Posts Tagged ‘innovation’

CEOs of established companies often yearn for that “start-up spirit.” And why not? They imagine an infusion of innovation carrying them into new uncontested markets where they can name their own margins and growth is inevitable.

Here’s why not. Start-ups are not innovative. Think about it. Most start-ups are one-hit wonders. It goes like this: someone has an innovative idea; they start a company; then they struggle — just like big companies — to come up with another idea. The innovation almost always precedes the start-up.

It’s ironic. Entrepreneurs are trumpeted as wellsprings of innovation. But they are successful because of their unwavering, almost myopic stubbornness — a kind of tunnel vision where all they see is their one product’s success.

Some say Larry Page is taking over at Google to get back that start-up edge. He may recapture the culture, but that won’t make another AdWords.

Two lessons here: CEOs of established companies need a systematic process for innovation, and so do start-ups.

If you’re not doing a Voice Of The Customer (VOC) project, you should. Just be careful how you use what you learn.

Don Draper said it back in 1964, "A new idea is something they don’t know yet. So of course it’s not going to come up as an option." — Mad Men, Season 4, Episode 4

Using VOC to benchmark how well you are meeting expectations is a fine practice — for operations. However, using VOC as input for designing new products or services is the beginning of the end.

Why? In VOC, customer wants and needs are defined in terms of satisfaction with current alternatives. When customers tell you what’s good, what’s bad, or even what’s missing from your product or service, their answers are bounded by their alternatives. You can ask “blue sky” or “magic wand” questions all day long, but if it doesn’t exist, customers can’t want it.

It’s natural to want to listen to what customers ask for and give it to them. It seems predictable. And because of its origins in QFD, it’s defensible. Just don’t expect it to produce anything innovative.

Instead, recognize VOC as a potentially commoditizing force. By the time your new product or service is launched, it will look even more like your competitor’s. After all, they are listening to the voice of the customer too.

Assuming this is truly the end of the recession, we can all look forward to a spate of product innovations unlike any since World War II. These products will solve previously unknown problems in brilliant new ways and make their manufacturers millions. If you’re in the business of designing, making or delivering products, the anticipation can be thrilling . . . or daunting.

After all, how exactly do you innovate? Tons have been written on the subject, and yet innovation still comes off as requiring either genius or black magic. If your company lacks a systematic framework for doing innovation, it’s not prepared for this new global economy.

Here’s ours. It’s not really magic: it just works that way.

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Buyers are complex, goal-driven analyzers and organizers of the world around them who are uncompromising when assessing their own experience. Our machine lets you design or adjust that experience by turning a few metaphoric dials.

Here’s how it works. People buy products to achieve outcomes. But rarely can they achieve those outcomes with a product alone. Products often need other products or services to form more complete systems, which in turn may need some kind of infrastructure (e.g., electricity, a road, etc.) to make the product go. Even then the user may need other requisites to use the product — anything from additional people to specialized skills. And of course, not all users are the same. They may use the product in very different contexts — for different purposes, in different environments, in different time frames.

When people evaluate a product, they weigh the outcomes achieved against the requisites required. Whether you’re a product manager, CEO, engineer or whatever, your job as an innovator is to maximize the outcomes while minimizing the required requisites. You do this by modifying the product, the system or the context in which it’s used.

Let’s take an easy one, Coca-Cola. Coke didn’t come in bottles until someone imagined users consuming it in a context other than the soda shop. That idea led to eliminating the requisites of a soda fountain (infrastructure) and the skills to use it — dramatically changing the outcome-requisite equation. Questioning the system comprising grocery stores led to vending machines. Rethinking the purpose led to Diet Coke.

Innovation can be hard to come by if you try to ideate too much at once. Instead focus on very discrete aspects of the user experience as defined in our innovation machine. It works, like magic.