Exploitation vs Exploration und der JTBD

The innovation process that implements the Jobs-to-be-Done perspective in a company is called Outcome-Driven Innovation®. It begins with the identification of outcomes customers use to measure success when trying to get their job done. Since the desired outcomes refer to the Job-to-be-Done they are stable over time and free from solutions or product features. The desired outcomes are then quantified through a large-scale survey to identify the level of satisfaction and importance for each single outcome. This reveals the real need structure of a market and identifies opportunities for innovation. Only at the end of the Outcome-Driven Innovation process® there’s a process step called “strategic validation” where the identified needs are matched with existing solutions, the innovation strategy and the companies’ capabilities. Then a company has to decide if the innovation opportunity will be addressed by new product or service features, by new products and/or services or if a completely new delivery platform has to be developed.

When the time comes to transfer the strategy into concrete concepts for new features, products/services or delivery platforms it often makes sense to involve techniques and methods that trigger innovation ideas with a high innovation level. Like medical technology company B.Braun did when innovating its venous catheters. After conducting the Outcome-Driven Innovation Process® the project team knew exactly the most underserved needs of nurses and physicians when getting the job of “administering medication by a venous access” done. 

Out of these insights and aligned with their general innovation strategy they identified five strategic value themes an innovation should target. To trigger innovativeness in its ideation and concept development workshops, B.Braun invited lead users from medical industry but also from completely different industries (= analogue Lead users) like makeup-artists to help them finding better solutions. The analogue lead users faced similar problems in a different context and already had developed solutions that fertilized B.Braun’s ideation session. To look at the same problem from a different context situation is a very good method to help the development team thinking out of defined patterns and constraints. In this case, selected underserved customer needs in the defined value themes provided the guidance to identify the analogue lead users.

Depending on the nature of the innovation challenge, Outcome-Driven Innovation® can easily incorporate innovation methods and techniques to increase the explorative aspect of innovation, like lead user methodology, design thinking or business model canvas. But in all these cases, ODI is the higher-level process and defines the targets and specifications. Putting the Job-to-be-Done in the center of the innovation process makes innovation a controllable business process with an 86% success rate – even for innovation initiatives with a higher degree of innovation.