Six Sigma thinking seeks to improve the quality of the output of a process by identifying and removing the causes of defects. It uses a set of quality management methods, mainly empirical, statistical methods, to address process deficiencies. It occurred to me that we could apply Six Sigma and process control principles to innovation if we studied the process that people were trying to execute when they were using a product or service, rather than studying the product itself. Once we made the process the subject of our investigation, we’d be able to break it down into process steps, study each step in detail, and attach metrics to each step that we could measure and control in the design of a product. — : 206-211
The most rewarding part of my journey has resulted from being a hands-on ODI practitioner. That is my passion. I have led and continue to lead hundreds of innovation engagements with inspiring people in the world’s most admired companies. — : 264-266
Outcome-Driven Innovation — : 258-258
An effective innovation process must produce answers to the following questions: Who is the customer? What job is the customer trying to get done? What are the customer’s desired outcomes? How do they measure value? Do segments of customers exist that have different unmet outcomes? What unmet outcomes exist in each segment? What segments and unmet outcomes should we target for growth? How should we define our value proposition? How should we position our existing and pipeline products? What new products must we create? — : 482-493
As a result of this ideas-first thinking, an entire ideation industry has evolved to compete on developing ways to generate and evaluate more and more ideas, faster and faster. — : 559-560
While a job describes the overall task the customer is trying to execute, an outcome is a metric the customer uses to measure success and value while executing a job. For every functional and consumption chain job there exists a set of up to 50 or more desired outcome statements. — : 723-724
While defining the functional job correctly is important, uncovering the customer’s desired outcomes (the metrics they use to measure success when get the job done) is the real key to success at innovation. — : 807-809
Job statement = verb + object of the verb (noun) + contextual clarifier III. UNCOVER CUSTOMER DESIRED — : 1166-1168
Outcome statement = direction of improvement + performance metric + object of control + contextual clarifier — : 1210-1210
Desired outcome statements can be uncovered using any of the popular interviewing methods, such as personal interviews, focus groups, or observational or ethnographic interviews. — : 1214-1215
The only way to discover segments of customers with unique sets of unmet needs is to segment the market around unmet needs. — : 1231-1232
nearly all segmentation methods, whether qualitative or quantitative, fail to distinguish between customers with different unmet needs, which is the only form of segmentation that will deliver real value. — : 1225-1226
Our Outcome-Based Segmentation methodology is executed in four steps: First we analyze the Job-to-be-Done and capture all the customers’ needs in the form of desired outcome statements. (The special syntax of these outcome statements guarantees precision and comparability). Next, we field a survey that is administered to a statistically valid representative sample of customers (usually between 180 and 3,000 customers). Their answers reveal how important it is that they achieve each outcome and how well the solution they use today satisfies each outcome. With this data we determine which outcomes are most under-and overserved. Under-and overserved outcomes represent innovation opportunities. Third, we use factor analysis and cluster analysis to segment the market into groups of customers with unique sets of unmet desired outcomes. Lastly, we use profiling questions we include in the survey to understand what factors cause complexity and make some customers struggle more than others to get the job done. The survey also collects information that reveals the degree to which the different segments we uncovered are underserved. — : 1247-1258
Opportunity score = outcome importance + (outcome importance – outcome satisfaction) — : 1417-1418
unmet. With this information in hand, a company has the customer-centric, data-driven inputs it needs to formulate a market strategy. An effective market strategy should align the strengths of a company’s product offerings with the customer’s unmet needs. This is best accomplished through the marketing activities shown in the figure below. We recommend the following steps: (1) Decide which offerings to target at each outcome-based segment. (2) Communicate the strengths of those offerings to customers in the target segment. (3) Include an outcome-based value proposition in communications. (4) Build a digital marketing strategy around unmet outcomes. (5) Assign leads to ODI-based segments. (6) Arm the sales team with effective sales tools. — : 1447-1460
Once the underserved outcome-based segments are uncovered and prioritized, the company can take the seven courses of action shown in the figure below for each segment: (1) Borrow features from other company offerings. (2) Accelerate offerings in the pipeline and R&D. (3) Partner with or license from other firms. (4) Acquire another firm to fill a gap. (5) Devise a new feature set. (6) Devise new subsystems and/or ancillary services. (7) Conceptualize the ultimate solution. Let’s look at how each activity is enhanced when it is informed by outcome-based market research. — : 1500-1514
the normal demographic methods for segmenting customers, while helpful for sales resource prioritization, are not helpful for opportunity identification, and hence solution identification. — : 1739-1740
Outcome-Based Segmentation gave us a more realistic way to look at the market. Over time we had confused sales prioritization with real customer market segmentation. At the end of the day, we only have a certain number of salespeople, so we tend to want to call on the larger dairies, because if you get one of them, they have a measurable impact on your business. We just assumed that all those large dairies share certain needs, and that small dairies have completely different needs. The data showed that was not the case, so that absolutely was surprising. — : 1745-1749
most rewarding part of my journey has resulted from being a hands-on ODI practitioner. That is my passion. I have led and continue to lead hundreds of innovation engagements with inspiring people in the world’s most admired companies. Every — : 264
the thing that I would share is, once you get involved and you start to think about a market through this lens, the notion of defining your customer as a job executor, and then asking customers what job they are trying to get done instead of asking them what solutions they want is such a basic, simple, and obvious way to approach product development. It’s — : 1807-1809
To identify opportunities for product innovation, the Bosch team targeted professional tradesmen (the job executors) who were responsible for cutting wood in a straight line (the Job-to-be-Done). They targeted roofers, framers, contractors, finish carpenters, plumbers and electricians. Through interviews with the professional tradesmen, the ODI practitioner dissected the Job-to-be-Done into its component parts through the use of a job map and worked to capture a complete set of approximately 85 desired outcome statements. Next, ODI-based quantitative research methods were employed. Through a controlled online survey, approximately 270 professional tradesmen rated each desired outcome statement for (i) its level of importance, and (ii) the degree to which it was satisfied, given the circular saws they were currently using. This data was used to run a variety of data analyses (Outcome-Based Segmentation, competitive analysis, etc.). — : 1823-1831