In Search of Innovative Problems

“The truth knocks on the door and you say ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth,’ and so it goes away. Puzzling.”

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Introduction

Innovation is generally associated with solving existing problems. Innovative new products and services solve problems that are troubling customers and incorporate new solutions that differentiate products from those that already exist. Almost all existing innovation models presume that the problem, or customer need, is reasonably defined and can be articulated by those in the business or by their customers. Success is defined by delivering the first and most effective solution to customers’ known problems.

A myriad of tools exist to uncover and prioritize customer needs. Billions of dollars are spent annually on focus groups, quantitative analysis, conjoints, face-to-face interviews, customer-driven innovation and a wealth of other market research tools to bring out and sort out the problems and needs of customers. All of these traditional tools require that the customers know and can reasonably articulate their needs going into the research. They are not tools that are highly useful for identifying the problems customers don’t recognize or can’t articulate.

Our goal is to distill problem identification down to an innovative, logical and usable framework and turn everyone into problem seekers.

The Problem with Problems

Businesses want innovative solutions. Nobody is saying “I want to know what all the problems are.” Problems aren’t considered valuable. They are annoyances, to be avoided or removed.

Culturally, we are focused on solutions. People get ahead by solving problems. Who ever got promoted for finding problems? Finding problems has never been high on anyone’s list. But for businesses to be successful today and in the future, they must stay ahead of their customers by anticipating and fulfilling their customers’ toughest problems, their unarticulated and unarticulatable needs. If they can find their customers’ problems before they become recognized as problems, then they never become problems. Einstein said that “intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them” and the first competitor to present products and services that accomplish this will be the big winner.

Problems that are difficult or impossible for customers to recognize or relate to are typically multi-dimensional. These problems result from multiple root causes that can work in concert to mask or completely cloud important product or service issues.

We call these the innovative problems.

Customers may not even realize that a product or service could be much better than it is. They become complacent and simply get used to the status quo. They fumble with zippers on coats and jackets even though they are often hard to connect and close with ease. They accept smoke alarms that continually generate false alarms, can’t be turned off easily, provide no useful information and let batteries run out without warning. It was Steve Jobs who famously said, “It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.”

Consider coffee. For over a thousand years, coffee has been brewed in pots. Steeped, boiled, percolated, brewed under a vacuum, dripped, one pot at a time. If you wanted a cup, you had one choice, whatever was in the current pot (possibly two if in recent years someone had made a separate pot of decaf). In an office or at home, where the great bulk of coffee is consumed, the coffee typically tasted mediocre at best. If you happened to get a cup when it was just brewed, its taste might be at its best. Should you arrive at the pot to find it half-full and sitting on the warmer for hours, you may just find the bitter end, overheated and tasteless or even cold if someone had switched the warmer off. And if you wanted a different flavor or strength, you were just out of luck.

Businesses found the coffee machine to be a dilemma. On one hand, it kept employees at work, alert and fueled with caffeine. But the resurgence of the local coffeehouse (which had been popular in some form or another, serving coffee from pots, for almost 500 years), with its quality coffee, myriad of flavors and now offering the ability to custom order the drink of your choice one cup at a time, was luring workers away from the office and killing productivity.

Enter John Sylvan, in 1992 a marketing manager at a Boston semiconductor company. John took turns collecting funds that his coffee-drinking coworkers chipped in to pay the coffee vendor on his weekly visit. Every visit was a hassle — someone not there that day to chip in; another forgot her money; another without the correct change; all in all a thankless, annoying task. Add in the generally bad coffee that resulted and it was annoying enough for him to quit his job to try and find a better way.

Jump forward three years to 1995 and we find John in the emergency room, suffering from symptoms that looked like a heart attack but were finally diagnosed as caffeine poisoning, from the 30–40 cups of joe he was downing each day. 30–40? Yes, he and his partner were deep in throes of revolutionizing the coffee market, building their Keurig single-cup brewing machine and personally testing every batch. The ultimate result of their caffeine-fueled effort — high-quality coffee available in endless varieties, made fresh cup by cup exactly when and where the drinker wants it, each cup different from the next. From the office to the home, the Keurig brewing machine has upset the coffee making world and changed the paradigm of brewing.

After much time passes and a product or service has been used over and over again, the subset of the innovative problems which were once impossible to see may start to become clearer. The visible problem horizon has shifted. Competitors of Keurig now focus on building some sort of competitive advantage through recyclable packaging since the Keurig K-cups that hold the single servings are plastic.

Occasionally, an innovative problem is identified by serendipity. And some innovative problems are identified by those outside the field, who are able to see the problem with fresh eyes, unencumbered by the paradigm of those who have always looked at a product or service in a particular way. Other innovative problems remain transparent, hidden from sight. Once recognized, previously unseen problems may appear rather obvious, and solutions are typically not far behind. “How could we have not seen such a simple problem long ago? It was right in front of our faces.” If only we all had perfect hindsight!

Think again about the smoke alarm. The first reasonably priced consumer smoke alarms became available in the mid-1960’s. Purchased for their functionality and later to comply with government regulations requiring them in all homes, they were highly effective in warning about home fires. Two thirds of all deaths from home fires occur in homes without working smoke alarms. But smoke alarms are annoying. They set off false alarms when you are cooking on the stove, are mounted high where they can’t be readily reached and their wailing shriek can’t be easily silenced. Even a hot, steamy shower can set them off. When their batteries die, they either emit a constant, annoying beep or fail to warn you at all. People often remove the batteries and disable their smoke alarms. If they weren’t inside your home, they would be ignored like car alarms in the midtown Manhattan.

Obvious, right? Not at all. Smoke alarms have been essentially neglected by innovators for fifty years. Enter Nest, the company that first set out to reinvent the lowly thermostat. Nest is now working to eliminate the pain points that have been accepted as part of the smoke alarm for the last fifty years. Their Nest Protect smoke alarm has ultrasonic sensors to detect hand motion. Wave your hands at a Nest detector and the false alarm is silenced. Nest has recognized that there are gradients of alarm and not all alarm states require blaring, high-decibel warnings. They have incorporated communications capabilities using voice and color to warn of various emergencies. A color-coded ring turns red if there is a smoke or carbon monoxide emergency. To send you a lower level warning or a voice message, it turns yellow. When all is safe, it shows green. When you approach a Nest alarm in the dark of night, the device senses your approach and the green ring glows brighter and becomes a night light.

The Nest device communicates directly with you by recorded voice; with your smart phone to alert you of problems when you are not in the house; and with your Nest smart thermostat to shut off your furnace in an emergency. Imagine your smoke alarm calmly telling you “There’s a fire in the furnace room” or “Carbon monoxide has been detected in your garage.”

The Nest alarm comes in two versions, a battery-powered version that promises multiple years of operation from a single charge and a wired version with battery backup. It checks its own sensors and tells you if they are in working order, or if not, why not. And most importantly, when the system senses an actual fire, it cannot be turned or waved off.

In any market, the first competitor to find and implement innovative solutions that address high-level customer needs has the best chance to profit from the solutions. Time becomes money, and lead time over competition can cause customers to continue to buy your products or to shift from competitive offerings to yours. But developing innovative solutions first requires that the innovative problems be recognized.

To date, this has been no easy task. Serendipity is not a method that can be repeatedly followed. The cultural bias against problems and the lack of a workable methodology have precluded businesses from systematically identifying hidden innovative problems.

The Problem-Solution Matrix

Our goal is to provide a repeatable process for identifying innovative problems early in a product or service’s life cycle. We seek to convince businesses that focusing on problems is indeed an endeavor that should be valued, encouraged and rewarded. Uncovering hard-to-find problems can be particularly rewarding for the businesses that provide such encouragement. We want to turn everyone into problem seekers. To achieve this goal, we have developed and present a useful methodology, a practical set of tools, to systematically search out and identify the most valuable, the most innovative problems.

Problems can be effectively classified by focusing on both the state of the problem and the state of the solution. We’ve built a Problem-Solution Matrix that classifies problems and solutions by their known and unknown states. A Type I problem is one where the problem and a creative solution are both known, i.e., the problem is solved for the time being. Skype, Tango and Apple have all solved the problem of how to effectively conduct mobile video calls. CardStar and Key Ring have eliminated the need to clutter your key ring with a sheaf of mini barcode tags, making it look like you are constantly carrying a collection of tiny paint samples with you everywhere you go. This is not to say that better solutions will not come along. While this class of problem can lead to innovative new solutions, it will not be our area of focus.

We will examine the three classes that have unsolved elements, seeking more fertile ground for innovative solutions that can form the basis of significant future competitive advantage.

Type II problems involve known problems and unknown solutions. At any point in time, a huge number of known problems exist, and the main focus of classic corporate R&D and current market research tools is concentrated on finding solutions to these known problems. Take a snapshot of announced R&D projects in the pharmaceutical and medical device markets at any point in time and you will see a portfolio of Type II problems – finding safer and more effective anti-obesity/weight control drugs; better cholesterol and diabetes control drugs; effective non-invasive blood pressure measurement devices and non-stick glucose measurement tools. Typically, these problems are known to many competitors at once.

Significant spending throughout an industry is directed at the problem and the result is often a solution that provides a short-lived competitive advantage for one competitor or multiple, nearly simultaneous solutions from two or more competitors. The length of the head start can depend on the ability of the market leaders to respond. In The Innovator’s Dilemma, Professor Clayton Christensen dissects the innovation process and its impact on market leadership. He looks at and distinguishes between sustaining innovations (innovations that improve the performance of established products and services along the dimensions of performance that mainstream customers in major markets have historically valued) and disruptive innovations (innovations that change the value proposition in a market, typically underperforming established products in mainstream markets, creating new market opportunities for which mainstream customers see no current need or value but which eventually move up to capture existing and larger markets when those needs shift). His research shows why it is quite difficult for market leaders to successfully maintain their leadership position when disruptive technologies enter the market.

While the appearance of disruptive innovations or technologies results in similar levels of market tumult that occur when Type IV problems are discovered and exploited, many of the examples used by Professor Christensen are really Type II problems that were known across the industry yet not aggressively pursued by the market leaders for the myriad reasons detailed in the book. If those in leadership positions follow the approaches laid out by Christensen, they can position themselves for fairly prompt responses to new market entrants.

The advantages resulting from solving Type II problems can be extended by leveraging intellectual property or making significant capital investments. In response, competitors (with substantial investment of their own directed to solving the problem and with in-house expertise already developed through their own efforts) can usually find non-infringing alternatives to the first solution in relatively short time periods.

Type III problems involve known solutions and unknown problems. This is the classic “technology in search of a market” or lab error that leads to a big idea. Famous examples include 3M Post-It” notes, Teflon® non-stick surfaces, and Gore-Tex® breathable materials. Gordon Gould invented the LASER and then waited for the technology to solve a myriad of problems across many industries for many years. Type III problems are simply too serendipitous to merit significant time and effort. When a solution can be fit to a problem, then is the time to make a significant investment in Type III problems.

The Fertile Field — The Innovative Type IV Problems

We turn now the fourth quadrant of the Problem-Solution Matrix, to the unmined territory, the potentially fertile ground where the innovative Type IV problems reside. Here, both the problem and the solution are unknown.

This area has never been the serious focus of the corporate world, for a number of very practical reasons. First, no good tools existed in the past to explore this area with any rigor. Second, there was a presumption that finding solutions where the problems were unknown was extremely difficult, requiring large sums of money and persistence. This presumption was correct so long as the focus was on finding the solutions, not the problems. And finally, there were always so many known problems already available to try and solve.

The advent of the Internet and the massive proliferation of Silicon Valley and similar startup communities and companies (these startups are typically led by a single entrepreneur or a small group of creative thinkers, usually with innate coding skills) have dramatically expanded the pool of Type IV problem identifiers. Most often, they have followed a gut idea or a subject matter passion and have not followed any repeatable methodology to identify a Type IV problem. These startups have usually zeroed in on one problem in this quadrant of the matrix and bootstrapped minimal resources until they have a working solution and an initial following of adopters. They then seek out seed and later stage funding to rapidly develop, refine and expand their Type IV solution. The phrase “There’s an app for that” often refers to a solution that has been developed as a result of identifying a hard-to-identify problem.

Occasionally, they are able to repeat the process more than once. Evan Williams, co-founder of Blogger and Twitter, describes the driving force for his current attempt at a third successful product, “I kept being obsessed with this problem area, … I kept coming back to this area because I wanted write more, I wanted to get back to blogging and I went back to the tools that I used and it didn’t feel like they had evolved much over the last decade.” Last.fm founders Martin Stiksel and Felix Miller describe a similar experience attempting to launch their second attempt at success. “This idea kept on nagging us, so two years ago we formed a new team and started working on Lumi. It dawned on us that browsing history contains a lot of information about what you are interested in and could be a really good basis to do recommendations on.”

We have developed a reusable, repeatable methodology and a set of practical tools to seek out and identify Type IV innovative problems and transform them to Type II known problems. The beauty of this transformation is that the identification of the problem converts it to the type of problem the corporate world is experienced in solving, with a significant added advantage — if a business chooses to use this methodology and focus its energies on problem seeking efforts in the fertile Type IV field, it can create longer-lasting competitive advantage as the only competitor working to develop solutions for a now Type II problem. By innovating in areas where competitors are not concurrently investing in similar problem-seeking processes, a differentiated product or service can be built, extending the often too brief and constantly shrinking time lag before competitors and competitive products enter the market and erode the first-movers’ advantage.

Mining the Fertile Field

To identify the innovative problems, businesses must become astute customer observers, but not in the traditional sense. This point is a very fundamental and seemingly simplistic one, but it is at the very heart of developing a problem-seeking skill set. Businesses that develop new products too often believe that they know more about their products than their customers. This very concept becomes the mantra of many organizations. “We must constantly know our products better that our customers do, and we must create a culture that anticipates our customers’ needs even before they recognize them” is a typical corporate credo statement that many companies come to believe is necessary for their success.

In fact, it is the user base that knows the product best.

Customers almost always have much more experience than a business does with its own products, and their experience is always unique and intimate, real world experience that cannot be easily duplicated in research laboratories or by occasional use. Cycle testing can tell much about a product’s durability or future faults, but it is the customer who stretches the limits of a product’s abilities and capabilities and extends its use into new and unanticipated areas and environments.

Product improvements come from users. Two-thirds of minor improvements emanate from customers. Eighty-five percent of major improvements do the same, and virtually all first-of-type inventions begin with the customer. What better place to start the search for innovative problems.

As we said earlier, simply asking customers is insufficient. They don’t know or can’t tell you. You need to learn from your customers in a different way. You must spend inordinate amounts of time observing them as they interact with your products. But even massive amounts of observation are insufficient, if you don’t have a workable framework for that observation. That framework is the key to our methodology.

The framework began its life with a simple observation. We saw customers struggling to use electric hospital bed controls, becoming visibly annoyed but not complaining when they couldn’t get the controls to do what they wanted efficiently. We observed this more than once with different products. We inquired and found the responses very puzzling. The customers didn’t realize that they were becoming visibly annoyed. They had completed their allotted task successfully and did not perceive the annoyance that showed when things took too long or were too complex. But clearly they were annoyed.

About this same time, a series of informal discussions on innovation began to focus on a recurring theme — things that have not changed for long periods of time. A series of examples surfaced (hand tools like hoes, shovels and rakes; clothing irons and ironing boards; house gutters; incandescent light bulbs) supporting the notion that, if you could identify something that had not significantly changed for a long time, you were most likely standing in fertile ground for innovation. It was also observed that this kind of focused thinking was not the normal approach for identifying new innovation opportunities.

Putting these observations together, we recognized that things that took time, things that were complex and things that haven’t changed were ‘signposts’ for innovative opportunity. And thus the methodology for finding Type IV problems began to take form. We realized that we might have a theme for building the methodology – a set of signposts that marked innovative areas for inquiry. The phrase “things that” became our mantra for red flagging these signposts.

We continued to observe product and service users and to interview them about their interactions. We soon realized that there was a fairly extensive set of signposts that reoccurred when we probed the users. While individually users could not see the connections, we saw patterns of opportunity that were hidden from plain view.

Starting with a raw list of signposts that quickly grew in length, signpost categories began to emerge:

Signposts included things that:

1. haven’t changed in a significant amount of time

2. are repeated often

3. have substantial consequences

4. are slow or large

5. are expensive or price supported

6. are not mobile

7. are perishable

8. involve a high degree of complexity

9. address Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

10. are failing

This set of signposts is by no means complete but it does provide an umbrella for a significant number of subfactors that repeat often. We invite readers to help us expand the signpost categories that flag areas to search for innovative problems.

Things that haven’t changed. When something has remained essentially static over time, it is often a sign that the opportunity for innovation is near. The current solution has been accepted as adequate and competition is comfortable churning out relatively generic products or service solutions. While those in the industry may object to the characterization, products like the stapler; the broom; the electric fan (until Dyson took aim at the problem); the license plate (after over 100 years with essentially no innovation, South Carolina is developing an ‘internet appliance’ trackable plate); the beach towel (essentially generic until Vertty launched the less absorbent, quick drying, sand repelling, lighter weight Shape Shifter beach towel); and the plaster cast (keep a close eye on the 3-D printed exoskeleton brace from Victoria University of Wellington graduate Jake Evill) have had little change over a significant number of years or decades.

This year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the invention of the zipper. In the century that has passed, the design of the zipper has remained essentially static. The materials of construction may have changed from metal to nylon but a zipper still works like a zipper. It still takes two hands and some fumbling to close. Until now. Under Armour, the sports clothing company, is introducing a zipper that can be operated one-handed. Perfect for any situation but particularly for the active, outdoor sports scene where hands are often busy holding other things or are sheathed in heavy, cumbersome gloves. The new design, developed by an engineer who watched his elderly uncle with weakening arm strength struggle to zip up his jacket, uses self-aligning magnetic clasps to secure the zipper ends and allow easy one-handed zipping.

Even in the fast-moving world of the Internet, disjoints between plateauing performance capabilities of current technologies and the ever-increasing user demand for increased performance can signal interesting problems to investigate. Just look back at Evan Williams’ observations and you will see that over a decade (which equates to eons in non-Internet years) certain tools have just not evolved.

Things that are repeated often. When something is repeated often, it should be automatically investigated for identification of Type IV problems. Repeated processes are often accepted for long periods of time. They become ingrained in the fabric of a business and become transparent or ignored. A single cycle of repetition may not involve a substantial amount of time or cost, but the cumulative effect can be quite significant. Mapping the process into its component steps and then observing users and customers can reveal Type IV problems lurking in the repetition.

Things that have substantial consequences. This factor includes things that involve a high level of risk; are inherently dangerous; tend to cause accidents; and things that are easily lost. When the consequences of using a product or service are substantial, the ability to identify hidden Group IV problems can create significant value and competitive advantage.

Things that are slow or large. When things take too long, many undesired outcomes can result. More errors occur; people have to wait; labor needs are intensive; and unnecessary, costly queues form. When things are too large, they take up additional space, are more difficult to transport and limit the positions and locations in which they can be effectively deployed.

Things that are expensive or price supported. When things are relatively costly or are perceived as expensive or are highly regulated or maintained under some sort of pricing umbrella, the purchase decision process can take longer or the product or service in question will be accessible to a much more limited audience. The market share of lower priced Android phones has grown rapidly under the relative lack of discounting of the iPhone. Real estate commission structures, auto dealership franchise laws and credit card transaction fees often reflect the absence of strong competitive forces, the presence of a regulated industry or a follow-the-leader pricing policy that will position you in an area ripe to identify Type IV problems.

Things that are not mobile. Often, mobility relates to size only and might then fall into the previous category of ‘large’. Just as easily, mobility can relate to things that require a fixed power or data source or things that are secured for safety or to avoid theft or have some other limitation that impedes the freedom to move about. Even more likely, size and the fixed nature of products combine to hide innovation opportunities. Transitions in telephones, computers, phonographs and radios over the years are exemplary. For years, phones were large and black and tied to fixed transmission lines. Desktop computers were large and tied to power (and later fixed data) lines. Phonographs were large and typically kept in one place. Recorded music in the form of vinyl records was stored in cabinets that housed the phonographs (and often a radio) or adjacent to the phonographs. Radios plugged into wall outlets and the family gathered around to listen to music, news and entertainment. Innovations like the ‘Princess’ phone and cordless phones, laptop computers, portable record players and transistor radios addressed the size restraint and extended battery life meant that computers, phones and radios didn’t have to be tied to fixed power sources. The Sony Walkman started the transition to mobile music. Wireless technologies removed the requirement for fixed data lines. Continued progress in miniaturization, digitalization and extended battery life led to a convergence of all these products into small, highly mobile devices that go with us everywhere and perform multiple functions — tablet computers with radio apps and all of your music; phones with computing, radio and music playing capabilities; tiny MP3 players loaded with music files; and a host of services that leverage all these new devices. Throughout this dramatic transition, lack of mobility has been the consistent factor that has led to the discovery of new problems that complacent consumers never envisioned or for which they never expressed a need.

Things that are perishable. We’re not just talking fruits and vegetables here but are focused on things for which value diminishes or dissolves with the passage of time. Airline, train seats, hotel and cruise ship rooms, vacation and car rentals have led to services like AirBnB, NetJets and Uber, concepts that are all about making more effective use of or effectively competing with large, fixed investments the value of which disappears if they are not timely consumed. When the wheels of the plane leave the ground, the unsold seats cannot generate any profit and the opportunity to increase the marginal profitability of the flight is lost. Look hard at any appointment-based or time-sensitive services and products.

Things that involve a high degree of complexity. Complex products and services usually mean that many things are happening at once. It also means that they may be difficult to use or understand. Complexity often occurs when things are subjective, when they have a large number of functions, when operations require multiple steps or steps that are not simple to execute, or where are too many middlemen in the process. Complexity provides ample opportunities for innovation. As a corollary, also pay attention when users signal that an information or service component is missing and would significantly improve the offering.

Things that address Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Well known 20th century psychologist Abraham Maslow theorized a hierarchy of needs that people fulfill on a journey to self-actualization. As one ascends the hierarchy, the needs that are addressed are signposts for innovation opportunity. Things that cause inconvenience, frustration, annoyance, fear, danger, disgust or otherwise degrade the human condition should flag Type IV problem areas. “Things that annoy me end up fueling my ideas.” – Josh James, co-founder of Omniture, a web analytics company that sold to Adobe Systems for $1.8 Billion in 2008.

Things that are failing. In the long run, the failure of products and services is not an viable business option. When things don’t work well, are getting worse, are highly disorganized or require overly frequent cleaning or maintenance, you should realize that you are standing in a fertile field for finding Type IV problems.

The Repeatable Methodology for Finding Innovative Problems

We have developed a straightforward and repeatable process that helps us find the innovative Type IV problems that are lurking somewhere in the minds of product and service customers and users.

We start by building a product/service brief that captures all of the known use cases for the product or service (we will use ‘product’ here to reference both product and service), including capturing as many details and relevant pieces of information about the product and its uses as we can. Granular, detailed process maps and high-level process maps (e.g., SIPOC maps used in Six Sigma) for each use case can be created to reflect the product as the company currently knows or perceives it and these maps can be used as reference guides and working tools throughout the analysis.

Meeting with company employees (from product and sales and marketing and from the factory or service team), we (a) introduce the Signposts framework, the concept of Type IV problems and the basic idea of finding problems before getting to solutions; (b) capture learning and ideas from the employees; and (c) specifically probe on potential problems, improvements and product issues (we know that many ideas are never articulated because people do not feel empowered to speak up and share). We often use variations on the Triple Diamond problem solving method to conduct these sessions.

We next go into the field and share the product brief with the field sales and service team, the dealer network or both exist. We then capture dealer/sales/service force impressions of use cases, problems, possible improvements and other issues.

With the collective knowledge of the headquarters and field teams cataloged, we conduct field observations to see the product in actual use by customers and users and map the use cases and processes. Along with observing product use, we probe the users on their experiences as they relate to the various Signposts. We use a variety of interview techniques, including a heavy dose of the 5 Whys iterative question-asking technique to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying the problems that surface.

With all of the Type IV problem information gathered and digested, we present the composite learning to the product development and management teams. We work with them to probe the information further and present them with specific recommendations for areas to consider as fertile fields for development.

With repeated experience in this observation-questioning process, an important element of the ability to successfully replicate the problem seeking process became clear — a substantial number of the Type IV problems we uncover arise from a number of related, intertwined subproblems or “things that” factors. A typical innovative problem might have many (e.g., 4–8) root causes (i.e., subproblems), and users could not intuitively recognize each of parts that would lead to the overall problem. When you see numerous signposts pointing to customers encountering multiple subproblems with a single product, pay particular attention because you have likely come upon a particularly promising Type IV innovative problem zone.

Conclusion

Culturally, we have historically placed value on finding solutions to existing problems. To paraphrase the quote from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance at the opening of this article, “Problems knock on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for solutions,’ and so they go away. Puzzling.”

We propose changing that paradigm and elevating the task of finding innovative problems to a repeatable, highly value process that is both encouraged and rewarded. Time is money and finding these problems first can create substantial competitive advantage.

Developing innovative solutions first requires that the innovative problems be recognized. To date, this has been no easy task. We have set out a repeatable process for identifying innovative problems early in a product or service’s life cycle. We have provided a framework of signposts that serve as flags for identifying innovative problems and a framework for properly probing product providers, customers and users and for observing customers and users interacting with your products and services. When these signposts appear, they are indicators of significant unrecognized problems. Uncovering and solving these hard-to-find problems can be particularly highly rewarding for the businesses that consistently follow these frameworks.

We want to turn everyone into problem seekers.

© Copyright 2014 Brian J. Leitten & Bradley R. Strock

Meet the Authors

Brian J. Leitten

CEO, Leitten Consulting

Brian has built and led fast-growing, profitable companies for over 35 years. Trained as an engineer and IP attorney, Brian is experienced running startups and mid-size businesses and helped build Hillenbrand Industries/Hill-Rom into a Fortune 500 industrial manufacturing and service company. For the last decade, he has led private equity and consulting businesses helping promising businesses grow and prosper.

Bradley R. Strock

CIO, PayPal

Brad has over 25 years of experience in technology and operations from start-ups to large financial services companies. He’s spent the last 10+ years helping companies like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America transform their customer service experiences through disruptive technologies. He is currently Vice President of Global Operations for PayPal, an eBay Inc. company.