What is this about?
This exploration initiative brought to you by Khoj Lab is to present perspectives, identify challenges, and visualize future scenarios in the world of innovation + business + people + design + organization.
What does the ‘X’ stand for?
‘Khoj’ is the Hindi term for discovery, search, find
As a group of researchers, design strategists, visual communicators and innovation catalysts, our quest is always about ‘finding x’. What is the X factor or variable required for us to improve or help us grow from where we are?
We thrive in the unknown, ambiguous, uncertain, fuzzy end on the spectrum of ‘creating new value’. That’s where we constantly work our hands and minds to find pieces of information that contribute to the greater good of humankind.
How we started with KhojX
khoj for innovation
Exploratory Research
2018 - Uncover barriers to Innovation.
2024 - Understand the role of Product Management in creating future solutions.
We started our first research by asking organizational leaders, “What does Innovation mean to them, and what’s holding them back?” This research was to get a global perspective on what businesses understood innovation to be and what they were doing to achieve it and grow.
In March 2024, we launched new research about the role of Product Management in creating future solutions. Follow us on LinkedIn for updates, or sign up for our newsletter here.
Through our research findings, we aim to create new value for our clients, stakeholders, business leaders, and educational institutes that are grooming the future young leaders of our global society.
How this works
1
STRATEGIC CONVERSATIONS
We interview experts and industry professionals in 60-minute face-to-face conversations. This is to understand their roles, responsibilities, work experiences, opinions about the past, current, and future scenarios, challenges (why and where), best practices, and ideas and solutions, too!
2
build a Narrative
We then create a short animation video to tell the story backed by research. After consolidating all the interview data, we cluster and look for patterns—behaviors, economics, business, and organizational structuring. Using a design-led approach, we can qualitatively examine the data and identify issues, gaps, and some good practices in the subject matter.
3
design actionable assets
We don’t just talk about the problems we see; we create design tools to help solve them! We develop physical assets and tools designed to empower an individual, an organization, or a business ecosystem. Depending on the severity of the problem and the number of people involved, having these assets in your back pocket becomes a superpower.
4
integrate with organizations
Most organizational leaders work around the problem and often don’t see it as a problem. This is because the problem doesn't present itself as a problem - rather as a culture, a vision, a process, or a mindset. We assist leaders in overcoming the hurdle of acceptance, help them visualize and identify the issues, teach them the tools, and empower them to find the right people to help them solve the issues as they appear. We do workshops and speaking engagements and even set up strategic research projects to hone in and rectify bottlenecks.
Articles by shilpi kumar ON
Innovation, Business and Organization
Innovation is a problem of flow, not a lack of ideas.
Combining lean startup and agile with a design-led approach reduces business risk.
Innovation is not ideation: it’s a process that enables ideas to flow towards impact
1. WE ENGAGE IN STRATEGIC CONVERSATIONS
To understand what the ‘x’ variable is…
2. WE BUILD EFFECTIVE NARRATIVES
Things we often hear from organizational leaders.
NARRATIVE #1
Myths of Innovation ~ And Detangling Them
NARRATIVE #2
Catalyze Innovation Flow
~ Five Human Qualities to Resolve Bottlenecks
3. We create actionable tools
Try our Frameworks with an online Demo.
The Five Mindsets Framework
Designed and developed to help your organization create conditions for innovation by resolving bottlenecks and empowering the workforce to be more effective in their approach.
Duration: 60-minute Online Demo,
Attendees per organization: 2-4 people
What is the outcome of using ‘The Five Mindsets Framework’?
Diagnose your organization’s strengths and weaknesses, and identify gaps in innovation implementation
Generate ideas toward actionable changes and initiatives to eliminate or encourage specific behaviors
Broaden areas for investment to improve innovation effectiveness in your organization on all critical aspects.
Eliminate bottlenecks that are slowing down the flow of good ideas
Identify catalysts in your organization beyond their defined job description
4. We integrate with organizations
Engagements designed for teams to align and strategize
Speaking Engagements
Combined with these talks, my team and I customize and curate activities and workshops that are most relevant to your team and organizational needs.
Workshops
We do online sessions (60-90 minutes) & an in-person ‘Day Workshop’ on the Five Mindsets Framework. We also create more tailored workshop experiences on other topics mentioned throughout our website, social channels and medium articles.
WANT to be a part of this initiative?
Be an instrument for
effective change
I want to join as a researcher, design strategist, or subject matter expert who is future-focused.
I want to set up an introductory session with the leadership at my company.
Topics that make you think
Leadership Interview Series: Before introducing digital upgrades, evaluate its impact on the users and business model.
Rodrigo Isasi is one of the few leaders that effortlessly balances caring for people and meeting business goals. He is now the CEO of Delosi S.A based in Lima, Peru in South America, a company that is taking a design-led approach to business growth.
Leadership Interview Series: Your ideas must have authentic intent.
Parameswaran Venkataraman is the Chief Design Officer at Fractal Analytics, India. His mandate is to build a global design team - working at the intersection of AI, Engineering, Behavioral Science & Design - and to infuse design-centric culture and methods across the organization.
Leadership Interview Series: What's the value of design in business?
Aparna Piramal Raje is an intellectually high businesswoman and a Design Evangelist. She took on the role of empowering business leaders by connecting the dots between design and other disciplines. To make them aware of the value created through design and help them see the world around them differently.
Leadership Interview Series: Here's an insight into 4 key lean philosophies that can help us improve our organizations by empowering people to do so.
Missy Jackson is passionate about continuous improvement and uses it in all aspects of her work. We spoke to her about the connection between Lean methods and Human-Centered
How can we make innovation a part of the company's culture?
Four in five CEOs say they want their employees to feel empowered to innovate without worrying about negative consequences. Yet innovation remains among the biggest challenges business leaders face globally. In this session, Shilpi presents Khoj Lab research and discusses the myths they unearthed—some of which you may even hold.
minimize risk in your innovation journey?
This is a discussion about using the lens of "Flow" -that starts from design thinking, to lean startup and on to agile product development.
Eliminate the seven wastes of innovation to create flow.
I argue that just as manufacturing went through a transformation in the 1990s, so must innovation today... By studying how lean manufacturing brought change to a new paradigm shift to scale, bringing efficiency, and creating a great workplace environment for employees, we can do the same for innovation.
Seven Myths that might be killing your innovation dream
We asked these leaders what they thought qualified as innovation; what their organizations were doing to support innovation; what actions were taken to scale up; what was slowing them down; and, of course, what they were doing to stay ahead of their competition. What we derived were various analogies and definitions of innovation.
Invited Presentation at NMIMS School of Design, Mumbai, India 2019
6 key Principles of Human-Centered Approach to Design
Presented to the undergraduate design students of NMIMS Mumbai, covered six basic things to remember when discussing Human-Centered Design.
Empathy, Context, Reframing, Future mindset, Mining user’s unarticulated needs, Storytelling, concepts, and prototypes
90 min Mini-Workshop Design hosted by SDN DC Chapter + Fannie Mae, on April 15, 2019
Combining Design, Lean Startup, and Agile approaches to reduce uncertainty
Companies are continually trying to re-invent themselves by adopting methods such as Design Thinking, Six Sigma, Lean Startup and Agile. All of these methods promise cost-effective, faster, and customer-centric ways to create the “new.” Through a short interactive activity Shilpi will show how the idea of flow can reduce bottlenecks and will lead the audience in a discussion about the shifting role of design/ers in an innovation-led enterprise.
Design Leadership Panel hosted by UX India 2019, Hyderabad on 11 Sept, 2019
Design Leadership Dialogue
Design leadership panel was designed and moderated by Shilpi Kumar at UX India 2019 in Hyderabad. The panel discussed how the meaning of Design Leadership varies based on your role in an organization. It can be understood at various levels:
For me (personally):
For my Team (Team level)
For my Line of Business (Product Level)
For my Organization (Company level)
For my Industry (Strategy level)
Detangle Seven Myths to Scale Innovation
Four in five CEOs want their employees to feel empowered to innovate without worrying about negative consequences. Although they desire to improve in-house innovation capabilities, innovation is still ranked as one of the biggest global challenges today (66%).
While on exploration, we asked business leaders worldwide what they thought qualified as innovation. We asked these leaders what their organizations were doing to support innovation; what slowed them down. It became apparent that innovation had different meanings to different communities, cultures, and mindsets. - What emerged from our conversations was an understanding of "WHAT IS NOT INNOVATION." This insight shaped our first narrative - 'The Myths Of Innovation ~ And Detangling Them.' In this talk, we will share this 6-minute video narrative that presents our research and a discussion on the topic, followed by a Q&A.
Innovation Case Study Presentations hosted by Industrial Design Center, IIT Bombay on August 18 2019
INNOVATION FLOW
“It’s important not just to have the right idea but also to synchronize it with all your stakeholders as it evolves. This cannot be accidental. It must be managed.”
Invited Presentation hosted my SDN Mid West 2018 in Minneapolis, on June 15, 2018
Innovation is a problem of FLOW, not lack of ideas
The key takeaway from the presentation is that innovation failure is not a result of lack of ideas nor is it a problem of lack of effort. It is problem of a lack of understanding by innovation leaders of how an idea flows through the organizational structure. In this talk Shilpi shares five broad insights to consider if you are responsible for understanding innovation flow at your organization:
Read Establishing Trust and Meaningful Connections with Shilpi Kumar
Invited Presentation hosted by Institute of Design, IIT Chicago and UX Strategy Meetup on July 2018
What’s causing your innovation bottleneck?
Innovation failure is not a result of a lack of ideas or effort, but a lack of understanding of how ideas flow in large systems. Today, every corporation has some form of innovation strategy, either outsourced or in-house. However, most innovation leaders find that lack of integration and connectedness of such projects often lead to unsuccessful outcomes. In this talk, Shilpi discussed broad insights and potential solutions to consider if you are a design leader in a large organization. Read more about flow disruptions…
Published Articles
The story behind Herman Miller’s Modes of Work
We took a magnifying glass to the act of a collaborative event as the worker experiences it to understand both how it begins and ends, and the unique needs of people across distinct stages of the process. We focused on: 1. The purpose—Why collaborate? 2. The activities—What are people doing? 3. The behaviors—How are they doing it?
How workplace design looks to Groupon, Gogo and Herman Miller
10 universal modes of work — including individual, group, spontaneous and planned — define the way collaboration happens in the workplace. Leaders should identify which modes of work prevail within their own companies, she said, because it helps them think “intentionally” to support them.
The Vital Link Between Improvisation and Innovation
Our research showed that the nature of these teams and their work is often improvisational. Their approach to work activities was similar to a jazz ensemble’s approach to playing music, with each member riffing and playing off the others. Members transitioned often and fluidly from working alone to working together.
Nurturing collaboration at work
The future office is about creating spaces that optimize performance by providing people with an environment that fosters collaboration, connections, and innovation where it happens intuitively.
Georgia Tech Study: Does Space Matter? Assessing the Undergraduate “Lived Experience” to Enhance Learning
parkland hospital: If I Were a Band-Aid, Where Would I Be? Researching the Use and Location of Supplies on Two Patient Units
Mentors & Advisors on KhojX
Anijo Mathew
Dean, Institute of Design (ID) at Illinois Tech
“I like how you're framing the project around future products because there is not enough data for when you will launch future products. Now, if you're going to launch a product tomorrow, you can benchmark it against products that exist today. However, if you launch a product in 10 years, you cannot benchmark it against existing products; you have to prototype it and develop new ways to solve it.”
Jim Long
Ex- Creative Director, Herman Miller
“Product Management is the practice of strategically driving the development market launch a continual support and improvement of a company's products. It encompasses the entire lifecycle, from ideation to development to go to market.”
Matt MAYFIELD
Associate Dean, Institute of Design (ID) at Illinois Tech
“I don't think there is a product manager role as much as there is a product manager need. And every company is trying to figure out, well, what does it mean for us?”
THOMAS MACTAVISH
Chief Design Officer at Entigenlogic
“I think this is a challenging area. You are addressing an area that needs more clarity because it's constantly evolving.”