The innovation sweet spot is achieving the perfect combination of innovation brilliance. Alignment between the viability, desirability, feasibility and integrity.
- Desirability (Human) – the latent demand for this product or service. Do people really want it and will it add value
- Viability (Business) – can you deliver the product or service and can it scale to meet projected demand. Is the business model commercially viable and sustainable.
- Feasibility (Technology) – captures the technical debility as well as the technical and operational risk associated with building the product or solution.
- Integrity (Impact) – this could be summed as the point of difference, it captures contribution that this product or service provides to more broadly to its community.
Don’t mix up the criteria – by understanding each of the criteria of the opportunity you can understand its desirability, do-ability, and feasibility. The integrity or impact on the community may outweighed by short term demand but in time this is likely to not be sustainable. Shahabazi makes the point that bottled water is a great example of a product that meets 3 of the four criteria (which saw huge demand) but the pollution impact of water bottles has failed to meet the integrity aspect and such communities are looking for alternatives.
Key Takeaways
- finding the sweet spot requires you to measure and weight each of the four criteria.
- You need desirability, viability and feasibility to launch any innovation. You need Integrity to sustain and align with intention and priorities of the community you are operating in.
Synopsis of an article from The Board of Innovation How to hit the innovation sweet spot and why it’s not all that straight forward By Kevin Shahbazi https://www.boardofinnovation.com/blog/how-to-hit-the-innovation-sweet-spot/