HOW TO: Five Steps to Winning Innovation

I learned early on in my career that effective innovation requires listening to the end user and their needs. I worked for many startups in the eighties and nineties, all of them with some great idea that they were convinced would overwhelm the public, solve world peace and bring the planets into alignment — and then they all failed. After awhile, failure seemed so predictable I began to see each startup as just another gig and I the heartless mercinary who was riding their wave of delusion. You can imagine what a great feeling it was when I finally began innovating myself, and…somehow…it sold!

Here are the five steps I've come up with to help anyone develop a winning idea. I am a firm believer that innovation does not require great intelligence or technical skill. If anything, real consistent innovation requires empathy, compassion, the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and yearn for an answer. Without that you're no better than big corporate executives, churning out formula films or pulp novels that guarantee a modicum of sales but never make it big.

1. See a need. Look around you and outside yourself. Most of us can identify other people's problems, but our views tend to be shallow and often skewed. Talk with people. Find out where someone's pain point is and let them tell you about it. Put yourself in their shoes and, if possible, experience the pain yourself.

2. Find a solution. Often a solution presents itself when you identify the need. Sometimes you can get some idea of the solution and just need to work out the particulars. If a solution is not forthcoming, then you need to prudently accept it and find another need. To be successful, you may have to set aside many unanswered needs to find a single brilliant solution.

3. Collaborate. There is no substitute here, and you can't cheat. Engineers and solutions geeks don't count — they have a warped view of the problem sphere. You want logical thinkers who are not technical. My favorite group is the technical documentation writers. Customer service and technical support technicians are also invaluable. Heck even a lawyer could work (imagine that)!

4. Test. Find some end users. Try to get a sampling of your worst and best users and some in between. Present your solution and see how they react. In most cases it would be helpful to follow UX testing best practices here.

5. Refine. Repeat until you get it right. Go right back to the beginning and make sure you understand the need. Is this really the best solution, or do you need to adjust? If there are changes, then you need to go through the motions with your collaborators and testers to ensure it is perfect. There are two dangers here. The first is compromising refinement to rush to market with an inferior product, which your competitors detect, refine and then clobber you with. On the opposite end of that is over-thinking your solution or producing more than the minimum viable product. This wastes time and resources and dilutes the simple beauty of your solution.

While there are many formulas to innovation, many similar to the above, this is what has worked for me.