Four Questions That Cut Through the Innovation Noise

When people find out I’ve worked in innovation for a while, they often ask what makes the difference between ideas that work and ones that don’t. Honestly, I could talk about this for hours. There’s the technical disciplines, the curiosity mindset, rapid testing, customer engagement, lots of plain hard work and so on.

But I’ve noticed four recurring questions that tend to be pretty reliable predictors of whether something is going to work.

First, does it solve a meaningful job that real people actually have? This cuts through whether we’re trying to manufacture a need. Vegan meat alternatives for non-meat eaters is a classic example of solving a problem nobody asked for. If it doesn’t tap into a consumer job on functional, social, and emotional levels, odds are it’s not going to stick.

Second, is it noticeably better than what people are using to solve this job today? If it’s not clearly better and assuming you don’t have the commercial muscle of Aldi, your only option is price which tends to destroy value pretty quickly.

Third, can I explain what it does and how it does it to an elderly relative in a sentence or two? I love this one. Older people don’t have the time or inclination for jargon and marketing speak. If they don’t get it, the average person who’s deluged with messages isn’t going to get it either. Bonus: when it’s simple to explain, it’s easy to get the entire company excited and on board, from the shop floor to senior management.

Fourth, is it truly good for the company? This is the tough one. It requires real self reflection. Is the idea going to strengthen or dilute what the brand stands for? Will it generate enough incremental revenue to make it worthwhile? Are the assumptions realistic, or does everything need to go perfectly for this to work? Is it something retail partners will genuinely get behind, and why? We’re all subject to confirmation bias, so what hard evidence is on the table?

The Insight: These four questions tend to surface fatal flaws early, when they're cheap to fix. Most companies skip straight to execution and discover the problems when they're expensive.

If this sounds familiar and you’d like to talk through what you’re seeing, reach out.