New This Week: 13 Method Templates + Open Innovation

This is the biggest single batch of new methods we've added to MethodPunks. Thirteen methods went live today, covering measurement, design research, and growth. Each one has a downloadable worksheet you can use straight away.

Here's what's new and when to reach for each one.

Open Innovation Playlist

The Open Innovation playlist is now fully live. It brings together methods for going beyond your own four walls: crowdsourcing, hackathons, accelerator programs, and challenge prizes.

These methods work best when you need fresh perspectives, want to tap external talent, or are exploring markets you don't fully understand yet. Several of the new methods added today fit directly into this collection.

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Measurement and Metrics

North Star Metric

The North Star Metric is the single number that best captures the value your product delivers to customers. Getting this right aligns your whole team around what actually matters, rather than a sprawl of proxy metrics.

When to use it:

• You're setting product direction and need a shared focus
• Your team is measuring activity rather than outcomes
• You want to cut through reporting noise and find the signal

Key Performance Indicators

Not all KPIs are created equal. The KPIs method helps you choose the right ones and tie them back to business goals, so you're not just tracking things because you can.

When to use it:

• You're building a metrics framework from scratch
• You suspect your current KPIs don't connect to real outcomes
• You need to align stakeholders on what success looks like

DFV Matrix

Desirability, Feasibility, Viability. The DFV Matrix is a quick-and-dirty evaluation tool for comparing ideas or features across these three dimensions before committing to any of them.

When to use it:

• You're prioritising a backlog and need a structured lens
• You want to surface hidden trade-offs in a proposal
• You're running a workshop and need a shared evaluation framework

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Research and Design

Research Plan

A Research Plan defines your questions, methods, participants, and timeline before you start. It sounds obvious, but most teams skip it and end up with findings that don't answer the thing they actually needed to know.

When to use it:

• You're kicking off a round of user research
• You need stakeholder sign-off before starting fieldwork
• You want to keep a research project on track and in scope

Design Principles

Design Principles are the short, opinionated statements that guide decision-making across your team. They don't tell you what to build, but they help you make consistent calls when the options aren't obvious.

When to use it:

• You're establishing a shared design language for a new product
• Your team keeps going in circles on the same decisions
• You're onboarding new people who need to understand your standards fast

Facts, Assumptions, and Doubts

The Facts, Assumptions, and Doubts method is a simple sorting exercise. You take everything your team "knows" about a problem and separate what's verified from what's guesswork. It's surprisingly revealing.

When to use it:

• You're starting a project and want to surface hidden assumptions early
• Your team has strong opinions but fuzzy evidence
• You're preparing for a user research sprint

Prototyping

The Prototyping method covers the principles and approaches for building low-to-high fidelity tests of your ideas before committing to full development. The worksheet helps you choose the right fidelity for the question you're trying to answer.

When to use it:

• You need to test an idea quickly without building it
• You're aligning stakeholders on a direction before engineering time is spent
• You want to reduce risk before a major product decision

Storyboarding

Storyboarding brings a product or service idea to life as a sequence of frames, like a comic strip. It's one of the fastest ways to communicate an experience and get useful feedback from people who haven't been in the room.

When to use it:

• You want to communicate a user journey to stakeholders or developers
• You're testing a concept in a research session
• You need to align a team around a shared vision of how something works

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Growth and Scale

Scaling Playbook

The Scaling Playbook gives you a structured approach to the messy transition from early traction to repeatable growth. It covers people, process, and systems, not just marketing spend.

When to use it:

• You've found product-market fit and need to build for scale
• Your team is growing fast and things are breaking
• You're planning the next phase of the business

Accelerator Program

The Accelerator Program method helps you design and run a structured programme for developing early-stage startups or internal ventures. It connects directly to the Open Innovation playlist.

When to use it:

• You're launching an internal innovation programme
• You want to structure a startup cohort with clear milestones
• You're advising a fund or corporate accelerator on programme design

Building in Public

Building in Public is a growth and community strategy that involves sharing your progress, setbacks, and learnings openly as you build. Done well, it turns your development process into your distribution.

When to use it:

• You're launching a new product and want to build an audience early
• You're a solo founder or small team without a marketing budget
• You want to attract collaborators, advisors, or early customers

Crowdsourcing

The Crowdsourcing method helps you tap large groups of external contributors for ideas, data, or solutions. It's one of the core methods in the Open Innovation playlist.

When to use it:

• You need ideas or solutions that your internal team can't generate alone
• You're exploring new markets and want signal from potential users
• You're running a challenge prize or open call

Hackathons

Hackathons are time-boxed collaborative events where teams work intensively on a problem. The worksheet covers how to design one that actually produces useful outputs, not just prototypes that go nowhere.

When to use it:

• You want to generate a lot of ideas or prototypes fast
• You're trying to build a community around a platform or problem
• You're looking for a fresh approach to a problem your team is stuck on

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What's Next

The Open Innovation playlist now has the full set of methods it was designed around. It's worth exploring if your team needs to go outside its own walls for ideas or talent.

Got a method you'd like to see added? Let us know on the feedback page.