was to recover the founder’s vision and make it shareable, so that every colleague would carry the same narrative and the product would respect it.

The mechanics

The challenges

  1. Aligning the leadership: making decision-makers ambassadors of shared documentation rather than of isolated convictions.
  2. Simplifying: producing short texts that can sink in with every colleague.
  3. External validation: testing the strength of the story directly with clients and partners.

The plan

The work was structured in sprints (sprint mastering):

  • Interviewing the founder: based on Ikigai (connecting our souls with our roles), to draw out the original purpose.
  • Workshops with the leadership: moving from purpose to three strategic pillars, built together.
  • The principles: proposed to the leadership team and carried jointly by the Product Manager and me.
  • Storytelling: a coherent story for presentations to clients and B2G partners.

The workshops clearly brought out the convergences and divergences within the leadership, with a strong desire to do user research.

The workshop board: principles, pillars and purpose ("Making innovation an effective science"), then the pyramid that links them.

Evidence and deliverables

The three pillars, which say what TIL brings:

  • Innovation potential: making the most of scientific, technological, business and societal data.
  • Innovation readiness: assessing an innovation’s maturity and reach across its whole life cycle, from idea to market.
  • Innovation impact: spotting transformative innovations early and speeding up their route to market, in the service of transitions.

Some of the principles, which say how:

  • Collective intelligence: collective intelligence in the service of each person’s creativity; tools create links between people, ideas and data.
  • Trust & reliability: trust comes from understanding. Innovators control their data and understand how decision-support tools work (the explainability principle).
  • Augmented experience: humans remain at the centre of the creative process; the machine, however intelligent, remains in their service.
  • Serendipity: AI is not only for finding what you are looking for, it also opens worlds of knowledge you did not suspect.

The impact

This compass became the basis of all TIL’s presentations, which were then adapted for each prospect, from business angels to contacts at the European Commission. It imposed alignment where each expert had been doing roughly what they thought innovation should be.

Internally, it replaced faire faire (getting others to execute) with faire penser (getting them to think): every designer and every developer had a shared reference point to guide their everyday choices.