Practice
Innovation
Innovation does not happen by chance. We help you build innovation mechanisms that make innovation repeatable, distributed across your organization, and open to inspection, and we train your people to run them without us.
What we do in this practice
Innovation strategy and direction
We help you decide where innovation should happen in your organization, what it is for, and how it connects to the business challenge you are working on.
Mechanism design
Design and implement the mechanisms that convert intent into results: the practices, tools, roles, mental models and inspection routines that make innovation repeatable.
How a mechanism is built →Working Backwards
Amazon's customer-first innovation mechanism, facilitated for your teams and taught to your facilitators.
How we run it →Ideation and problem solving
We apply Systematic Inventive Thinking, TRIZ and Lateral Thinking to problems your teams are working on.
Working Backwards and SIT compared →Innovation with AI
We use AI to speed up the innovation process itself, through synthetic research, faster prototyping and wider option generation. We also identify the decisions where human judgment has to stay in control.
The AI practice →Who this is for
We work with dedicated innovation teams, with product organizations, and with any function that has an innovation mandate and no method to deliver it.
Methods we draw on
We match the method to the situation. We listen first, share our frameworks and recommendations, and help you adapt them to your culture, ambitions and processes.
- Working Backwards: Amazon’s mechanism for deciding what to build: start from the customer, write the press release and FAQ before any code, and find out early whether the idea is worth building.
- Systematic Inventive Thinking: Innovate inside the box: five patterns that generate ideas from what you already have.
- TRIZ problem solving: A structured method for resolving the contradictions in hard technical and business problems.
- Lateral Thinking: Deliberate techniques for finding new ideas when the obvious line of thought has stopped producing them.
- Mechanism design: We build the practice itself: its inputs, outputs, roles, tools, adoption and inspection.
Selected work
- HID Global
A product workshop that became an ongoing AI program
- Friends
A full Working Backwards program, from framing to PRFAQ readout
- AT&T
Amazon's innovation method for a product management guild
- Payoneer
An activation workshop that started an outcomes-based shift
From these engagements
Amir has significantly helped us structure and focus our development initiatives through the Working Backwards methodology. He quickly understood our organization’s values and priorities, demonstrated great attentiveness, and expertly guided the process forward.
Maja FrankelSecretary General, FriendsAmir has a unique ability to create safe, creative spaces where ideas can flourish. He is an exceptional facilitator — actively listening, summarizing, and skillfully navigating complex discussions.
Magnus LoftssonLicensed Psychologist & Research Manager, FriendsCommon questions
- What is an innovation mechanism?
- An innovation mechanism is a repeatable process an organization runs to make innovation systematic. It sets how ideas are surfaced, selected, developed, and scaled. Think Big Leaders helps you design and implement mechanisms that fit your culture and maturity level.
- Which innovation methods does Think Big Leaders use?
- Think Big Leaders draws on Amazon’s Working Backwards, Systematic Inventive Thinking, TRIZ problem solving, and Lateral Thinking, and matches the method to the situation. We also design the mechanisms for running these methods and adapt them to your culture and processes.
The methods in full: innovation mechanisms · the Working Backwards questions · the PRFAQ · Working Backwards and SIT together