Choose your challenges wisely
Not every innovation leads to improvement. A lot of time, money and energy is wasted on solving the wrong problems. Many innovations fail because there is too little attention paid to the proper identification, research and analysis of the problems that need to be solved. This is more important now that we are faced with a changing economic outlook, because if you can only make a limited investment, the way you analyse challenges has to change: what are you going to do? And: how do you as a company make the right decisions in this process?
Opportunity
Be critical in selecting problems that are worth solving. Look at challenges and problems from three different perspectives:
a) trends in the future - the major developments in the market and in the digital field, new business models, your competition.
b) the needs of your customers – the pain points, fundamental needs, their challenges, and frustrations.
c) your own superpowers – the properties and assets you already have. Your passion, ambition, and identity on the one hand and your employees, knowledge and skills, brand, and data on the other.
Opportunity
You can refine your analysis of problems, because trends change, and today’s problems will not always be the same tomorrow. Or because the problem that you think is a problem, is experienced very differently by your target group. Or because the problems you want to solve don’t fit with what you are good at. Adopting this method gives you the space to identify much 'better' problems. Then it’s time to make hypotheses and concepts to validate, experiment and learn what works and what doesn't.
