Innovation is tricky. Failure rates are high—often in the 90% range. We have already learnt a great deal about more successful approaches from Amazon’s PR/FAQ and Curt Carlson’s NABC developed at SRI International.
Another interesting contribution comes from the 2016 book, Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice by Anthony Ulwick. I hadn’t paid too much attention to the “jobs-to-be-done” writing, after reading Christensen’s book, The Innovator’s Dilemma (2003), which waxed lyrical about the job-to-be-done by a McDonald’s milkshake. To me, as a term, “Job-To-Be-Done” is clunky and misses the thrill of making actual innovation happen. But on reflection I can see now that Ulwick’s book is interesting, particularly if you translate “job-to-be-done” as “function,” and start thinking about the components of innovation systematically.
