What should we be looking for when we are trying to bring innovation into the organisation?
In the Information Technology area, where the projects are now moving into a product mindset, the book can help raise the right questions about the overall approach, e.g. is it just a technology change and an IT delivery change (Spotify model), or are we really looking to build a customer-centric product mindset?
Book Review: “Competing Against Luck“
The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice
By Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, David S. Duncan
The book discusses how to build a customer-centric product mindset.
We often get caught up in building “shiny products” that give us satisfaction, and the innovations often fail to live their hype. The book discusses the focus area to give a chance to innovation (products or services) to succeed.
The main question that the authors raise is, “Do we know why some innovations thrive while others barely survive?“
The following are some excerpts and takeaways from the book.
Innovation: The “Whys” and the “Whats”
๐ง Identifying Gaps: Innovation is about understanding the deeper needs and jobs that customers are trying to accomplish through the new offerings.
โธ๏ธ Product Usage: We need to steer our focus from the launch of mere product features to the underlying reasons why customers use or hire a product or service.
๐ Shiny Stuff: Innovation is not always about the introduction of the shiniest features or the most cutting-edge technology.
โ๏ธ Customers’ Choices: Rather than focusing on the next big thing and the brilliance of technology or designs, the focus should be on understanding what prompts a customer to choose one product over another.
Authors discuss the concept of “jobs to be done”. The customers hire products and services to accomplish a job in their lives, driven by specific circumstances. The key to unlocking successful innovation is to understand these jobs deeply and create products that are not just technologically advanced but are fundamentally aligned with what customers need to achieve.
Finding Opportunities – The Need For Innovation
How to find the gaps in processes and identify innovation opportunities?
๐ Observe: It is important to have keen observation and interaction with the customers to understand the circumstances under which they use the existing product or service.
๐ฉ Personalisation: Innovation should not be about creating a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s about recognising diverse needs and responding to them. The product needs to adapt to meet specific jobs so that the customer feels it is tailor-made for them. The customer should feel that the service/product has been personalised for them.
๐ง Solution: Find out the route that they take while doing their job – why do they navigate away from the mainline and the standard stipulated route, and the reasons behind these can be the opportunities for innovation. The authors have referred to this as, “job hunting mindset”.
๐ซ Product Nature: The jobs aren’t just functional, but they encompass emotional and social dimensions too. In some cases, it gives them a sense of accomplishment, sometimes giving them a sense of togetherness for working as a team, or in other cases, it provides visibility to get them rewarded for the work they do, gaining appreciation from the people around.
๐ฃ๏ธ Stories: Build customer stories that help reveal the job of a product or a service. Do not expect customers to articulate their needs and their daily struggles. Understand the gap by talking to them and interpreting their needs to help build the end-to-end story, which will help identify the gaps to plug in innovation.
How to Apply Innovation
๐ต๐ผโโ๏ธ Journal: Adopting a detective mindset or the role of a journalist – this is to understand customer behaviours, struggles, and the circumstances in which they use your products
๐คท๐ปโโ๏ธ Trade-offs: It also needs to be recognised that it is not about attracting customers to use your products, but it is also about making them understand what they will have to let go of to make room for the new product
๐ Metrics: The innovation needs to ensure that it is sustainable, which can only be done if the organisation is built around a process-centric approach to serve customers’ needs, i.e. every interaction, decision, and communication aligns with delivering value to the customer. It is about creating a system where all parts work harmoniously to fulfil the customers’ needs. The internal metrics and KPIs should be “job-focused metrics“, and should not be based on how many features have been released to the customer.
๐ Agile: The product and the services should be flexible and agile to incorporate changes, after it is launched, as per customers’ needs, without compromising their quality. It is crucial not to lose sight of the customer’s desired experience.
Three Things to Avoid
๐ญ Vision: The original vision set before the development of the product or services is based on “passive data”; once it is launched, it needs to be measured against “active data”. However, the original vision should not be forgotten because of the availability of new metrics. Shifting the focus to another priority may compromise the initial discovery of the problem statement, impacting its final and longer-term outcome
๐ Drift: A Sudden increase in product lines and services to serve everyone can lead to a diffusion of efforts and a drift away from the core job
๐จ๐ปโโ๏ธ Unbiased Measure: It is a human tendency to analyse and report data that suits our theories and beliefs. However, the judgment should be completely unbiased and challenged to keep the products/services aligned with the customer’s job and outcomes.
Summary
Successful innovation hinges on an understanding of the job that solves customers’ problems. The products and services serve customers and should not be the sole focus.
The products and services should fill the gaps that the customers struggle with. They should also ensure that it is not just functional but also serves customers’ emotional and social needs.
Finally, the new product will replace the existing process, people or product, and hence we need to be empathetic towards the emotional bonding that the customer may have and take them through the journey to help them let it go.
What problems will these products try to solve? How do the products introduced fit into the overall customer journey? What are the different trade-offs that the end user will have to let go of? How can we put the right KPIs in place that measure the efficiency of the products by measuring the job they do for the customer? Are the products being built aligned with the overall vision, or can they possibly dilute the original vision?
The book can provide great insight to the person working in the innovation space or to a product manager.
Credit: Some of the excerpts have been adapted from Blinkist.
Bhavin Shukla 
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