The Innovation Puzzle

Innovation is the combination of creative new ideas with sustainably profitable business models, to solve one key equation; are we able to deliver value to customers in a sustainably profitable way?

Experiments are a necessary but insufficient condition for success. To get sustainable traction, we need to search for the key innovation puzzle pieces:

- Understand the customer problem we want to solve.

- Create and test minimum viable versions of our solution before building the full solution.

- As the solution becomes clear, solve other pieces of the business model to create and deliver value.

- Find the right growth engine, and remove any bottlenecks to capture value.

In reality, innovation is an iterative process that involves taking one step forward, two steps back and then five steps forwards again. Any innovation project will begin with a few pieces of the puzzle already clear, some will be partially visible and other key pieces will be missing. This combination of knowledge versus assumptions will be unique to each innovation project.

Take a hard look at your innovation project. Where are you right now on your journey? Which pieces of the puzzle are still missing? Are the experiments you are running right now helping you solve for those missing pieces? Are you really testing the right things? If not, then you need to recalibrate and reprioritize your work.

To read the full article from Forbes, please click here.