Innovation Audit: Workbook for Reinventing Your Product Offering in 10 Ways
When legendary design thinking firm Doblin released the 10 Types of Innovation Framework, they challenged product teams to think less about new features (“the easiest thing to copy”) and more about their overall experience and go-to-market strategy.
As well-funded new contenders want to race to copy your features with more modern tech, sexier logos, hungrier bellies, and fresh thinking — a Product Offering Audit, with an innovation lens, is needed as you go into the New Year.
If you are already listening to customers to building the right features, then now is the time to think bigger about how you make leaps in market share or deepen your strategic moat.
Side Note: Want a masterclass in the 10 Types of Innovation Framework before jumping in? See Larry Keeley’s 2019 breakdown at Better By Design’s CEO Summit.
How to Start an Audit?
Complete each step of this Innovation Audit Workbook by yourself or with your leadership team.
Step 1: Outline Customer Basic Expectations and/or Industry Standards
Your customer basic expectations are not the expectations of you, but rather the industry standards that are table stakes for any firm in your category. Basic customer service, your product functioning 24/7, or goods showing up on time are NOT differentiators, but rather the price you need to pay to be considered alive. Based on your industry and operational areas, capture the basics. If you have gaps on the basics, capture those gaps in Step 3.
Step 2: Outline Your Unique Delighters or Differentiators
You are in the game for a reason, you are doing something right, and customers are paying you for it. Outline what you win deals on today, how you differentiate yourself against competitors today or bring delight to your customers in your product offering at the present moment.
Step 3: Your Known Detractors/Gaps
It’s real, Rome was not built in a day. You have holes in your product offering experience that are not meeting basic expectations with customers. Maybe your customer support is slow or maybe your APIs suck — you know your holes, so take time to outline the gaps that also need to be fixed, instead of digging deeper, and maybe those will serve as places that you can also 10x innovate.
Step 4: Notes on Competition
Your head is up and you know who is coming up behind you or who is in front of you — what are they doing unique that your leadership team should be learning from to bring into your innovation strategy consideration?
Step 5: Future State
The fun part! The Doblin team wants to help you with providing tactics that they know for challenging the status quo of your product offering strategy. Evaluate these tactics, apply some originality and creativity, and then set your course for staying relevant and winning the long-play.
Side Note:
Once you identify the Future State, don’t let these gems sit on the shelf. Rather, be intentional and test the concepts in a focused manner following these steps:
- Create a focused team that has the bandwidth to iterate to the concepts to market (or the wastebasket)
- Give the team empowerment (and funding) to build lean test balloons to test with real potential customers
- Isolate the team against internal laggards or processes that will drag them down (#NoHaters)
- Set a date to evaluate the objective data the team will present on customer discovery and validation for a preserve or pivot decision
Remember, if you are fat and happy with the status quo, then don’t be surprised when someone hungrier and more creative starts eating your lunch with offerings that are more modern, novel, and effective. You can do this!
