Many companies tie the success of
a brainstorming session to the number of ideas that are
generated. It is not uncommon to see 600 to 1000 ideas generated
in a seemingly successful session. But then reality sets in –
someone must try to determine which of these ideas address an
unmet customer need and which should be pursued. Searching
through the clutter of ideas can take months and may involve
guesswork unless the company knows what unmet needs the customer
has.
This is a very inefficient and ineffective approach to
generating ideas that address unmet customer needs. In the
outcome-driven paradigm, the approach is turned around. The goal
is to first identify all the unmet customer needs, and then
focus creativity on those unmet needs to systematically devise
valued and potentially breakthrough solutions.
This “focused-brainstorming” is unique in that the effort is
focused specifically and only on important and unsatisfied
needs. The goal of this effort is not to generate hundreds of
ideas – rather the goal is to devise one or two ideas for each
unmet need that will dramatically increase the customer’s level
of satisfaction along that dimension.
These focused brainstorming sessions can take many forms – from
a traditional session where many people brainstorm ideas in a
room – to web-based solutions where employees, customers,
suppliers and external experts submit their ideas on how to
address a specific unmet need. The advantage of this approach is
that companies are asking people to generate ideas around a
specific unmet need – and a solution that addresses the need is
known in advance to have great value. Individuals who submit
ideas can also be asked to evaluate their ideas across a number
of other dimensions, including the impact to product cost,
required development effort and technical risk – making is
simpler to identify the best solutions. Knowing the unmet needs
in advance of ideation obsoletes the traditional unfocused
brainstorming methods.
