I was recently handed an article by a colleague that described the unique challenges faced by the many companies and foundations currently toiling away to develop portable, low cost stoves for impoverished countries. Here is a link to the original Economist article. This article points out several reasons why developing new products is hard, especially when there are cultural factors that come in to play.

In the case of these stoves, there are lots of differing requirements based on cultures such as cooking temps, fuel sources, etc. No one design will fit all user’s demands. This basic issue illustrates why product development, if done the right way, is not easy. You need to constantly question your assumptions, get in front of users, see how they react, how they ‘really’ use a product and adapt your thinking. I know that the whole “voice of the customer” idea is not new. It’s getting pounded in to the heads of every MBA student in the world as I type this post….but people still want to skip this step and just push things out in to the market….so it bears repeating….KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER!

This gets back to the heart of the process of developing new products and coming up with ‘innovative’ solutions. I recently attended an Innovation Round Table at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and heard a thought that has stuck with me. It went something like this:

“Innovation = creativity + implementation”

Most people leave out the “implementation” part and think that it’s just the fuzzy blue skies portion of the process that qualifies as innovation. This is another reason why ‘innovation’ is often just relegated to business book buzzword doom. True innovation is really in the nuts and bolts of implementing the ideas that come out of those creative actions and making them a reality. Perhaps this is why you need to show “reduction to practice” to obtain a patent on an invention and you can’t just write down “I think a flying car would be cool”.

Often times this implementation portion is an iterative process…you rarely get it completely right the first time. This stove development project is a great example of the iterations necessary to truly understand how your product will be used and therefore what your customer really wants out of a product intended to solve a certain problem. It takes time, patience, commitment, and most importantly the right culture in your organization to help support a concept along the way. Innovation is hard work…but when it happens, it’s a beautiful thing.