const lensExamplesDict = {
    "1": [{ "ExampleId": 12, "Name": "How can we fix the education system?", "Text": "One of my clients from the United Kingdom asked this question: \"How can we fix the education system?\". Previous attempts to do this had failed because the problem was too abstract and had too many areas for improvement: teachers, teachers' pay, class size, technology, curriculum, nutrition, and much more. Progress with this problem was made when researchers asked \"What is the one factor that has the greatest impact on a child's learning?\". As it turns out, it has been scientifically proven that the answer is positive parental involvement. Solving for this problem-\"How can we create an environment of positive parental involvement?\"-led to a workable solution." }], "2": [{ "ExampleId": 6, "Name": "How can we improve the guest experience?", "Text": "A hotel chain initially worked on the challenge \"How can we improve the guest experience?\". This invited a lot of ideas, but none was considered to be of high value. They broke the business into the parts of the process, such as check-in, room service, housekeeping, and check-out. They decided that making a great first and last impression was critical for the satisfaction of the entire stay. Therefore, they decided to invest heavily in solving the challenge \"How can we improve the check-in/check-out experience?\"." }], "3": [{ "ExampleId": 19, "Name": "Be Careful What You Wish For", "Text": "A sporting goods manufacturer had a goal of selling $1 million of inventory during a large event. They were going to hit that target no matter what. They quickly sold $900,000 and made a huge profit. But they were committed to selling $1 million. Unfortunately, in order to sell that last $100,000, they gave away so many incentives to buyers that in the end they experienced lower overall profitability. A famous soap manufacturer owned 30 percent marketshare of deodorant soap. In a fractured industry like that, 30 percent seemed pretty good. Although the company might have been expected to shoot for a strategy that involved trying to increase that share gradually (by asking \"How can we grow our deodorant soap business beyond 30 percent?\"), that is not what they did. Instead, they asked themselves \"How can we reinvent ourselves to capture one twentieth of a large market instead of one third of a small market?\". In effect, they were asking \"How can we reduce our market share to 5 percent?\". Such a strategy might not require the company to sell even one more bar of soap. Instead, it could direct them toward getting a much smaller share of the much bigger toiletries market." }], "4": [{ "ExampleId": 7, "Name": "Do we need to do this?", "Text": "Instead of improving the activity, an automotive manufacturer completely eliminated the need for matching receipts and processing invoices from their vendors. Now, the manufacturer pays suppliers only for what it uses when it uses it, not for what it receives. No matching is required as they track only what goes on the car. When the vehicle leaves the plant, they know it has four tires, and that's when payment is issued to the vendor. An extreme example comes from the tobacco industry. Instead of asking, \"How can we sell more cigarettes when health concerns are reducing consumption?\", Philip Morris International (PMI) took a counterintuitive approach. They decided to solve the problem \"How can we exit the cigarette business altogether?\". Cigarettes account for 98 percent of their revenue, so that's a pretty substantial change. To move in this direction, they invested $4.5 billion in the development iQOS, a device that heats tobacco rather than burning it, significantly reducing the toxins released." }], "5": [{ "ExampleId": 10, "Name": "How can we attract more customers?", "Text": "If you were a restauranteur, for example, you might ask yourself \"How can we attract more customers?\". Hyponyms for customer include patron and regular. This could lead to the question \"How can we attract more regulars?\", which is about repeat business. Subscriber also is a hyponym of customer. Although it may seem unusual for a restaurant, an interesting question might be \"How can we attract more subscribers?\". Delivery services such as Blue Apron do this. Emerging restaurant subscription services such as MealPal allow customers to pay a flat fee for twelve meals a month at a variety of restaurants. This also can be helpful in your personal life. Instead of \"How can we find the best deal on lodging?\", you could ask \"How can we find the best deal on a hotel (or bed and breakfast or yurt)?\", which narrows your search parameters. Of course, if you were looking at travel, you could substitute the word transportation with words such as motorcycle, train, plane, or car. You could take it a step further and substitute the word car with coupe, sedan, SUV, or limousine. Refining the question by using a hyponym allows you to devise more specific solutions." }], "6": [{ "ExampleId": 2, "Name": "How can we make teeth whiter?", "Text": "Dental experts looking to creating a whitening toothpaste asked \"How can we make teeth whiter?\". This led to typical solutions of abrasives or bleaches. This statement was specific in that it assumed the solution would come from dental-care experts. They eventually reframed the question to \"Who else makes whites whiter?\", which led them to explore how laundry detergent creates the illusion of whiteness through bluing agents. The new challenge became \"How can we create a toothpaste that has a blue dye in it?\". The result was a toothpaste called \"Signal White Now,\" which instantly creates the illusion of white teeth.<br><br>Consider also the gas pipeline industry, which has struggled to solve the problem \"How can we find and seal cracks in pipelines?\". When they asked \"Who else solved a similar problem?\", they realized that sealing cracks is something that the cardiovascular system's coagulation mechanisms do all of the time. Armed with this knowledge, industry experts worked on the problem \"How can we create an inert coagulant ingredient that will seal small cracks?\"." }], "7": [{ "ExampleId": 21, "Name": "Vending Machine Repairs", "Text": "A major beverage company tracked the number of repair calls on its vending machines (an activity) because it was concerned about rising costs of maintaining equipment. While this revealed an interesting number, it didn't help much because it failed to show whether the company was attaining the outcome it really wanted: to increase the overall uptime of machines. By focusing on this measure instead, they were able to increase customer satisfaction, sales, and machine availability.<br><br>In another example, a company that brainstormed \"How can we more effectively use 360-degree feedback?\" (a solution) completely missed alternative methods for addressing its leadership development issue. If the company had asked \"How can we create powerful leaders?\", it would have found different, more suitable solutions.<br><br>Finally, during a homeowners association meeting, one of the leaders proposed installing speed bumps in the neighborhood. This was a solution (as it turned out, an unpopular one) for solving the problem \"How can we slow down drivers?\" Instead they increased security and created an awareness campaign that curbed the problem." }], "8": [{ "ExampleId": 4, "Name": "We don't have enough...", "Text": "A consumer goods company was strapped for resources. Every time a new idea was generated for improving their Information Technology (IT) systems, the typical response was, \"We don’t have enough resources to do the work.\" Making this statement limited their thinking and could have stopped all progress. However, when they asked \"How can we do it with fewer resources?\" or \"How can we do it more efficiently?\" they forced themselves to think harder about ways to get the work done. This ultimately led them to the questions \"How can we outsource the work?\" and \"How can we partner with someone who has the resources?\" Their ultimate solution was a creative partnering strategy that helped them get the work done quickly while reducing overall costs." }], "9": [{ "ExampleId": 22, "Name": "Greeting Card Stretch Goals", "Text": "At a large greeting-card company, senior executives set a stretch goal of getting new cards from concept to market in less than a year. In the past, cards had taken from eighteen to twenty-four months to move from concept to store shelves. Individual departments within the firm-designers, writers, artists, printers, shippers, and so on-believed this new stretch goal could not be met. Even so, the target became a rallying cry. In the end, the company managed to get its cards to market in only four months. The impossible goal had forced people to abandon their conventional approaches and to try something completely new.<br><br>One of the most well-known examples of setting stretch goals comes from President John F. Kennedy's challenge to the United States to \"put a man on the moon by the end of the decade,\" which sounded completely impossible to most people at the time. This stretch goal, proposed on May 25, 1961, was met on July 20, 1969, with the Apollo 11 mission." }], "10": [{ "ExampleId": 9, "Name": "How can I write a great book?", "Text": "Like many authors, I asked the question \"How can I write a great book?\". Although this initially was the goal, I replaced book with product-a hypernym-to broaden the issue. This one simple word shift led to the creation of digital and physical (nonbook) products that I previously had not considered.<br><br>In another example, a natural gas company facing increased competition due to deregulation tried to solve the problem \"How can we leverage our pipelines?\". Hypernyms for pipeline include conduit, passage, and way. This led the executives to realize that the rights-of-way used for their pipelines were a tremendous asset. They used these rights to lay fiber-optic cable and launched a new telecommunications company." }], "11": [{ "ExampleId": 20, "Name": "McDonalds Hamburgers", "Text": "Fast-food restaurants are a great example of postponing, predicting, and parallelism in action. Quite often, food is cooked in advance of receiving an actual order (that's why McDonald's has all those hamburgers sitting under the warming lights). In essence, these restaurants try to predict how many customers will want burgers for lunch on any given day. However, during slow times, they might postpone the assembly and make your meal only once it is ordered. When the order is received, they may have the french fries bagged in parallel with (i.e., at the same time as) someone making the hamburger.<br><br>Paint manufacturers use this lens to postpone certain activities. Instead of \"How can we predict which color paint people will buy?\", they now ask \"How can we mix the colors in the store when requested?\". This yields less stock on the shelves since they now delay the mixing process until once a customer has chosen the color.<br><br>Similarly, the once high-flying Italian fashion group Benetton used an approach like this. Rather than manufacturing large quantities of garments from predyed cloth, the company manufactured many items without color. As it became clear which colors were in highest demand, the items were dyed shortly before shipment. The problem of disposing of products in unpopular colors was greatly reduced.<br><br>Finally, consider the admissions process that a hospital accepting transferring patients used to verify availability of rooms before a patient was moved; it was a step that took considerable time and sometimes resulted in patients being sent to other hospitals. However, the hospital realized that it was nearly always able to find a vacant bed onsite, so it now immediately agrees to admit patients upon request, and finds and prepares a room while those patients are in transit to the hospital. This is a great example of both predicting and parallelism in action." }], "12": [{ "ExampleId": 18, "Name": "How can we get customers to scan their own items?", "Text": "Instead of asking \"How can we get cashiers to scan faster at checkout?\", supermarkets have worked on the problem \"How can we get customers to scan their own items?\". To do this, some stores have scanners on the shopping cart or apps on the phone that allow customers to scan their own items as they put them in the cart. This has been taken a step further with Amazon GO, where the scanning has been reassigned to technology, eliminating the manual scanning process altogether. Their \"Just Walk Out Technology\" automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual cart. When you're done shopping, you just leave the store.<br><br>Various marketplaces, such as Apple's App Store, have shifted the development process from one centralized company to thousands of smaller developers. The Coca-Cola Freestyle, a self-service drink machine, has reassigned soda dispensing from waitstaff to customers.<br><br>Consider also a large aerospace company that was looking for ways to provide quick delivery of part kits directly to aircraft. It realized that catering trucks make deliveries to every plane, so it teamed up with a large airline catering company to provide delivery service for its parts. The company found a partner not by looking for special expertise, but by looking at how other organizations were interacting with its customers." }], "13": [{ "ExampleId": 1, "Name": "Rent vs. Own", "Text": "In the past, the music and movie industries focused on ownership, selling LPs, CDs, MP3s, and DVDs. Today, subscription streaming services such as Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Unlimited, and Netflix provide access without ownership. You pay a monthly fee for all you can consume.<br><br>This approach can be applied to physical products, too. For example, Freedom Boat Club provides unlimited access to a number of boats for a flat annual fee. You get two reservation slots. As soon as you use one, you get another. This gives everyone equal access to the boats they want, and yet does not restrict how often you can take out a boat. Nor are users limited to one boat or one location; rather, they have many to choose from. The company maintains and cleans the boats. The only additional cost to the renter is fuel. The total cost per year is often less than the cost of boat slip dues.<br><br>The same approach can be used for IT hardware. In the past, you would own your own servers. Now you can effectively rent server space in the cloud with services such as Amazon Web Services. The added value is that you get to expand and contract usage based on need, rather than having unused servers sitting around." }], "14": [{ "ExampleId": 16, "Name": "How can we get former customers to reactivate?", "Text": "During a brainstorming session, a company was solving the problem \"How can we get former customers to reactivate?\". This implied that they wanted to bring back lost customers. But a more powerful and positive challenge they decided to work on was \"How can we keep our existing customers?\". Then they took it a step further and worked on the challenge \"How can we wow our existing customers?\". This last question had a more visceral and emotional response than the previous ones and was created simply by swapping the word \"keep\" with \"wow.\"<br><br>Instead of \"How can we improve morale?\", ask \"How can we get 100 percent employee engagement?\" or \"How can we get 5 out of 5 on employee satisfaction surveys?\". Instead of asking \"How can we increase sales?\", ask \"How can we create customer evangelists?\" or \"How can we make people smile when they think of our company?\" or \"How can we help people feel at home when in our stores?\"." }], "15": [{ "ExampleId": 23, "Name": "How can we consistently purchase the lowest initial cost items?", "Text": "A purchasing department initially measured its success in terms of how well it did at buying the lowest-cost items available (\"How can we consistently purchase the lowest initial cost items?\"). Over time, the department learned that low initial costs sometimes correlated with long lead times, less frequent deliveries, and large lot sizes-all of which contributed to increased inventory levels. The department modified its goal to track costs over the entire life cycle, shifting to \"How can we consistently purchase the lowest total cost items?\". Substituting \"initial\" with \"total\" resulted in a better end-to-end view of costs.<br><br>The NASA dirty laundry challenge from Chapter 2 is another great example of word substitution. By changing \"How can we get clothes clean?\" to \"How can we keep clothes clean?\", NASA yielded completely different solutions." }], "16": [{ "ExampleId": 8, "Name": "The Whisky Dilemma", "Text": "A restaurant known for its fine whiskeys had a dilemma. The ice used in the drinks was too expensive to produce. Whiskey connoisseurs know that round ice has the smallest surface area, melts the slowest, and is therefore preferred over cubes. Also, the ice needs to be the right size in relation to the glass to create the ultimate experience. The restaurant determined that the perfect ice size was 2.5 inches in diameter for its glasses. It could make 2-inch ice balls in house at no cost, but no one could find molds for making the larger size. As a result, the restaurant bought 2.5-inch ice cubes and manually shaved them down into spheres. The total cost was $30,000 a year. The original challenge was \"How can we make 2.5 inch spheres for less money?\" When someone asked a different question-\"How can we ensure the perfect ratio between the glass and the ice?\"-another solution became obvious. Instead of reducing the cost of making 2.5-inch ice spheres, the restaurant simply bought smaller glasses, flipping the size of the ice with the size of the glass. Now the 2-inch molds would work perfectly, cutting the cost of ice to practically nothing.<br><br>A major shopping mall originally focused on \"How can we use social media to drive foot traffic?\". They got their breakthrough idea when they flipped the question to \"How can we use foot traffic to drive our social media presence?\" The result was something they called a \"Twizzard,\" a snowstorm generated inside the mall that was triggered once a critical mass of people Tweeted from within the four walls of the shopping area." }], "17": [{ "ExampleId": 5, "Name": "How can we design a car with reduced road noise?", "Text": "When solving the problem \"How can we design a car with reduced road noise?\", the obvious solution was to add extra insulation. However, today's cars require greater fuel efficiency, and the extra weight of adding the insulation necessary for reducing noise can negatively impact mileage. These conflicting problems-\"How can we reduce road noise?\" and \"How can we improve fuel efficiency?\"-drove a different level of thinking. The solution in this case was to incorporate into the design the same kind of electronic noise cancellation technology that is installed in headphones in order to quiet the car. This added almost no extra weight yet effectively eliminated road noise." }], "18": [{ "ExampleId": 15, "Name": "Formula 1 Pit Crews", "Text": "A racecar team wanted to increase the speed at which the pit crew could change the tires, fuel the car, and perform minor maintenance. Previous attempts to get the team to work more quickly focused on telling the pit crew that they would be measured on their speed. Paradoxically, when the pit crew members were told they would be measured on their style (i.e., they were told to think \"smooth\") rather than speed, they worked more quickly. Interestingly, all the members of the pit crew felt they were working more slowly.<br><br>We see the same in many areas of business. Quite often, sales reps who are measured on customer satisfaction (a present moment activity) sell more than those who are focused solely on closing a deal (a future result).<br><br>In another example, falling down is one of the leading causes of death in older people. The elderly are aware of this risk and therefore are afraid of falling. What do they do to address their fear? They try especially hard not to fall. Ironically, trying not to fall makes them more likely to fall. By accident, an alternative solution was discovered. By teaching people to fall on purpose and then roll on the floor, they become more comfortable with the idea of falling. They realized that they could, indeed, fall without any serious repercussions. When they lost this fear, they stopped trying not to fall. The result? They stopped falling!" }], "19": [{ "ExampleId": 14, "Name": "ATM Success", "Text": "The ultimate success of the automated teller machine (ATM) is my favorite example of this. In 1977, after investing hundreds of millions of dollars in ATM technology research and development, Citibank decided to install these machines across all of New York City (NYC). At first, the ATM was quite unpopular and hurt the bank's reputation and bottom line. People didn't see the benefit of a banking experience without tellers. Fortunately for them, a natural disaster turned that negativity around.<br><br>January 1978 will always be remembered for a blizzard that dumped nearly two feet of snow in New York City. This brought the city to a halt. Because banks couldn't open, people got their money from supermarkets. But most of those quickly ran out of cash. This created a massive pain point. Where did people turn? To ATMs. It is estimated that during the storms, use of the machines increased by more than 20 percent. Soon after, Citibank started running TV ads showing people trudging through the snowdrifts in New York. That's when the company introduced their wildly popular slogan \"The Citi Never Sleeps.\" By 1981, Citibank's market share of New York deposits had doubled. This was largely attributed to the success of the ATM, which had been catapulted into popularity by the storm." }], "20": [{ "ExampleId": 3, "Name": "What if the rocketship were to fall apart after takeoff?", "Text": "America's flight to the moon was made possible through a terrible question: \"What if the rocketship were to fall apart after takeoff?\". Proposing the destruction of the rocketship sounds like a crazy idea. But this concept was a critical factor in the success of the Apollo missions: The rocket boosters containing the fuel fell off early during the trip to the moon, which allowed for the required lift and acceleration needed to exit the stratosphere.<br><br>Consider also a company whose manufacturing process is complex and potentially dangerous. The goal is to reduce accidents in the workplace. A good idea might be to add more safety inspectors. What would be a terrible idea? Firing all the safety inspectors. One company used this seemingly bad idea to develop a great one. Rather than having a few safety engineers scour the company for unsafe conditions, they transferred this responsibility to all of its employees, with rewards for both uncovering unsafe conditions and discovering new ways to conduct business more safely. This approach resulted in 35 to 50 percent improvements each year in the number and severity of accidents across the company." }], "21": [{ "ExampleId": 17, "Name": "Alcohol-Free Mouthwash", "Text": "A consumer goods company invested a large amount of time and money trying to develop an alcohol-free mouthwash that was as effective as products containing alcohol. They were told that this is what customers wanted. As it turns out, the problem-\"How can we create an alcohol-free mouthwash that is equally effective?\"-proved more difficult than they expected. Eventually the product developers went back to the marketing department and discovered that, in fact, customers did not care if the mouthwash had alcohol, they just didn't like the sting associated with alcohol-based mouthwashes. The new challenge-\"How can we create a mouthwash that doesn't sting?\"-proved to be much easier to solve.<br><br>An office supply company asked the question \"How can we more effectively sell our products to school administrators?\". Their efforts to find solutions were irrelevant. As it turns out, in this situation, teachers were the real buyers; administrators merely filled out the paperwork. In this case, they should have done their homework to understand the real buyer before looking to find a solution." }], "22": [{ "ExampleId": 11, "Name": "How to handle increased call volume?", "Text": "A mobile phone operator suddenly experienced a surge of calls into its call center. The company originally posed the question \"How can we more effectively handle the increased volume of customer calls?\". This led to a wide range of ideas, none of which proved to be effective. When they looked at the data for patterns, they discovered that there was a large increase in calls due to a few lines on the invoice that led to confusion and prompted additional calls. This led to the question \"How can we make the invoice more intuitive?\". When the company made changes to the bills, the number of calls instantly dropped. It wasn't a call center problem; it was a billing problem." }], "23": [{ "ExampleId": 24, "Name": "What business are we really in?", "Text": "Although Marriott has traditionally been a hotel company, they now consider themselves to be a travel company. Although they sound similar, they are not the same. In April 2019, they introduced Homes & Villas by Marriott International. This moves them beyond hotels to houses, castles, and other luxury properties. This is a direct shot at their relatively new competitor, Airbnb. Marriott also recognizes that their competition isn't necessarily the other hotel chains but includes anyone who can own the guest relationship including Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) such as Expedia and Google Travel. To proactively address this, Marriott penned a deal with Expedia in April 2019 that is designed to move the OTA from an enemy to a \"technology solutions provider.\"<br><br>This concept can be applied to any business. For example, gyms have traditionally looked at their business from the perspective of the physical structure of their facilities, when they could be viewed as being in the health business. This mindset opens up opportunities to offer other services that go beyond the member's time in the gym. It might also open up opportunities to partner with other health care providers. It also helps them view other non-gym health offerings as competitors, including equipment providers such as Peloton." }], "24": [{ "ExampleId": 25, "Name": "Life Insurance Claims", "Text": "A major life insurance company implicitly believed that they should \"process all claims equally and rigorously.\" As a result, every claim was being processed using the same time-consuming procedures, resulting in slow and expensive claims handling. Knowing the company needed to improve speed and cost, it investigated treating exceptions differently from all standard claims. The company asked the question \"How can we treat most claims quickly and only handle exceptions with the rigorous process?\". The result was a scaled and segmented claims process. For straightforward cases, a streamlined process was used. More robust versions were used for more complicated cases, while the full process was reserved for only the most difficult and time-consuming cases. What they found was that 60 percent of cases could be handled using the simplest process with the least expensive resources. The result? Processing costs were reduced by 40 percent while average processing time was greatly reduced and service levels improved.<br><br>This is similar to the approach used by medical professionals. They use different processes to handle different kinds of cases: outpatient care for minor conditions such as flu; hospitalization for major medical problems; and emergency care for urgent, life-threatening situations." }], "25": [{ "ExampleId": 13, "Name": "Whirlpool Dryers", "Text": "Whirlpool developed pedestals and storage units for its Duet front-loading washers and dryers after observing a woman who had placed her dryer upon cinderblocks to make it easier to load and unload without having to bend over. Although the primary benefit of pedestals is to raise the appliances about a foot off the floor, making it easier to load and unload, the additional weight also helps anchor the machine, minimizing \"washer walk.\" In addition, the drawers that slide out from the pedestals provide an out-of-the-way space to store bottles of laundry detergent, bleach, and fabric softener. Had Whirlpool not observed this customer in action, the company might never have uncovered this hidden need." }]
};