Product Innovation

All4 is a video-on-demand platform of UK broadcaster Channel 4, providing access to a wide range of programming via web, mobile, and other devices.

Channel 4 recognised that in the extraordinarily competitive video streaming business they would need to continually invest in bringing innovative new capabilities to their platform.

The agency I was working for had pitched Channel 4 on a strategy where their product staff would spend 5-10% of their time working on developing and testing new concepts. The outcome of this would be to have a pipeline of promising solutions that could be fed into their product development cycle.

It was my responsibility to guide staff at Channel 4 through a process for innovation. To own the planning, execution of a series of innovation sprints: Week long periods of collaborative work where I would guide participants through the process of defining a challenge, picking a target, creating novel solutions, building prototypes, and testing assumptions with viewers.

• Developed and continually refined the process and materials for innovation sprints for teams of 6-8 participants.
• Worked with a rotating roster of team leads at Channel 4 to plan, prepare, and execute sprints on a 6 week cadence
• Owned the creation of concept prototypes that would be tested with viewers.
• Planned and ran testing sessions with viewers and processed the data gathered.
• Delivered reports detailing the outputs and outcomes of the sprints. Providing recommendations regarding which concepts should be developed further in the next phase of their product development cycle.