Real Understanding of the Business

When people with a real understanding of the business, really understand the customer.

An article published in the PDMA Vision Magazine (March 08) reports the results of a study undertaken by Dr Robert G Cooper and Dr Scott Edgett to identify the best methods for creating ideas.

The study concluded that the most popular, yet least effective method was Internal Idea Capture - using the people inside a company to generate ideas. This was not because management and staff don’t understand the business, but because they are influenced and affected by internal politics, corporate beliefs and their own preconceptions.

Finding the ideas creation ‘sweet spot’

The study found the most effective ideation methods were based on Voice of the Customer (VOC), proof that there is no substitute for really understanding your customer when it comes to generating the right ideas.

Getting VOC right is not that easy. It takes lots of time, can be very expensive and the right people need to be involved throughout every step. Conducting the quick fix VOC - where a research company does the hard graft, with marketing people simply reading the research findings, or listening to the taped session - is lethal.

Equally dangerous is when a special group of customers are given the job of developing ideas. You can’t ask customers to make your decisions for you. They simply don’t understand or appreciate the commercial situation or technical limitations of your business.

In my experience the ideas creation sweet spot is where the internal knowledge of the business meets the external voice of the customer.