4. What is Innovation?

4.What is Innovation

The word “innovation” is so widely used and misused it has lost some of its meaning. It is essential that you understand what is meant by innovation. This book defines innovation as:

Profitably satisfy an unmet desire”

The essential words in that definition are satisfy and desire. People have desires. All innovation starts with people. The primary person is the user. What desire does the user have that they want to be satisfied? Understanding users' desires is the crucial first step to innovation.

Inventing does not equal innovating. There are many inventions that don't satisfy an unmet desire. Those inventions might be novel and even do something better than any other way, but if no one desires it done better, the invention will fail as an innovation.

Furthermore, if the product or service never gets to the user it can't satisfy the desire. Unused products don't innovate. Products can fail to get to users because of many reasons including: it's never built, the users never find out about it, or it's too expensive.

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3. Predictive Innovation: Core Skills — Overview

3. Overview

Paths to the Ideal of the Idea Space
Paths to the Ideal of the Idea Space

Anything that can be made or done must be able to be described. If you can't describe it there is no way for you to do it.

Once you describe it, you can also describe the ideal version. The ideal does what you want, when you want, where you want, the way you want, with whom you want, for the price you want with no hassle. If you start from the ideal then go backwards to what is available today, each step is an innovation.

What, How, and Doing it

To innovate you need ideas and to put those ideas into action. Ideas fit into two basic categories: what to make and how to make it. Only when you correctly identify what to make and the most profitable way to make it can you actually make your product or service. Additionally, to accurately measure your performance you need the correct criteria.

Ideas vs. Performance, Thinking vs. DoingThis book shows you the basics of how to determine what to make and how to make it. It's up to you to put those ideas into practice.

You need to know what you will make before you can figure out how to make it; but, the ways to make things influences what to make. A pocket MP3 player depends on electricity, which depends on batteries, which depends on the materials to make a battery.

Each step affects the next step. Choices of what to make interact with how to make it. You will use different parts of Predictive Innovation depending on if you are focusing on what or how. You will want to learn all the Core Skills but this table shows which parts to focus on for either What or How.

What

How

  • Outcomes
  • Ideal
  • 6Ws
  • Satisfaction and Importance Levels
  • Universal Process
  • Alternatives Progression
  • Element Combinations
  • Importance 5-point scale
  • Dilemmas
  • Elements
  • Alternatives
  • Functions
  • Components
  • Importance rank order Agile Projects
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