This summer, HSBC’s C-Suite embarked on Ideation Voyage, a 13-week program to expand the horizons of innovation learning.
Participating leaders included:
- Marina Tong: Chief Operating Officer - China
- James Floyd: Managing Director, Global Head of Wholesale Operations & Regional Head of Operations Asia Pacific
- Peter Mcintyre: Managing Director, HSBC UK
- Olfert de Wit: Chief Operating Officer, HSBC Continental Europe
- Terecina Kwong: Chief Operating Officer - Europe
- Katie Danby: Chief Operating Officer, RBWM WPB
The Challenge
The program was designed with the end goal solving the following challenge:
Build a startup or product that kills HSBC
A single product or startup would never “kill HSBC” but the challenge was designed to be provocative and open-ended, allowing leaders to take an outsider’s approach to look at HSBC and freely ideate and explore ways to compete with the bank.
In understanding the challenge statement, leaders were tasked with analyzing the industry by defining its strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, they were encouraged to look at HSBC’s performance from an outside perspective, revealing new insights into how others view their own organization.
Following the initial stages of problem definition and ideation, leaders would proceed to validate their idea through real customer feedback and build out a working prototype.
Resources
To reduce friction for the leaders to innovate, the program provided the following:
Team of Two
Leaders were paired with one dedicated developer and designer to support them in developing the product idea, designing the solution, and building the prototype. The leader would play the role of the Product Owner and Product Manager, while the developer and designer helped brought the product idea to life.
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
We recruited 8 SMEs (e.g., product strategy, data science, open banking, and machine learning) to provide technical and strategic insights to the teams.
Junior Mentors
We recruited junior mentors, which consisted of young, talented, and technical HSBC employees, to offer leaders a fresh perspective on product design.
Programming
The Ideation Voyage program consisted of 6 stages, including 5 interactive workshops and concluding with a live demo day.
1. Ideating
Workshop 1 introduced leaders to different ideation frameworks, providing a tried-and-tested structure for idea generation. We explored startup case studies, providing insights into how various successful startups were taken from idea to reality and the founder mindsets that helped build winning product ideas.
1.1 Startup Fireside Chat
A week after the first workshop, we hosted a fireside chat with four founders to gain insider knowledge into the unique mindset of highly ambitious and driven founders. See details below.
2. Exploring
In Workshop 2, we explored additional ideation methodologies to build on the participants’ innovation toolkits. At this stage, leaders engaged in exercises exploring investigation opportunities, providing insights into the industry landscape, and potential areas for innovation. At this stage, leaders were introduced to developers, and designers, who would work with them throughout the rest of the program to develop a product solution.
3. Defining
Workshop 3 focused on idea generation, with leaders completing a series of exercises, such as writing How-Might-We statements. Through rapid-fire, timed activities, the leaders amassed a collection of viable product ideas. The workshop concluded with a group concept discussion allowing participants to share their solutions and vote on their top ideas and concepts.
4. Designing
Workshop 4 consisted of storyboarding and prototyping exercises where leaders worked with their designer and developer to outline the product solution and prioritizing features. During this session, participants created sample user flows and received further guidelines and tips regarding creating an PoC and pitch for demo day.
5. Listening
During this phase, leaders learned essential user interview strategies and applied their new skills in conducting 1-on-1 user interviews to get feedback on their products. Leaders participated in product demos with HSBC mentors and SMEs, gaining additional perspectives to help iterate on and improve their products.
6. Pitching (Demo Day)
The program concluded with an exciting demo day where leaders pitched their solutions to a panel of judges. Leaders presented their demo and answered questions from the judges. Afterward, judges evaluated each solution based on a rubric and a winner was selected. Solutions were then collected into one presentation as circulated within the organization.
Building a Founder Mindset
One of the key elements of the program was to place leaders in a founder mindset. At Onova, Helen and Victor’s experience as serial entrepreneurs and running a startup investment fund have allowed them to introduce authentic startup concepts and provide real insights on the latest industry trends. Additionally, their past experiences working in consulting servicing Fortune 500 companies allows them to empathize with the massive organizations and understand the limitation and intricacies.
Founders Fireside Chat
An intimate fireside chat with 4 successful startup founders, Louis Brion (Co-Founder/CEO @ Lakefront Finance), Henry Shi (Co-Founder/CTO @ Snapcommerce), Alex McCalla (Co-Founder/Ex-COO @ Air Matrix), and Charlie Feng (Co-Founder @ Clearco), provided HSBC leaders with valuable insights into how founders think.
Compared to corporations, the main differentiators in the mindset of startup founders were identified to be:
- High risk-tolerance
- High propensity for action
- Future-focused (rather than looking into the past)
Founders answered leaders’ questions and provided honest advice reflecting on their unique journeys in building up their products. Leaders were able to reflect on the session to draw key takeaways on how to build a great PoC for Ideation Voyage.
Program Takeaways
Tangible Projects
The leaders worked on building out a real-life working prototype for their solutions resulting in four tangible innovation products presented during Innovation Voyage’s demo day. Many of the leaders actively networked internally in an attempt to take their ideas forward, which demonstrated their passion for solving a pain point and their commitment to their idea.
Key Learnings
When conducting survey with the leaders, they expressed that the Innovation Voyage provided a opportunity to gain hands-on experience with product development and build empathy with product development teams and customers. The program enabled leaders to step back from their day-to-day work and provided purpose to dedicating headspace to exploring emerging tech and trends, while adopting a faster-paced style towards innovating.
Reflections
The HSBC leaders each brought unique skills, perspectives, and passions to the Ideation Voyage. Throughout the program, participants gained the skills and confidence to build PoCs of products that can be deployed into the market and see success. It was a truly rewarding journey of empowering HSBC leaders to build creatively with no restrictions, resulting in passion projects that drive motivation, morale, and idea generation.
