Opportunity Identification Process
In several previous Posts I have attempted to set the foundation level arguments that lead up to the 9 Step Opportunity Identification Process. A brief recap of those previous posts would be beneficial at this point with a short discussion for their relevance.
You may go to the original posts to get a more detailed argument leading up to the conclusions.
Post 1: Lessons from Nature: Time to Be Wasteful:
Nature is not concerned about efficiency, because it has to be effective for a very long time and ride the evolutionary changes. It proliferates combinations that seem wasteful, on surface, but also provides a 1 in a million chance that the one innovative combination will actually advance the species. It accepts a high “failure” rate, and the extinction of a dominant species but continues to go for that one chance.
In a brilliant design even the waste ends up not being a waste after all but provides sustenance to the existing species.
Post 2: Generate Good Ideas: The Worst Thing You Can Do
A session for generating “Good Ideas”, contrary to expectations, will generate, at best, more-of-the-same ideas. Not what you need to solve “sticky” problems.
Generating seminal Ideas is a two step process. In Step 1: We generate lots of ideas without analysis or comments. Quantity rules. and Step 2: After generating a lot of ideas, set aside the ones that are not opportunities for you now. After discarding, through this screen, you have a mother load of “Key” ideas that are likely to contain a higher quality solution to the problem (or an opportunity) .
It may seem inefficient but it is a more effective method of solving knotty problems.
Posts 3–6: 4 Part Series on Problem Solving Methods.
The series of 4 Posts describe a variety of problem solving methods using various Ideation disciplines and detailed steps of accomplishing that. Exemplars and various techniques are also provided.
The purpose is consistent with the need to generate a large quantity of Ideas.
Post 3: Help: How do I get out of this Mess?
Variety of ways of tackling problems:
1. Rational Methods ( Logical, Left Brained),
2. Intuitive Methods (Creative, Right Brained), and
3. Hybrid Methods (Rational+ Intuitive, Whole Brained)
Post 4: Scientific Method: A Saner Way to Go?
Rational Methods: derivatives of the Scientific Method with Exemplar and Various Processes.
- Recognize a need
- Define the Problem
- Develop a solution, to test
- Develop a method to test viability of solution.
- Apply the methodology.
- Compare the results with the expected results
- Summarize the findings
Post 5: Off the Wall Solutions:
Intuitive Methods: Derivative of the Creative process with Exemplar and Various Processes.
- Problem Description
- Incubation
- Illumination
- Verification
Post 6: You Have a Brain, For Heaven’s Sake Use All of It:
Hybrid Method: with Exemplar and Various Processes.
- Recognize a Need.
- Define a Problem
- Develop an Initial Solution
- Divergent Thinking
- Convergent Thinking
- Develop Methods of Testing these “Novel” Alternatives.
- Apply methods and Test Feasibility.
- Select the Best Alternative.
Post 7: Ideas are Dime a Dozen, Opportunities are Priceless
After you generate a large quantity of ideas, how do you search for the ones that may be an opportunity. It is like finding a needle in the haystack. The process can become so cumbersome that it compromises the process.
A simple screening question: Is this Idea an Opportunity for me (us) today (now)? without any analysis cuts the list down efficiently to an enriched list of Key Ideas.
Post 8: 5 Different Responses in an Era of Hyper-Change: Only One Path Forward:
Hyper-change of today and in the near future has changed the business situation. The problems that leaders were used to tackling are themselves changing. The prior solutions, and thus their experience in solving them, are getting extinct. At the same time entrepreneurship is exploding and prospering in this climate.
The climate today can be considered hostile to status quo and conducive to disruptive change akin to the “event” observed in Nature that wiped out dominant species.
Of the several common responses to change, only the entrepreneurial response is befitting in the conditions of hyper-change. The entrepreneurial process provides the dynamic equilibrium to negotiate and prosper in hyper-change.
Post 9: Innovation Process: Ideas to Opportunity
Bureaucracy and Efficiency are two progeny of the same parent -Process. It is the intention and rationale of the Process that separates the bureaucratic from the efficient.
are shy of a process and prefer to wing it, what we learn from the successes in the Entrepreneurial community is a Step-by-step process for innovation. We can refine it for more for entrepreneurial success, but also adapt it for launching ideas to fit in with the corporate Gating processes.
This process can be used by a Large company, A Division or a New Venture, that has been successful in planting its roots.
Design of the Opportunity Identification Process
Innovative combinations are being generated by entrepreneurs. They search for ideas from anywhere. This process is open and understood and is now being replicated. Since, more-of-the-same-ideas has no future for them, against well endowed predators, they look for the disruptive ideas that are out of the main stream.
Even with low odds, like Nature, they don’t stop with the high failure rate, and keep trying again and again for that one chance to develop that innovative combination.
The process proposes that we learn to generate a large quantity of ideas, without regards to their quality, using a variety of problem solving tools and idea generation methods .
Some of these ideas will be absurd, many simply incremental- more of the same, but the effort is to find that 1 in a million chance to find the killer idea for prosperity with changing circumstances. Meanwhile, the incremental ideas will provide sustenance to our present enterprise.
Opportunity Identification Process Steps.
It is an effective tool to steer numerous ideas from a broad range of perspectives before we consider them worthy of being an opportunity to be taken forward.
The process uses a series of self assessment questions, called screens or cuts to enrich a series of ideas to increasingly high-potential opportunities. If the idea “fails” to pass the screen it is set aside from further consideration. It is not discarded because, as we will see later, it may have a bearing on another idea that is moving forward.
Opportunity Identification process enables groups or individuals to screen a large volume of ideas quickly and methodically.
The process identifies high-potential ideas to rise by allowing weak ideas to fail quickly and inexpensively, on paper instead of in the lab or the real world.
It also strengthens emerging concepts and provides a method to insert a flow of other ideas, that are triggered by the review, back into the process.
The 9 steps in the Ideas to Potential Opportunity are:
- Generate a Large Quantity of Raw Ideas
- Question: Is it an Opportunity?
- Preliminary Screen: How Good is This Idea?
- Other Screen: Does It Fit?
- Second Cut: Internal Issues
- Third Cut: External Issues
- Final Cut: Enhancing the Idea
- Reporting: Preparing the Idea for Gating Process
- The Result: A Potential New Opportunity
I will describe each element in detail in the next series of Posts. Meanwhile your suggestions, Questions and Comments are invited.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Dr. Rajiv Tandon is an Entrepreneur, Educator and Mentor. He facilitates peer groups for CEOs of fast-growing companies in Minnesota. To learn more, sign up to get the email newsletter.
