Porsche Innovation
Porsche Digital was looking beyond the car for its next business. I built and led a workshop process that took enthusiast research into more than 20 concepts, then narrowed the field to three worth pursuing.
- Team
- — Cross-functional Porsche Digital product, research, design, and business team
- Industry
- — Automotive, Innovation, New Ventures
Tools & technologies
The Problem
Porsche needed a credible next business beyond selling cars.
The approach
How the work took shape
Give the team someone to design for
‘Car enthusiasts’ was too broad a starting point. We combined customer research with social, economic, and technology trends, defining four mindsets and five opportunity areas. Those distinctions gave each group a clearer sense of whose needs a concept might serve.
Make the ideas visible
I created the workshop exercises and working materials, taking teams from opportunity statements through sketches, critique, and revision. Putting the concepts on the wall made them easier to compare and improve. The process produced more than 20 ideas.
Build a case for the next step
We examined the ideas against customer value, competitors, market size, and Porsche's strengths. I helped bring that evidence into the business cases. Three concepts moved forward for deeper validation and investment consideration.
The hard parts
The constraint
A room full of ideas could drift away from what enthusiasts actually needed.
The decision
I anchored the exercises in the customer mindsets, opportunity areas, and trend research.
The constraint
Decision-makers needed a reason to invest before a product existed.
The decision
We paired concepts with market sizing, competitive analysis, and a path to customer validation.
Research to Concepts
Concept Critique
Making the concepts visible let teams compare ideas, discuss them, and revise them together.
Research Synthesis
The research board kept customer mindsets and opportunity areas in view throughout the workshop.
Rapid Concepting
Working prompts gave individual sketches a common structure for the group to discuss.
The outcome
What changed
The result
- ✓Defined four customer mindsets and five opportunity areas.
- ✓Created more than 20 concepts through the workshop process.
- ✓Advanced three concepts for deeper validation and investment consideration.
Looking back
The useful work started before the workshop. Clear research and decision criteria gave the room something to build on and something to judge against.
The business case needed to explain both the customer need and why Porsche had a reason to address it.
Where I contributed
Product
- Helped set the opportunity frame and build the evidence for the three shortlisted concepts.
Design
- Created and led the workshop, from research synthesis through concept critique.
Engineering
- Brought feasibility and development risk into concept evaluation and validation planning.
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