Nine Windows

Once you ve defined your opportunity, you can scope and focus your innovation projects. The Heuristic Redefinition technique will help you do this by identifying all the elements of your current solution and how they relate to one another. The Nine Windows technique will do this as well, adding the dimensions of time and scale to your innovation problem. Then Job Scoping is a simple but powerful technique for either narrowing or broadening your project s focus. 

Combine this technique with Functional Analysis (Technique 13) or Nine Windows (Technique 6) to bring as much system- and subsystemdefining horsepower as you can. 

The core of Nine Windows is a simple grid consisting of nine boxes, or windows. Filling in the boxes provides eight additional perspectives on the problem you ve identified and helps you decide how and at what level to apply innovation. As such, you should leverage Nine Windows early in your project to better scope the innovation opportunity. 

Scenario To illustrate Nine Windows, let s say we want to grow Pitaya, a plant that produces the unusual-looking, but tasty and highly nutritious dragon fruit (Exhibit 6.1). Pitaya grows best in tropical, semi-dry environments, but we want to farm it in Colorado. So, our goal is to determine a way to cultivate the Pitaya plant in a colder climate. 

You can use words or images, or a combination of both, in the Nine Windows. 

Nine Windows is also known as system operator because it enables you to see how a system operates at both the macro (super-system) and micro (subsystem) levels. 

In addition to enabling you to better scope the innovation opportunity, Nine Windows can be used to generate solution ideas, to determine what resources are available at each level, or to review contradictions inherent in the particular dimensions that could affect the system. 

After filling in the Nine Windows grid, reassess the innovation opportunity to determine if you should focus your efforts at the system, subsystem or super-system level, and in which temporal dimension. 

Scoping an innovation project is important because the way you define the opportunity, or the job to be done (JTBD), can make the difference between a run-of-the-mill solution and a truly innovative approach. Although similar to Nine Windows (Technique 6), Job Scoping may take your project in a completely different direction, so it s worthwhile to apply both techniques early in the innovation project. 

On a white board or flip chart, write the JTBD (see Jobs to Be Done, Technique 1). In our example, we are tasked with the rather broad job of improving the company s image. We could use Job Scoping (Technique 7) or Nine Windows (Technique 6) to better define this job, but since we have a few general ideas for meeting this JTBD, let s see where Concept Tree takes us. 

Exhibit 5.2 Problem Statement Prioritization Matrix. Exhibit 6.2 Nine Windows Grid. 

The assay is conducted on 10 randomly pulled tablets. Nine out of the ten assay results must be within 85-115% of the mean, and none may be outside the 75-125% range. (See Section (905) of the USP. ) The mean content must be within the window given shortly. 

In the [Os (p-2,3-dpp)Ru (p-2,3-dpp)Ru(bpy)2l2 3]20 dendrimer 23 (Fig. 6.16 ), 1 63 which is made of an Os(II)-based core and nine Ru(II)-based units, a one-electron process at + 1.35 V and a six-electron process at + 1.55 V (versus SCE) are observed. Indeed, the Os(II) ion is expected to be oxidized at less positive potentials than the nine Ru(II) ions. Furthermore, because of the different electron donor properties of the ligands, the six peripheral Ru(II) ions are expected to be oxidized at less positive potentials than the three intermediate Ru(II) ions. Since the core and the peripheral units are not directly connected, they are not expected to affect one another. Therefore, a 1 6 pattern is observed for the electrons exchanged on oxidation. Oxidation of the three intermediate Ru(II) ions is further shifted toward more positive potentials and cannot be observed in the potential window accessible in MeCN solution. 

In the vicinity of Pittsburgh, in the Western States, ore nine manufactories of flint-glass, and ten of window-glass, and in the river towns are fifteen window-glass factories,... 

Figure 5.20 Response surface ( two-dimensional window diagram ) for the separation of a mixture of nine acidic solutes by RPLC. Variables are pH and the concentration of an ion interaction reagent (NOA = n-octylamine). The vertical axis represents the lowest value of a observed for any combination of two solutes in the sample (ffmin). Figure taken from ref. [559J. Reprinted with permission.

Jacobs recounts a revealing incident that occurred on her mixed-use street in Manhattan when an older man seemed to be trying to cajole an eight- or nine-year-old girl to go with him. As Jacobs watched this from her second-floor window, wondering if she should intervene, the butcher s wife appeared on the sidewalk, as did the owner of the deli, two patrons of a bar, a fruit vendor, and a laundryman, and several other people watched openly from their tenement windows, ready to frustrate a possible abduction. No peace officer" appeared or was necessary. ... 

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