The way discussions between different teams go in product innovation workshops:
Insight: “Customers are really pained by this problem. No brand offers a solution. It is accepted as an unsolvable category compromise. Customers are asking us, can you focus your innovation on solving this problem?”
Marketing: “We need a highly differentiated idea that can help position our brand as an innovator. It can give us great storytelling opportunities and have a halo effect on our regular products. Otherwise, there is so little scope for differentiation in our category.”
Sales: “It may be different but what kind of sales volumes can we realistically expect for this innovation? Customers say they want a solution but ultimately go for the cheapest option. Brand XYZ had launched the same product 5 years ago and had to discontinue it. They just couldn’t sell.”
R&D: “There is a reason why customers are facing the problem. The workmanship in our country is so poor. Not to mention our extreme climate. If not used properly, no product in the world can solve this problem. Germany has these products already. It works there in their near perfect usage conditions. We can’t expect the same here.”
Sounds familiar? It is a scene frequently replayed in conference rooms across organisations. The characters are predictable (and imaginary…any resemblance is purely coincidental!)
- Insight, the bright-eyed catalyst: Think of themselves as customer’s voice. Armed with customer insights and quotes, they believe that deep, object insight into customer needs is enough to inspire the team to think of new product ideas. They keep trying to bring everyone back to the unsolved ‘customer compromise’.
- Marketing, the narrative seeker: Quick to make the jump from the physical product to its differentiation potential. They want the innovation idea to give them a hero for a future campaign. ‘Category Disruption’ is their dream.
- Sales, the pragmatic hopeful: Carrying the burden of targets, they are constantly trying to balance customer asks with potential sales volumes of an innovative idea. A storehouse of market launch failure stories, they need to be assured of commercial viability.
- R&D, the reality engineers: The ones actually responsible for creating the innovative product, they can immediately see the technical limits of the idea. They gently, and sometimes not so gently, remind everyone that brilliant ideas sound good but rarely work in the messy, imperfect real world.
Collaborative friction necessary for breakthrough ideas
The push and pull of disagreement is necessary for a viable innovative idea to take root. An idea tested by questions from different teams only becomes stronger. However, there is a risk of the questioning taking over the entire process. It requires skilled project design and workshop facilitation that brings teams together instead of locking them in their positions.
There are some practices we have found useful across product innovation projects:
- Involve key stakeholders from the start of the project. Make them a part of the project design, getting them curious about what customers’ unmet needs are.
- Let robust customer insights lead the discussions. In addition to the insights team gathering customer insights for the purpose, different teams should also take ownership of innovation ideas. This can happen when they are given opportunities to present their views formally, as part of the process. This helps build a common ground on which different ideas can build on each other.
- Create cross-functional teams. A product innovation workshop with cross-functional teams working together can help structure productive conversations. In smaller groups, stakeholders from different groups ideate, argue and build consensus. At the end of the workshop, we then have a bank of ideas that have passed the test of cross-functional scrutiny.
- Ideate, then validate. Involve all stakeholders in a phase of pure, blue-sky thinking led by customer insights. This generates a rich bank of ideas to choose from. These can then be filtered by technical and commercial viability. This dual approach prevents pragmatic concerns from killing fragile ideas too early.
Reach out to me, if you would like to think through product innovation opportunities for your brand.