Books

‘An indispensable toolkit for shifting your innovation practice into high gear.’

Ash Maurya, author and creator of Lean Canvas

Innovator’s Playbook

Innovation drives growth in organisations and entire economies. Yet innovation is hard, risky and rarely successful. Most innovations and startups fail because of a lack of focus on the front end of the innovation process where customer needs are researched, insights are distilled, solutions are ideated, prototyped and tested and business models are shaped. But innovation doesn’t have to be this way.

With Innovator’s Playbook, author and leading Design Thinking expert Nathan Baird shares his 20 years of hands-on experience, tools and methods for developing a winning customer-centric approach to innovation.

Innovator’s Playbook helps entrepreneurs, corporate teams, startups and leaders across all levels to use design-led methodologies for start-to-finish innovation success.

‘Innovator’s Playbook is amazing, so ambitious in its scope, and very usable. Nathan does a thorough and engaging job of demystifying design and design methods and, using his own experience, showing how so many tools of innovation can work together to solve problems and make a positive impact.’
Perry Klebahn, Adjunct Professor, Stanford University (d.school)

‘Punchy, clear, fizzing with practical advice. Nathan takes innovators by the hand and leads them step by step through the whole process. A must for all leaders and facilitators of innovation.’
Chris Baréz-Brown, author of How to Have Kick-Ass Ideas and Free! Love Your Work Love Your Life, and founder of Upping Your Elvis

‘It’s only appropriate that Nathan Baird has written the playbook on innovation. Nathan has helped dozens of companies of all sizes solve customer problems by creating new and innovative solutions which stand the test of time by being desirable, feasible and viable. Innovator’s Playbook is an essential guide for anyone wanting to succeed in an increasingly crowded market of new ideas.’
Albert Naffah, General Manager Payments Development & Strategy, Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Australia & New Zealand Orders

RRP A$34.95. Special offer A$29.95 (including postage). Autographed on request.

A$29.95

Rest of World Orders

Buying a set for the team?

From ten to a hundred, if you’re interested in a discounted set for your team, get in touch.

Complimentary Templates

This selection of Methodry templates will stretch and add rigour to your thinking and are free to download. They are designed by practitioners and proven in the field, on real projects.

Ideate

Inspiration Framework – Immersing ourselves in different environments or exploring other industries can provide us with lots of fresh stimulus, as well as jolting our attention out of its customary grooves. Both help us generate fresh new ideas. The Inspiration Framework gives you the structure to make this repeatable.

Download Inspiration Framework Template

Idea Canvas – The Idea Canvas provokes you to take a big picture view of your ideas. It also helps you flesh out your ideas – adding rigour and rich detail to key elements. Finally, it serves as a brief, and ongoing reference point, into prototyping, test, learn and build.

Download Idea Canvas Template

Opportunity Canvas – The Opportunity Canvas helps you turn market change into opportunity by pivoting your product or service to meet new customer needs.

Download Opportunity Canvas Template

Disruption Canvas – The Disruption Canvas helps you take a current or new idea and make it more revolutionary and defensible by looking at how you could innovate right across your value chain.

Download Disruption Canvas Template

Experiment

Risk Matrix – The Risk Matrix helps you identify which of the assumptions in your solution and business model pose the greatest risk and should therefore be tested and validated first.

Download Risk Matrix Template

Experiment Brief – The Experiment Brief helps teams plan experiments for testing their stated hypotheses (riskiest assumptions). The key is to identify the most efficient way to test the riskiest assumptions and gain validated learning.

Download Experiment Brief Template

Storyboard Sketch – A great way to understand whether your idea is as good in real life as it is on paper is to storyboard it. Storyboarding often works well when an idea is too difficult or conceptual for a physical prototype. Storyboards are great for capturing the details of a process, service or experience.

Download Storyboard Sketch Template

Test Feedback Map – Use the Test Feedback Map to note down your learning from testing. It helps you be more rigorous and structured about learning from your tests.