Module 10•Unit 1 of 7•12 min

Needfinding, DDI & ODI

The first family of methods is about discovering opportunities - finding the real needs worth innovating around. Three related methods lead here, each suited to a different kind of need. Getting the discovery right matters enormously: solve the wrong problem beautifully and you have still failed.

Needfinding

Ongoing observation of people to uncover their real, often unspoken needs. Used continuously to feed the Horizon 1 pipeline with opportunities around unmet needs.

DDI - Discovery-Driven Innovation

Used as needed to feed the Horizon 2 and 3 pipelines with opportunities around unmet and unarticulated needs - the deeper, future-facing needs customers can't yet name.

ODI - Outcome-Driven Innovation

Used as needed to uncover underserved needs - measuring the outcomes customers want and where they are poorly served, revealing opportunities for incremental or breakthrough innovation.

A powerful idea underlying ODI is that customers "hire" products to get a job done. As the saying goes, people don't want a quarter-inch drill - they want a quarter-inch hole. Focusing on the job and the desired outcome, rather than the product, is what reveals real, measurable opportunity.

Notice how these map to the horizons: Needfinding runs always, feeding H1; DDI and ODI are deployed as needed to feed the more future-facing H2 and H3 pipelines. Discovery is not a one-off - it is a continuous supply chain of opportunities.

Discuss

How does your organisation actually discover opportunities - by asking customers what they want, or by observing real needs and desired outcomes? Which needs (unmet, unarticulated, underserved) are you best and worst at finding?

Try this at work this week

Pick one customer and write down the job they are really trying to get done (not the product they use). Then list the outcomes they'd measure success by. That reframing is the seed of outcome-driven opportunity.

Sources

Ulwick, A., Jobs to Be Done: Theory to Practice, 2016 (Outcome-Driven Innovation).
McGrath, R. & MacMillan, I., Discovery-Driven Growth, 2009 (DDI).
Patnaik, D. & Becker, R., "Needfinding: The Why and How of Uncovering People's Needs", 1999.

Methods of Innovation

Design Thinking & HCD