Ask One Mission Critical Question of Every Product Development Framework
Glancing at the volumes of product development frameworks from the past 10 years from which I’ve learned, tried or haven’t even touched, I wish I would have known to ask one mission critical question before committing to any of them.
Without understanding the answer to this one question, it’s hard to see how all the pieces of innovation and marketing fit together from start to finish. We obviously learn from most of our failures. But, there is a danger in failure when you can’t put your finger on why you failed to grow your business using a certain product development framework. It leaves one wondering what went wrong. I doubted that the next product development framework would also lead me walking an innovation path that didn’t produce acceptable business growth.
I’m grateful to have the books, frameworks, worksheets and slide decks from many product development frameworks. But, asking this one question would have saved me an immense amount of time and money on my journey towards helping others grow their businesses.
The Need to Know Question that Deserves an Answer is …
Without answering that very question at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, I was all too easily drawn to personalities with popular courses and big payments for systems that approached innovation in one of two ways. That realization didn’t fully sink in until a few years ago.
Dangerous Distractions
Not knowing where product development frameworks are leading us is dangerous. You can’t do things right later on if you don’t do the right things first. But, the good news is that it’s not too late to discover the two ways of thinking about innovation.
Know the Pathway
By doing so you’ll understand on which path your chosen product development framework is leading you. At a minimum, it will provide you with clarity and confidence about why you choose to go with a particular product marketing framework because you won’t have to guess where it’s leading you. It may also save you loads of time and money.
Providing Value Means Meeting Needs
The best product development frameworks provide value to your customers, rather than focusing on their products or services. Anyone in business should want to provide value to their customers. But that means meeting the customer’s needs in such a way that your solution enables them to improve to about 15% better results. Therefore, there’s no room for ‘hit and miss’ tactics because your time and resources are not unlimited.
The Best Product Development Frameworks Clarify Customer Needs
Although search results yield a plethora of product development framework , how can you find the one that will grow your business by meeting your customers’ needs? What is a customer need anyway?
Innovation Fails Without Agreeing on the Definition of a Need
One must understand how product development frameworks define needs because that definition ultimately affects how your product/service is developed. Which in turn leads to your business growth, or lack thereof.
It’s MISSION CRITICAL!
Myriads of Product Development Frameworks
Differentiating between so many product development frameworks, let alone choosing one, can be maddening. With myriads of them whizzing past a founder at break-neck speed, it’s easy to suffer from shiny object syndrome—craning to see what’s new, what’s hot and what’s next. But, how can you know which, if any, will grow your business?
2 Paths Diverge
After years of learning, investing time and money to gain greater knowledge of digital marketing and innovation, I have followed the yellow brick marketing road evaluating and using different approaches.
I’ve watched others use various approaches. I’ve been drawn to shiny new product development frameworks until eventually finding a solid pathway. But through it all, I’ve learned one thing for certain.
There are only 2 approaches to thinking about innovation. You can tell which path the approach will travel by understanding how it defines a customer need.
There are Only 2 Approaches to Innovation
Product development frameworks typically view innovation in only one of two ways. Innovation simply means delivering new value for a customer. And that’s where your search begins. Typing the word innovation into a Google image search will produce a light bulb, a symbol for an idea.
Product development frameworks for startups (zero customers on day one) start with either ideas or customer needs. Let’s explore an ideas first approach to innovation because startups generally take off from this runway.
Ideas First Approach
Founders flying with an ideas first approach acknowledge that because startups are unpredictable, they want to get their idea(s) airborne A.S.A.P. so they can maneuver them in response to customer feedback and testing. They’re hoping to touch down on the runway of product market fit.
They know they’ll make navigation errors. But these pilots champion the vision for their company. They’re constantly adjusting the flight controls. They understand painful pivots. Nose dives of iterations are expected because successful innovation is a numbers game. Thus, failing fast can mean changing course to adjust their vision for the idea or ejecting from the idea altogether if it’s about to crash and burn.
With the ideas first approach, innovation and development (products/services) are the wings bolted to the fuselage of the founder’s idea. She’s set on flying that startup through the turbulence of different product iterations, trying to outpace the competition. All the while hoping not to run out of fuel (cash) before arriving at product market fit. The Ideas first approach to innovation is ANYTHING but boring. There are BIG winners, but lots of losers learners. New product success rates hover around 17%, even for ideas that were verified, enhanced and checked.
Needs First Approach
The needs first approach views innovation as a predictable process that precedes product development by starting with customer needs. There’s a lot that goes into a customer needs statement but they help both founders and customers understand what a customer is trying to do.
An innovation model starting with customer needs is different than the ideas first approach that takes flight by bolting products and services to ideas. It waits to create and is grounded in qualitative and quantitative research that reveals what segments to target and what needs are important and underserved.
Needs First Corner
If you agree with these three aspects of innovation you are in the needs first corner:
Why Don’t Ideas Always Fly?
Tony Ulwick shares the wisdom behind why we shouldn’t start with an ideas-first approach when thinking about innovation. Surfacing those needs and organizing them around the steps in the job they are trying to do should precede product/service development because front end innovation informs product development.
If we knew we could create or refine a product/service that met the majority of a customers unmet needs or at least gave them a 15% increase in efficiency while doing that job, wouldn’t we want to know that before building products or crafting services?
Keep in mind that a needs-first approach flows into nearly every discipline of digital marketing including crafting your offer, developing products/services, and copywriting. A needs first approach is a comprehensive approach to innovation and business growth.
Who Wins the Startup Slugfest?
Business is a battle. Startups are fighting for their life. Do our ideas have a fighting chance in a startup slugfest? Let’s go ringside to view the 2 corners of product development for tonight’s fight.
Red Corner
Fighting out of the red corner relying on an IN-NO-VA-TION PRO-CESS with a win rate of 86% NEEDS FIRST! That’s NEEDS FIRST ladies and gentlemen… (the crowd yawns … sounds boring)
Blue Corner
(The crowd stands to its feet)
Making it’s way toward the product development ring, with a win rate of 16% and yet the UNdisputed, RARELY questioned, PEOPLES CHAMPION of product development frameworks … IDEAS FIRST! (The crowd erupts in frenzied anticipation)
DING DING DING!
THUD … There goes another idea is down for the count. Why?
Your best shot at startup success comes down to how you view innovation. Uncovering customer needs saves you time in the long run by taking the guesswork out of developing your solution because you know what to include and what to leave out for different market segments.
Predict Innovation Success BEFORE Product Development
Predictable innovation happens before developing your product or service, NOT the other way around. With the needs first approach to innovation, the battle towards business growth starts out closer to a W.
Strategic innovation is not a positioning exercise. Defining a market isn’t done by tradtional verticals, demographics or products. It’s not found in a template, worksheet, guru, or book. So, how should we think about where our solutions fit?
A Market Start with What a Customer is Trying to Do
Here’s a phenomenal article entitled. How to Find a Market? Use Job-to-be-Done as the Front End of Customer Discovery by Steven Blank a professor at Stanford, written in conjunction with Tony Ulwick and Ted Thayer. It will show you how to define a market in a way that doesn’t change as you progress in learning more about your customers’ needs. In short, a market is a group of people and the job they are trying to do.
People Know What They are Trying to Do
Customers know what they’re trying to do. When people want to get something done, we know exactly what that something is. We know what we are trying to do.
But how to do it is another story entirely. The how (to do it,) belongs to solutions.
Do customers know the exact product or service that meets most of their needs—before it’s designed? It’s doubtful that they know what solutions will best meet their many needs.
But, that’s not their job, it’s yours.
Yet, thinking through your products and services before knowing the majority of your customers’ needs won’t work … predictably.
Choosing a product development framework we think will work, can lead to feelings of exhilaration on one hand or deep doubts on the other. Finding logic to justify our previous decisions is a bit more challenging.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve sensed that on this track of ‘ideas first thinking’ many product development frameworks just resonated with you intuitively. But remember the 1 mission critical question: How do they define customer needs?
I’ve experienced horrific failures relying on gut instinct. Understanding that “innovation can be predictable” from Tony Ulwick was a paradigm shift.
How should we think about customer needs? Well, how you choose to define them will make all the difference to your marketing strategy and your startups success.
Are they based on psychographics, demographics, voice of the customer (VoC) research, data mining, or a bit of everything blended together poured into our products? Drinking in this data is helpful after you know your customers’ needs because you can layer it on top, but this data by itself doesn’t reflect the many needs a customer has for the job they are trying to do. Those need to be surfaced so you can build them what they want to buy.
Time Consuming Process
But, following a disciplined needs first approach isn’t easy. This job requires an investment of time and resources, but it’s well worth getting help with.
What’s Missing in Most Product Development Frameworks?
In a word, EFFICIENCY.
So let’s stop and think about what’s missing.
Efficiency, for sure, but patience to walk through innovation that delivers our best shot at a winning product development framework because it starts with innovation and affects nearly every aspect of our marketing.
But, it’s not that attractive. It involves retraining how we’ve been conditioned to think about innovation and digital marketing.
I’m wanting to win your trust by working for your company’s growth. Pursuing predictable innovation with a needs first approach starts by surfacing your customers needs.
Predictability Starts
Where would we start? With understanding what a need is. Customers know their needs quite well. But, they don’t know which solutions actually meet those needs. However, they buy products and services that do.
With Precise Words
We’ll equip your potential customers with precise words that you both understand. This will bring you one step closer to creating the product or service that helps them do the job they are trying to do at least 15% better.
Precise words don’t flip flop with every wind of change because they are part of a proven innovation process. Getting airborne can be a bit bumpy with interviews and surveys and such.
But once they take flight above the horizon, clarifying their many needs, they’ll be grateful and you’ll know from qualitative and quantitive data that your product or service has the best chance of success.
You’ll have exactly what you need to innovate and market predictably. We can help you consider a winning product development framework that positions you for efficient marketing processes.
