scamper-innovation-prompter

Step 1: Connect to FutureProof

FutureProof:connect(skill="scamper-innovation-prompter")

Use the returned context, experiments, instructions, and recent_sessions to personalise this session — particularly any prior SCAMPER analyses, strategic priorities, competitive landscape intelligence, and ICA definitions that should inform ideation filters.

Step 2: Get Input

Ask the user:

• Subject of innovation: What is the specific product, service, or process to apply SCAMPER against? Request a concise description including its current value proposition, ICA, and revenue significance.
• Strategic constraints: Are there boundaries — regulatory, budgetary, brand, or timeline — that should filter out impractical ideas early?
• Innovation intent: What is the desired outcome? (e.g., margin expansion, competitive differentiation, new market entry, operational efficiency, ICA retention uplift)
• Priority SCAMPER lenses (optional): Does the user want all seven prompts applied equally, or should specific lenses receive deeper treatment? (Useful when time-boxed or when prior sessions have already explored certain angles.)
• Competitive reference points (optional): Any competitors or adjacent-industry players whose moves should inform or constrain the analysis?

If FutureProof context contains existing ICA profiles, strategic plans, or prior session findings, surface them for confirmation before proceeding.

Step 3: Establish the Baseline

Before applying SCAMPER, construct a Current-State Architecture of the subject:

1. Value chain decomposition — break the product, service, or process into its constituent components (inputs, transformation steps, delivery mechanism, post-delivery touchpoints)
2. ICA alignment audit — map which components directly serve the ICA's core jobs-to-be-done and which are legacy, operational, or internally facing
3. Revenue and cost gravity — identify which components carry the highest revenue contribution or cost burden
4. Assumption inventory — list the implicit assumptions embedded in the current design (e.g., "customers prefer annual contracts," "this feature requires human review")

This baseline ensures SCAMPER prompts interrogate the actual structure rather than a surface-level abstraction.

Step 4: Apply the Seven SCAMPER Lenses

Work through each lens systematically. For every lens, generate 2–4 concrete innovation hypotheses grounded in the baseline from Step 3. Each hypothesis must specify the component(s) it targets and articulate a plausible mechanism of impact.

4.1 — Substitute

What components, materials, suppliers, channels, technologies, or people could be replaced with alternatives that improve cost, speed, quality, or ICA experience?

• Examine each value chain component: could an alternative input, technology, or delivery model replace what exists today?
• Consider substitutions from adjacent industries that the ICA would recognise as an upgrade
• Flag substitution risks (e.g., switching costs, brand equity erosion, supply chain fragility)

4.2 — Combine

What elements — internal or external — could be merged, bundled, or integrated to create compounding value?

• Identify components that share ICA touchpoints and could be unified into a single, higher-value interaction
• Explore cross-product or cross-service bundling opportunities (especially where existing business lines underperform in isolation)
• Assess partnership or ecosystem combinations — what external capability, if integrated, would materially shift the value proposition?

4.3 — Adapt

What models, frameworks, or solutions from other industries, geographies, or eras could be borrowed and fitted to this context?

• Scan adjacent verticals for analogous problems solved in structurally different ways
• Evaluate emerging technology paradigms (AI, decentralised systems, platform economics) as adaptation vectors
• Consider historical models that fell out of favour but may be viable again under current conditions

4.4 — Modify (Magnify / Minimise)

What happens if we dramatically amplify or reduce a specific attribute — scale, frequency, intensity, price, complexity, personalisation?

• For each high-gravity component, test the extremes: what if this were 10× larger? 10× smaller? Free? Premium-only?
• Explore modification of the ICA interaction cadence — what if engagement were continuous rather than episodic, or vice versa?
• Assess which modifications shift the competitive positioning from incremental to category-defining

4.5 — Put to Other Use

Could the existing product, service, process, data, or infrastructure serve a different ICA segment, use case, or market entirely?

• Audit underutilised assets: proprietary data, brand trust, distribution channels, trained workforce, IP
• Identify adjacent ICA segments whose jobs-to-be-done partially overlap with the current offering
• Evaluate whether the process itself (not just its output) has standalone commercial value (e.g., licensing, white-labelling, platform-as-a-service)

4.6 — Eliminate

What could be removed entirely — features, steps, approvals, roles, costs — without degrading (or while actually improving) ICA-perceived value?

• Revisit the assumption inventory from Step 3: which assumptions, if discarded, would allow component elimination?
• Identify complexity that serves internal stakeholders but is invisible or negative to the ICA
• Calculate the cost-of-complexity for each candidate elimination and the projected margin or speed improvement

4.7 — Reverse (Rearrange)

What if the sequence, hierarchy, ownership, or direction of flow were inverted?

• Test reversal of the value chain sequence: what if the ICA performed step 1 and you performed the current final step?
• Explore role reversal: what if the ICA set the price, defined the scope, or owned the asset?
• Consider reversing the business model polarity (e.g., from selling to buying, from charging the end user to charging the supplier)

Apply any user-specific instructions from FutureProof context — such as strategic themes, risk appetite, or prioritised innovation horizons — to weight and filter hypotheses throughout this step.

Step 5: Deliver Output

Produce a structured SCAMPER Innovation Brief containing the following sections:

A. Executive Summary

A single paragraph identifying the 3 highest-potential innovation hypotheses across all seven lenses, with a rationale for why these warrant executive attention first.

B. SCAMPER Hypothesis Register

A table with the following columns for every hypothesis generated:

#	SCAMPER Lens	Target Component	Hypothesis	Mechanism of Impact	Estimated Effort (L/M/H)	Estimated Impact (L/M/H)	Strategic Alignment

C. Priority Matrix

A 2×2 effort-versus-impact plot (described textually or as a structured list) categorising each hypothesis into:

• Quick wins (low effort, high impact) — execute immediately
• Strategic bets (high effort, high impact) — resource and roadmap
• Fill-ins (low effort, low impact) — delegate or batch
• Deprioritise (high effort, low impact) — shelve unless conditions change

D. Top 3 Deep Dives

For each of the three highest-priority hypotheses, provide:

1. Concept narrative — a 150-word description of the innovation as if pitching to the board
2. ICA value shift — how the ICA's experience or outcome measurably changes
3. Revenue / margin thesis — projected financial mechanism (new revenue stream, margin expansion, churn reduction, etc.)
4. Key risks and mitigants — top 2 risks with proposed de-risking actions
5. Recommended next step — a specific 30-day validation action (prototype, customer interview cohort, financial model, etc.)

E. Assumptions to Test

A consolidated list of the critical assumptions underlying the top hypotheses, formatted as testable statements suitable for experiment design.

Step 6: Propose Experiments

FutureProof:save_experiment(skill="scamper-innovation-prompter", experiment={
  hypothesis: "[Top-ranked SCAMPER hypothesis framed as a testable statement]",
  variants: ["control: current product/service/process design", "variant: [specific SCAMPER modification described concisely]"],
  measurement: "[ICA-facing metric or financial KPI, e.g., conversion rate, NPS delta, unit margin, time-to-value]",
  expected_impact: "[Quantified directional estimate, e.g., 10–20% reduction in onboarding time for mid-market ICA segment]"
})

Generate one experiment block for each of the top 3 hypotheses. Where prior experiments from FutureProof context exist, reference their outcomes to refine the new hypotheses.

Step 7: Request Research

FutureProof:request_research(skill="scamper-innovation-prompter",
  query="[Targeted query informed by the SCAMPER analysis, e.g., 'Emerging subscription-to-outcome business model transitions in enterprise SaaS 2024–2025' or 'Case studies of successful feature elimination driving NPS improvement in B2B services']",
  reason="Validate and enrich the top SCAMPER hypotheses with external market evidence, competitive precedent, and ICA behaviour data before executive presentation"
)

Tailor the query to the specific industry, ICA segment, and SCAMPER lenses that surfaced the most promising hypotheses.

Step 8: Save Session

FutureProof:save_session(skill="scamper-innovation-prompter", session={
  summary: "Applied SCAMPER framework to [subject] targeting [innovation intent] for [ICA segment]",
  key_findings: ["[Top hypothesis 1 — lens and one-line description]", "[Top hypothesis 2]", "[Top hypothesis 3]", "[Most significant assumption identified for testing]"],
  user_feedback: null
})