3 Simple Ways To Ignite Innovation

What’s the best way to spark innovation in your company?

Put together a cross-functional team and let them work undisturbed in a skunkworks environment? Seriously, are you or the members of your team futurists? How many events have you or they — or anyone —  predicted correctly?

How about conducting some focus groups with customers and asking them what they need? Think about it: when was the last time your customers asked for something and then bought lots of it when it was brought to market exactly as requested?

Too many books and articles have included anecdotes about the two dark-horse candidates who flunked the focus group vote — the Starbucks cup of coffee and the Dodge mini-van.

Stop asking customers what they want, or trying to be Nostradamus, Jr. with a build-it-and-they-will-come approach. Both methods are reckless, expensive and high-risk.

Nobody — not you, not your staff, not your customers — really knows what kinds of products they want or need.

Here are three approaches that really work:

1. Stop, look and listen to how customers interact with the products and services they already have. Asking customers to speculate on what they might want or might like is tough sledding. By contrast, everybody knows what they do with — and how they feel about — the products and services they currently use. That’s where the gold is! What do they love? What do they hate? What annoys them? What saves them time? What helps them get things done? What makes them feel good or bad? Engage with customers on how they feel about their use of all types of products they already have, not just the family of products you make or sell — what they like about them, what they don’t. Then use that in your development process.
2. Start by imitating somebody else’s product. “What?” you say. “Why would we want to copy somebody else? We want to come up with something new! We’ve got good ideas right here?” Think about it: Even if you try really hard, are you really going to introduce something that looks and works just like your competitors’ product? Does the music of The Who really sound like Jimmy Read or Otis Redding? Well, from the tone of their promotional material since Day 1, you might expect it to, considering they sold tee shirts at their 1980s concerts bearing the tag line “Maximum R & B.” The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton made some great recordings, but they sure don’t sound anything like the old American blues masters they say they were copying. Your “imitation product” is more likely to be a variation on the theme of the thing you’re copying, and customers might actually like it better than the original!
3. Build something, let someone try it, then change it. There are books and articles written about this. Check out The Lean Start-up by Eric Ries.

Oh, and don’t close down the Thinking Stage of the process after the first set of specs is written. Sorry, that part has to stay open for business 24/7/365 throughout and long after the product cycle ends, working the feedback loop, listening, learning and yes, making changes.