I would like you to imagine your company has been around for 25 years. It's captured a large chunk of the market and your consumers are happy. There are experts in your industry that you rely on for designing and improving your products. Customer service and sales bring valuable feedback to the product development teams. Marketing's messaging is on target.
So, now you've been asked to find new opportunities for growth. There are white spaces out there, blue oceans that have yet to be explored. There are many approaches to identifying these. Let's say a white space is identified. Where do you get your information? There's no data. There are no reference points. There are no experts to rely on. There may be experts in adjacent categories but they won't be much help.
Experts are indispensable in their field. They are great for navigating the known consumer world and marketplace. They are experts of now. They lack the necessary skills of curiosity and naivety. Experts have a difficult time being naive. Which is great. It would be terrible if they were. Clearly, we need them to be packed full of all that knowledge. When your goal is to innovate or evolve a product into something new, the value of that expertise evaporates.
All of their knowledge and experience make it difficult to see things from a new perspective.
This world of fog and possibilities is one of constant iteration. James Dyson said he made five and a half thousand prototypes to capture dust 0.3 Microns in size. He was told by experts that dust smaller than 20 microns could not be captured. If an expert tells you you can't do something change the statement in your mind to we don't know how to do that. It needs to be open-ended. It creates a feeling of possibility and hope. I'm going to repeat that. If an expert tells you you can't do something change the statement to we don't know how to do that.
W Edwards Deming was one of the people responsible for transitioning Japan's abysmal product reputation into the best in the world. During his career, he identified flaws in Western businesses' approach to management, manufacturing, and design. He wanted quality designed into the product from the start. He was sent to Japan to assist with their economic turnaround. This gave Deming a great opportunity to test his quality improvement ideas. Deming was doing things that the experts in the West didn't think were important. Japan eventually became associated with premium build quality. Think about brands like Toyota and Sony in the '90s. Eventually, he changed the minds of business owners in the West and how quality control is managed in implemented.
Experts have their knowledge base from the past up until the present. They don't have the expertise of the future. Their confidence and knowledge make it hard for them to let go of certain ideas and embrace new ones. Which is how it's supposed to be.
Before I discuss what you should do let's briefly go over a few other areas that seem helpful but aren't.
Consumers can't help you navigate this landscape. They have a hard time imagining what they would like in the future, let alone the clarity to communicate such ideas. There are too many unknowns. The Simpsons poked fun at this idea with Homer Simpson designing a car for the future. I'm not saying don't talk to them, but do not take their suggestions as something you need to incorporate. The goal of those conversations is to identify problems. Flip their solution into a problem statement for you to solve. When you are talking to them dig into their reasons for why that problem bothers them so much. Those reasons are valuable insights. It can give your team direction.
Market research can't help you either. It's relying on users and we already covered the reasons why you will get bad data from them. The Mini Cooper failed in market research and the company was told no one would buy it, but it became one of the best-selling cars in the world. The same with the Sony Walkman.
Do not design by committee. There's a lack of product vision when too many people are giving direction. A product without vision becomes bland or bloated with features. Make sure you have a single decision maker on the project who has a vision for it.
If you have an idea you can't shake, pursue it. Don't listen to experts that say it will never work or to consumers that say they aren't interested. If you know it improves someone's life or creates a new experience that will benefit the user go out into the unknown and figure it out.
What can you do?
Create your own data. Since there are no reference points and data out there, you have to design something and test it to start creating a data set.
Create a problem statement. A problem statement frames people's minds to start imagining the future. They become open to possibilities. It removes assumptions and doesn't hint at solutions. Start visualizing future possibilities to figure out the user experience. Storyboarding and low fidelity prototyping are perfect for this. It removes the distraction of aesthetics and visual quality. The focus becomes the interaction in the experience. The potential solutions will start to appear lifting the fog. User testing will bring clarity.
Create a condensed process. Let your gut and qualitative research guide you.
Find experts in other fields. Similar problems from analogous markets and their solutions can identify current mechanical or technological shortcuts for your design.
Identify one decision maker who is responsible for how the product evolves.
Give the consumers an exceptional experience. Let me be clear. This does not mean giving them everything they want but maintaining high expectations throughout the product development process.
Identify potential hurdles. Most likely you'll run into problems that traditional products won't have. Advertising, messaging, getting into retail, financial models, customer service, assembly/installation, etc... Work on the messaging and business model early develop and refine it alongside the product.
It's likely consumers won't instantly recognize what your product is if it looks different than what they expect. The Nest thermostat ran into that problem and Dyson's bladeless fans. Understand and accept that your customer needs a learning curve. The great thing about a unique product is the curve is short because it's recognized as different.
Get your first generation product out the door quickly. It will be great but it will have problems. Learn from it. Fix the issues that come up. Refine the product experience and the design. The early adopters will be your gold mine to get to Gen 2.
Remember experts don't exist for where you're going. It's ok, you can do it without them. You and your team have everything you need. An open mind and child-like naivety allows you to see things experts can't. You will become the experts. Create the data. Prototype quickly. Learn from your users. Adapt as you gain knowledge throughout the process.
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