This time of year, your big product has launched and is receiving acclaim in the market… so where will the next big idea come from?
Some folks have ideation sessions – often with cross functional teams involved with each trying to top the crazy thoughts previously proposed.
These ideas, once gathered, should be classified by the type of idea.
1. A minor enhancement to an existing product
2. A major enhancement to an existing product
3. A derivative product
4. A brand new upgrade product
5. A totally new breakthrough product
Looking from the outside in, rather than gather a cross functional internal team together, perhaps you should be talking to customers (and even non-buyers) to discover ideas they solve their problems and that they may even have budget to purchase.
Hey Jennifer,
Great reminder for folks to stay outside-in when trying to drive innovation. I work with a team where the people on the team (in addition to doing “pure” product management”) are responsible for innovating.
I like your list of categories for an internal perspective on “how much change is involved.” What I’ve found that is really helpful in vetting “innovation ideas” relative to an ongoing strategy is to also take a market view (is this a game changing idea for current / new markets? is it an improvement in a ‘more is better’ capability? Is it of interest to current (or new) personas?) I use Kano analysis to characterize the relevance of the improvement to market segments and personas – http://tynerblain.com/blog/2009/09/28/kano-analysis-for-product-managers/
Maybe combining the two views (rows and columns?) would increase the impact of the outside-in perspective.
What do you think?
Scott @sehlhorst (on the Twitters)
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Scott Sehlhorst, jidoctor. jidoctor said: just a thought, but i think the next "Big Idea" should come from your market… http://tinyurl.com/y8ukjqa #prodmgmt [...]
Scott – your Kano analysis is a great tool for the characterization. I would definitely recommend it. But, before they can do the analysis, they have to leave the office to go “hear the market” desires. And, that is the harder first step…imho.
Completely agree.
1) “go hear the market”
2) “understand what you heard”
3) “build a strategy to apply your knowledge”
4) execute, iterate, back to (1). ad infinitum.