1. Imaginew Decathlon Design
Summary
Imaginew is the prospective design methodology used by Decathlon to find new business opportunities for the future
Imaginew focuses on one sport domain (of one in-house decathlon’s brand) and on selected target groups
Example: the first Imaginew focused on Fitness (Domyos brand). Two target groups were selected:
Urban girl: “she lives downtown in her trendy apartment. She looks after her body, fashion and well being without fuss”
Forever young: “For ever young is in shape and intends to stay that way. After an active professional lifen another life is beginning. A life of leisure, socialising and extended good health.

2. Imaginew Decathlon Design
Summary
The whole program takes six months. Six principal steps punctuate the development of the process:
Step 1: Collecting information from a wide range of sources (half a day)
Step 2: Brainstorming session (1 day)
Step 3: Scenarios (1 week outside Decathlon’s campus)
Step 4: Concepts (1 week outside Decathlon’s campus)
Step 5: Formalisation (several weeks)
Step 6: Validation (half a day)

3. Imaginew Decathlon Design
Specificity of Decathlon prospective design
Two aspects:
The information collection process
The processing of information

4. Imaginew Decathlon Design
The collection of information
The strenght of this process seems to lie in the multi-disciplinary sources of information
But
There is no hypothesis about the future as in traditional foresight method - Will present trends continue in the future ? Will new target groups or new sport domain appear in the future ? Will a new technology appear ? Designers do not question supplied information.

5. Imaginew Decathlon Design
Processing of information
Designers use classical brainstorming and Metaplan techniques
But, the use of storyboards and the recourse to pictures and sketches appear to be quite new:
Storyboards: use of scenes to describe a purchase situation or a problem encountered by a sport user. It helps to visualise and catalyse creativity
Pictures: designers tend to express their ideas in pictures form.It helps to evaluate rapidly an idea and facilitates its enrichment

6. Imaginew Decathlon Design
The success of Imaginew
First Imaginew can be considered as a success since 14 concepts were selected to become project plans.
Beyond dedicated time to this process (almost 6 months), it seems that the success can be attributed to three reasons:
a fully committed teamwork: Imaginew team was released from the distraction of on-going projects (in creativity sessions) two times during a week.
a multi-disciplinary team: during collecting information session (step1)and brainstorming session (step 2), Imaginew team was enriched by the taking part of a large range of contributors.
use of pictures, sketches and storyboards: it helped to find solutions really adapted to the needs and desires of users.

7. Toward the use of design practices at the European Commission ?