I'm putting this innovation lifecycle out here, not because I endorse it; it just happens to be typical. Different companies with different kinds of product will have a different number of stages, and the stage names will be different. However, even in the simplest processes, there are several distinct stages. For different stages, the objectives and type of work performed will be distinctively different.

In this post, I'll be talking about Stage 0. Whatever you call it, this is where opportunity identification and idea generation take place. It’s sometimes referred to as the "fuzzy front end". I personally believe Pragmatic Marketing took most of the fuzziness out of this stage more than 10 years ago, but the term persists. I've been told that this is because it's not clear what exactly will be accomplished in this Stage. Using the mental model of the Seven Pillars this becomes crystal clear, but I'm ahead of myself.

The general myth is that an opportunity for a new or improved product is identified by those "marketing people" or upper management, and then the product development team will explore the opportunity. The team may find that the opportunity is worth pursuing, so it develops a follow-up product development plan. Sometimes the team may find it's not feasible to develop an appropriate product at this time. Dr. Robert G. Cooper from Stage Gate calls this the "Discovery" stage. Whatever name people call it, this is where you design the DNA for your product and plant the seeds. This stage might be the highest leverage point in innovation because it will define what the product will be.

There are three different elements commonly identified in this stage: Opportunity Identification, Opportunity Analysis, and Idea Generation & Handling. I'd like to map these elements to the Seven Pillars of Product Management as I explain the objectives of each of the three elements. In Part 1 of this three part Blog Series, I'll address Idea Generation & Handling, in Part 2 Opportunity Identification, and then finally Opportunity Analysis in Part 3.

Idea Generation & Handling: The most important objective of stage 0 is to generate viable product ideas that can be further developed into great products to capitalize on market opportunities. Within the Seven Pillar construct, this includes the activities found within the Market Sensing and Problem Definition Pillars.

Ideas need to come from many different sources and different people, some ideas from your own research and development people, some customers or suppliers, others from university researchers. Some ideas come from your sales people, some from support, others from your services people, and so on. All these ideas are one type of market evidence, and gathering these ideas is part of the activities within the Market Sensing Pillar.  Other types of market sensing activities include those focused on market research, competitive analysis, and customer satisfaction.

Within stage 0, customer satisfaction activities are critical. Let me explain a little. Studies have shown that if you want people to participate in your discovery stage, and you do - then there are some things you need to make happen. One is to find a solution for this 2,500 year old innovation challenge, "How can we achieve a democracy of engaged citizens (customers & prospects), a democracy of face-to-face discussion, in states (markets) that contain many thousands or even many millions of people?"

This problem had its origins in ancient Greece, but Product Management teams have been grappling with it in diverse ways, and today there are many innovative methods. At the core of these methods are a few basic principles that facilitate successful idea-gathering initiatives. I'll list some of them here.

• Your initiative must address the problem of scale - the problem posed by the number of customers and prospects who have to be brought into a meaningful process of participation.
• You must present the capability for a two-way dialog of information exchange, not just one-way market messaging, nor one-way gathering of enhancement requests. People, either directly or through a representative, should meet together to hear competing arguments and discuss the issues and ideas in preparation for collective decision making. Without this, prospects are ill prepared to make market decisions.
• An intelligent basis for decision-making requires a social context that effectively motivates people to participate in your market sensing activities.
• A market feedback capability is used to counter the excuse of "my individual issues have such a small chance of being addressed that the time and effort invested in participation is a waste".

Remember to include all forms of market evidence in this process, such as: enhancement requests, call reports, customer visits, win/loss reports, analyst data, and so on. Once this evidence has been gathered, it needs to be triaged to get to the right resources in a timely manner. These resources then evaluate the evidence and determine what should be done next.

At Ryma, we strongly encourage our clients to utilize the problem statement which is derived from the various sources of market evidence. If there is an art to the fuzzy frontend, then it is here. I introduced this concept in another post of mine. Here I'd like to share a template that I find useful for defining the problem statement. I wouldn't call this a complete problem statement, but it goes a long way in clearly identifying the problem, and avoids the common error of just restating the enhancement request. It comes it two forms, and some of our clients have found it useful to use both. I know of one who makes the use of both forms as a company-wide best practice in all problem statements.

IF (requested action) THEN (positive impact), BUT (conflicting result).

or

IF (not requested action) THEN (negative impact), BUT (conflicting positive result).

Once the problem statement is clearly articulated, we're ready for Part 2, Opportunity Identification.