A simple key to product innovation

First of all, a short disclaimer: There is no simple, easy or swift way to understand how your particular company should innovate. Thus if you have such expectations, just breathe deeply and be patient.
There are many ways innovation may be pushed through out your company. In past years I have encountered several approaches that are, to my surprise, quite common:
- “We know exactly what our customers want, therefore we are going to do this super new product. We don't have to ask them. And you know what? If they don't like it, we will sell it anyway.”
- “We are honest. We don't know what our users need. Thus we picked up this one guy and he told us what to do. Hey and this is our new product. Customers will love it.”
- “Our management wants these spectacular features in the new mobile app. But we were humble enough to go to the customers and asked about their problems and needs. You know what? Their needs and problems are completely different, but we are building a new product based on our managers' opinion anyway.”
Teams responsible for business product development often expect that creating new products may somehow skip the first step: To understand the people and their problem.
And that's the key to true innovation:
Forget you know anything, do not predict, just look and listen to find the right problem your new product, service or function will solve.
Some who read the Steve Jobs bio would argue, that he hated focus groups to help him design new products. Some others would insist on them as the best way to test new ideas. Well, still, that's not the point. The point is to understand. Understand perfectly what the problem is. And who are the people having this particular problem.
No matter how you find it out, you have to have a clear vision of the core problem. No matter where the idea was created, no matter whether it's technical guy, who came in, or business guy, who just discussed a particular issue with several customers. The key to innovation is to understand:
- What is the problem
- Who has this problem
- Why should we solve this particular problem
Then you can try to find out the right solution. So be patient and to rephrase Steve Jobs at the end: “Keep looking for the problem, don't settle”.

