Dirk Verburg

The challenge is clear: the life cycles of products and services are becoming increasingly shorter as a result of increasing competition, as well as rapid technological developments.

Unfortunately, our traditional, linear product development processes, are not designed to heed these challenges. This approach, in which new products and services need to run an internal hurdle race in the form of sequential reviews by different business functions, causes delays, a waste of (scarce) resources, and, last but not least, internal rivalry. A rivalry that stems from the fact that the different functions involved in the decision-making process feel they need to prove their added value.

To make matters even more complicated, the competitive landscape is fundamentally shifting: from product development to business model development, and from product portfolio management to business model portfolio management.

In ‘Augmented Collaboration, how teams and AI work together’ Patrick van der Pijl, Patrick Kooij, Alex Knezevic, and Erik van der Pluijm, together with hundreds (!) of co-authors, provide a highly practical (I would almost say ‘hands-on’) guide, on how to successfully address these challenges through a new, customer centric, collaborative, and IT enabled methodology.

I recently had the pleasure of having a conversation with one of the key authors of the book, Patrick van der Pijl, prior to the official release of the book.

In our conversation, we discussed:

• Why traditional linear product and service development models do not work anymore
• What a new product development model could look like
• A common purpose and integrated teams as an alternative to silos
• Why we tend to rush to solutions instead of spending time on the customer problem
• Personas 2.0
• Why traditional IT tools strengthen silo thinking
• From Product Development to Business Model Development
• How using new technologies can speed up business development processes
• Collaboration and (corporate) culture change
• The importance of preselling
• The creation process of the book

► You can watch or listen to a podcast with our conversation on:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube
  

► No time to watch or listen to the podcast now? Here is a short summary of the key points of our conversation:

Dirk Verburg: Your book notes that linear innovation models are no longer viable, and contains a plea for a real-time, AI-supported, customer-centric collaborative model to drive innovation process. However, given that linear models brought us the Industrial Revolution, IT innovation, and won us the West the Space Race, to name a few key achievements, what are their exact shortcomings today, and why must we change them?

Patrick van der Pijl: Every year, market speed increases, especially now with AI. Traditional innovation is sequential, slow, and operates in silos. By the time you launch, reality, customer needs, technology, and real-time markets have already changed. Geopolitical factors and inflation add constant change. The world does not move linearly; everything happens at once, so we need a different approach.

Dirk Verburg: That reminds me of a former Xerox CEO who said their products escaped rather than launched. Is it fair to say organizational silos are a primary factor creating lower speed inside companies today?

Patrick van der Pijl: Yes, these silos are a huge factor in slowing down organizations. Companies unable to break them face a massive challenge.

Dirk Verburg: Collaborating from the start creates a stronger common vision. Could you share an example from your book that illustrates this shift?

Patrick van der Pijl: J.Crew realized that traditional work happened in meetings, PowerPoints, and isolated departments, creating information latency. To remove these barriers, they aimed for one live working table accessible to everyone—from design to logistics—to streamline review and decision-making.

Dirk Verburg: Why do we psychologically tend to jump straight to solutions rather than focusing on the customer’s actual problem?

Patrick van der Pijl: Solutions feel tangible, exciting, and clear. However, innovation rarely fails due to poor ideas; it fails because teams solve problems customers do not have. We worked with a private wealth management firm whose clients were not focused on stock performance, but on the burden of managing family capital. Focusing on real customer problems requires vulnerability and time, which many companies skip.

Dirk Verburg: You suggest shifting focus from who a persona is (‘demographics’), to why a persona buys. Could you expand on why motivations matter more than demographics?

Patrick van der Pijl: Demographics do not drive decisions; motivations do. For example, King Charles and Ozzy Osbourne share identical demographic profiles but have entirely different behaviors. People buy progress and solutions to jobs to be done. Innovation is about dynamically understanding real-time customer behavior and occasions rather than relying on static paper personas.

Dirk Verburg: Could you share an example of how discovering a customer’s true motivation changed a business strategy?

Patrick van der Pijl: A butcher shop owner in The Hague wanted to move to the city center for higher sales. We had her ask customers why they visited. The primary answer was the easy parking out front. Moving to the city center would have eliminated that advantage and destroyed her core value proposition.

Dirk Verburg: What made you realize that traditional workplace tools like PowerPoint, Word, and email actually enforce positioning and isolation rather than encouraging real collaboration?

Patrick van der Pijl: Traditional tools lead to people spending weekends polishing documents or slide decks to defend their position, rather than inviting open discussion. Work becomes trapped in departmental handoffs. Real collaboration requires breaking down these silos so everyone shares the same level of live insights to co-create effectively.

Dirk Verburg: Why should companies focus more on their business models rather than just innovating existing products and services?

Patrick van der Pijl: Products can easily be copied, but business models are much harder to replicate. Dutch retailer Cool Blue succeeded because they focused on solving the customer’s complete problem—installing a new washing machine and removing the old one—rather than just competing on the appliance price.

Dirk Verburg: Are modern collaboration tools and AI essential prerequisites for implementing these frameworks, or are they strong catalysts?

Patrick van der Pijl: They act as powerful amplifiers. While visual collaboration started on paper, digital canvases and AI dramatically increase speed, scale, and learning by processing visual contexts, summarizing data, and producing rapid prototypes.

Dirk Verburg: Shifting from control to collaboration requires a huge culture change. Do you see this mindset shift as a prerequisite, and how can companies facilitate it?

Patrick van der Pijl: Yes, it requires shifting from control to collaboration. Leaders must create psychological safety, reward experimentation, and focus on collaborative sprints. Instead of asking if a plan is finished, leaders should ask what was learned from clients to improve.

Dirk Verburg: What steps would you recommend to a Fortune 500 CEO wanting to implement this approach?

Patrick van der Pijl: Start small with a single growth challenge rather than attempting a full company transformation. Frame the challenge, assemble a small team, involve real customers quickly, and build early momentum through direct insights.

Dirk Verburg: How did you successfully coordinate over 250 authors to contribute to this book?

Patrick van der Pijl: We started with a clear point of view and ran a pre-selling Kickstarter campaign. We co-created this book with 250 people. During the process we explored how humans cooperate with AI on digital canvases and hosted weekly digital collaboration sessions where participants contributed ideas on digital boards. AI was used to quickly summarize input and refine content.

Dirk Verburg: What inspired you to adopt a Brooklyn street art style for illustrating the book?

Patrick van der Pijl: While in Brooklyn, I realized innovation is messy, creative, and human—much like street art. The style visually triggers readers, breaks repetitive thinking, and reflects diverse voices coming together.

Dirk Verburg: Thank you so much for the interview, Patrick. I enjoyed it and learned a lot.

Patrick van der Pijl: Thank you, Dirk. I really appreciate your recognition and support.

► About Patrick van der Pijl

Patrick van der Pijlis the Founder and CEO of Business Models Inc (BMI), a global design agency for strategy and innovation founded in 2009, with offices in the Netherlands, China, Australia, and Taiwan. He has a passion for strategic visioning, graphic facilitation, and storytelling.

His company (BMI) was awarded the Pioneer Design Award for the democratization of innovation and strategy tools. Patrick is the producer of the bestselling book Business Model Generation, which has sold over five million copies in 37 languages. USA Today named Business Model Generation among the 12 best business books of all time, and the German edition was named Management Book of the Year 2011.

Patrick also co-authored the book Design a Better Business: New Tools, Skills, and Mindset for Strategy and Innovation. The book ranked #1 on Amazon’s new releases in Strategy books and has been translated into 15 languages. Additionally, in 2020, Patrick also published the book Business Model Shifts, where he describes six new ways of creating customer value.

Patrick holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and a Master’s Degree from Nyenrode Business University.

Book ‘Augmented collaboration’