Innovating should be a purposeful and disciplined endeavor to concurrently change the status quo in the Market, Solution, and Business environments.  Successfully changing the status quo always comes down to understanding two things: (1) the impact and frequency of occurrence of the problems you have decided to solve. (2) the importance and urgency of introducing a new and better solution.

The requirements of successfully innovating are actually quite simple; discovering problems worth solving and introducing new solutions that are better than available solutions.  The hard part of innovating isn’t in knowing what is required.  The hard part is in knowing how to innovate reliably.  Innovating reliably only happens when you create the right conditions right from the start.  You have to create a launch pad for every project.

Since we know that an innovation depends upon the adoption of a new solution that changes the status quo in each of the Market, Solution, and Business environments, we must start with a clear definition of the status quo.  But clarifying the status quo can be an intimidating challenge because it is both difficult to understand (i.e. it is complex) and difficult to work with (i.e. it is complicated).  It is in this complicated and complex macrocosm that problems worth solving are hiding, and that ideas for potential new and better solutions incubate. 

The Complicated Nature of the Three Environments 

The Market Environment includes the Customers, Users, and the Job-Being-Done.

The Solution Environment includes the Solution Specifications and the Basis of Competition which differentiates available solutions from each other.

The Business Environment includes the Business Capabilities and the Business Architectures for each of the competitors supplying solutions and competing for business in the Market.

Establishing clarity for the factors in each environment is necessary for defining the elements contributing to the status quo.

The Complex Nature of the Three Environments

The complexity comes about because each of the three environments interacts and influences the other two. 

The Market and Solution Environments create the conditions where the combination of Jobs-Being-Done and the solution’s benefits and trouble yield the User Experience.

The Solution and Business Environments create the conditions yielding the performance elements of the Business Experience.

The Business and Market Environments create the conditions that establish the customer segmented Market Experience. 

Generating the Energy to Innovate – The Three Voices

Innovating focuses on changing the status quo.  But the status quo is hard to change.  It is “sticky”, commonly encountered as a bias to the status quo.  This means that not only is innovating difficult, but just getting started is also difficult. 

After quantifying the status quo, you then must generate the impetus to innovate that overcomes the bias to the status quo.  The impetus is generated by grasping the perspectives provided by the Voice of the Customer, the Voice of the Job, and the Voice of the Stakeholder.

The Voice of the Customer describes the customer and user satisfaction levels with the constraints encountered and the delivery of performance, utility, and outcomes by available solutions.  

The Voice of the Job defines whether a new and better solution should be developed by improving the solution for the existing Job-Being-Done, or by inventing and introducing a new solution for a new Job-To-Be-Done.

The Voice of the Stakeholder defines whether the purpose of an innovating project is to mitigate a threat to existing Sales, realize an opportunity for future growth and profits, improve your solutions competitive position, or to improve solution performance, utility, or user outcomes through applications of new technologies.

The combined Voices of the Customer, Job, and Stakeholder not only generate the impetus to start an innovating project, but also serve to build momentum throughout the project.  Building momentum throughout the project is necessary because the bias to the status quo increases as a natural human reaction to change as a new solution transforms from possible to probable.  

Conclusion

Building an innovating launch pad is an essential primary activity when starting an innovating project.  The structure of the launch pad comes from making sense of the status quo for a particular solution, and generating the impetus for change.  This can be frustrating work given it’s inherently complicated and complex nature. But without a launch pad, innovating can quickly devolve into “hit or miss” work.  

The launch pad focuses the Innovator and Entrepreneur on achieving the two requirements that control innovating success: discovering problems worth solving and introducing new solutions that are better than available solutions.

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Status quo structure

The Innovation Launch Pad

Spark new solutions

-Innovation Haiku, Kevin A Fee, April 17 2024