Here are the 3 Things Any Idea Needs to Survive

Desirability
Feasibility
Viability

Simple right?

These three things are what make up the Balanced Breakthrough Model. The model highlights the core requirements to become a successful innovation.

Here is a quick breakdown of each element:

Desirability - Is there an actual need for this idea? What specifically is the problem you are solving for people?

Feasibility - Can you actually build / implement the solution? How hard is it with your current context?

Viability - What is the investment required to create the solution? Is it really worth it? Can you derive long term value from the product or service you develop?

A lot of this may seem obvious, however so many people look to invent or innovate something and then start looking for the problem. Trying to create the context or need for your product to be required is never a good place to be in.

What gets interesting here is when you factor in timing, and this is something that A LOT of people miss. The three elements above are all needed, what happens though when the market isn't ready or the base requirements still are not cheap enough, or the market is not ready to adopt it.

This can lead to a situation where you try to push your innovation into the market too early, and it will fail. The concept of the correct timing is framed beautifully be Steven Johnson in his book "Where do Great Ideas Come From", if you haven't read it yet, I suggest you do.

Never lose sight of the fact that timing and context matter. Being the most visionary person on the planet will never help you sell a product to people who simply are not ready for it.

There are three roads that your innovation goes down as you test versus the Balanced Breakthrough model. Your idea and the market is ready, so it's time to get to work. Your idea is ready but it's too soon or the market is not ready for it, in this case you can try to force your play early (not recommended) or park it and wait until you see more maturity. Third is that your idea fails the test and doesn't have legs, you need to kill it and move on; don't fall in love with your product if no one needs it.

Comments

The Black Swan

Maybe I think differently because I have read this? With everything going on with the CoronaVirus, it is incredible to see how people are behaving. Everyone and their cousin is talking about the Supply Chain, about being prepared, about not having enough capacity ... it's crazy. I honestly wonder if the people making all of these comments have ever actually ran any operations, if they ever had to responsibility to actually get things done. It's easy to say how prepared you can be, and what companies should have been doing, or pointing the finger saying "how could you be out of stock". The reality is, we have a lot of choice. The average grocery store for example can easily have 15,000 to 20, 000 skus that move through their stores ... think about that for a minute. That many skus, that are all cycling through the stores on some type of regular rate of sale. Or let's take something that's more in people's face at the mo...

Give your best stuff away

This is an interesting and sometimes polarizing topic. One group of people believe that the more content (ideas, conversations, posts, videos, etc) that you put out into the world, the better your return is as you are connecting with more people and getting greater exposure. Another group feels that by investing all of this energy into giving away "free stuff", takes away from what you could be doing to grow your business, give to your clients or to your employer. That giving your stuff away doesn't pay the bills, so what's really the point other than feeling good. For me personally, I'm all about giving my best stuff away for free, and what follows are really my "whys". First and foremost, I don't really prescribe to the idea that anyone really has "best stuff". That's finite and fixed and I truly don't believe this applies to people the way it can be associated to things. If you are a miner, and you m...

Growth & Success

We spend so much of our time focused on results and outcomes. Did we win? Did we lose? Was it a success or a failure? How do we measure it? Track it? Compare it? Everyone wants to "succeed" because that is what we feel is the right answer. That is what gets praise from those all around us. It makes us feel valued and safe as it makes us feel like we have earned our place (at work or within our community). Does every step forward have to have the same outcome? At what point is the growth and learning just as (or even more?) valuable than some expected outcome? Our world is changing so quickly these days, more quickly than it probably ever has in the past. We have access to so much information, to so many more people and communities, we are constantly trying to "measure up" to everything around us. We are experiential creatures. Every experience that we have contributes to our knowledge and understanding our our-self and the world we are a part of and influences the...

Search This Blog