Navigating Spaces - Tools for Discover (Chapter 9 from Disrupt Together‪)‬

To successfully innovate, teams need to become more intentionally observant of their surroundings, and more empathetic to the needs of those they seek to serve. Now, master a new set of discovery tools for doing all this – and integrate them into a complete innovation framework that works.

Navigating Spaces - Tools for Discovery is part of Philadelphia University's breakthrough approach to innovation: one that links business, design and engineering, and delivers extraordinary results in both new and existing ventures. First, Dr. Stephen Spinelli and Heather McGowan introduce this "Disrupt Together" approach, explain its deep roots in design thinking, and show how it generates far more high-value ideas for innovation. Next, Dr. Natalie Nixon drills down to focus specifically on the discovery process.

Reflecting new research and interviews with 12 diverse innovation practitioners, Nixon introduces a deep inventory of tools and tactics you can use to probe for discovery, iteratively assess interactions, and create a complete "map of understanding." By creating this map, you can observe whether your innovations will achieve the outcomes you intend, shape better solutions, and unearth powerful new opportunities – both in incremental improvements and in entirely new systems.

Navigating Spaces - Tools for Discovery is one of 15 e-chapters addressing all facets of innovation, from design processes and team development to business models and value delivery. Each is crafted by a pioneering business innovator – and they all integrate into today's most coherent, realistic blueprint for innovation. For all entrepreneurs, executives, managers, strategists, and students who want to drive more value from innovation.

Natalie Nixon, Ph.D., is a hybrid thinker, synthesizing creative and analytical approaches to arrive at innovative opportunities. A design-thinking researcher, she has 15+ years of experience as an educator, and has worked in the fashion industry as an entrepreneurial hat designer and in sourcing for The Limited Brands in Sri Lanka and Portugal. Her consulting interests are in business design and in extending fashion strategies to other industries. She earned her BA (cum laude) from Vassar College, Anthropology and Africana Studies; M.S. from Philadelphia University, Global Textile Marketing; and Ph.D. from the University of Westminster, London, Design Management.