A Q&A with Dr. Evans Baiya
What does innovation have to do with strategy?
Think of it this way: what does gasoline have to do with a car?
Cars come in different sizes, shapes, and types, but they all need energy to function. In business terms, your strategy is the car. So, what really powers strategy? What makes it effective, enjoyable, and actually deliver results? It’s when strategy is executed in a way that delivers the promise of the future.
For the car, you need gasoline—the power—to take you from point A to point B. Innovation is the power for your strategy—the gasoline—that allows you to go the places you’ve never been before.
While strategy defines the what that organizations want to achieve, innovation is what actually moves a strategy forward. Innovation powers the strategy to go where it needs to go, allows you to maximize the journey, and gets the results you are looking for.
You cannot have an effective strategy without innovation and you cannot have useful innovation without creating the structure that comes with strategy. You need both.
Should you always release an MVP (minimum viable product)?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say, yes! Everything should start as an MVP. Meaning, you have thought through the value of your product and your customers’ needs, and you are offering the minimum acceptable solution to that problem.
But you are waiting for the customer to improve it. Anything beyond the MVP should be customer-led, customer-developed, and customer-accepted.
So, should all of your solutions to market be MVP? Absolutely—to start with. We waste valuable resources trying to make products that customers don’t want. When we think we know better than our customers, we’ve made a mistake. Instead, take your MVP and seek customer feedback—because incremental improvements to the MVP are where we make real solutions with and for the customer.
How do you know the project you’re working on is still relevant?
One of the challenges I see often within organizations is a focus on activities rather than results. People start a project and only focus on getting that project done.
But sometimes you finish and, lo and behold, you start thinking about the actual results. Every activity should be measurable and evaluated throughout a project to allow for learning and maximizing its results. Otherwise, you may find yourself working on a project that is completely irrelevant by the time it’s done. Unfortunately, the road to dead-end projects is common in the corporate world.
How do you know the projects and activities you are working on are actually valuable?
Number one: Create measurable milestones with “go” and “no-go” positions. Don’t wait until everything is complete—evaluate what you’ve learned and how far you’ve gotten each step of the way. That way, if what you’ve learned changes the context, you can pivot.
Number two: Measure traction. Each activity should create momentum to necessitate the next action.
Number three: Every activity must have customer input both as part of measuring traction, and as improvement and validation of context. The context around your project may have changed, but the customer could still want your product or solution. Alternatively, the context hasn’t changed but the customer no longer wants it. You won’t know if you do not include the customer.
Number four: Evaluate how much and how fast you are learning. If you are not learning and you’re only executing, you may actually be working on a dead-end project.
The next time you are given a project, you should ask yourself if you have small enough reviewable milestones, if you have access to the customer, and if can you maximize the value of each of the activities you are executing by always being the most relevant in the context.
Header Photo by Peppershock Media.
