How do you test and validate your innovation ideas or solutions before scaling or launching them?

?? In my view, defining assumptions is the cornerstone of innovation. It's about identifying what needs validation before scaling. ?? Key Assumptions Pinpoint critical uncertainties around your solution, market, and customer base to determine where to focus your validation efforts. ?? Prioritize for Impact Prioritizing assumptions based on potential impact and uncertainty helps streamline your validation process, saving time and resources. ??? Use Tools Leverage tools like Lean Canvas and Assumption Mapping to systematically organize and address assumptions, ensuring a structured approach. ?? Defining assumptions early lays the groundwork for effective validation, minimizing risks and enhancing decision-making.

In Africa, testing and validating medical technology innovations involves culturally adapted approaches. For instance, using mobile health apps like mPedigree to verify drug authenticity in Ghana demonstrates validation through technology adoption in local healthcare systems. Pilot testing portable diagnostics like the WISH-kit for maternal health in rural areas is crucial in Kenya. Collaboration with local health authorities, adapting to infrastructural limitations, and leveraging prevalent mobile technology for health data collection and patient feedback are essential before scaling or launching innovative solutions.

In my opinion, identifying and prioritising your key assumptions about viability, desirability and feasibility of your innovation is the key for success. From initial discovery to pilot development to subsequent scaling–?if you work in iterative sprints that continuously produce actionable insights that help you continuously increase the success of the solution, you really start increasing your chances towards successful innovation.

Continuous testing and user feedback drive iterative improvements to the prototype. The goal is to culminate in a comprehensive product, incorporating most final features, while concurrently formulating the marketing plan. Incorporate lessons learned from each stage and gate review to enhance subsequent projects. Foster a culture of continual learning and improvement. -Develop positioning and messaging strategies. -Create training materials. -Prepare operations and supply chain for product delivery through suitable distributors at the appropriate time.

Innovation can often benefits from testing assumptions efficiently, going beyond just building prototypes. I find it useful to use six dimensions to build the hypothesis, each with its unique and resource-efficient testing methods: - Target Audience: surveys or focus groups. - Problem to Solve: validate with pre-sales and smoke tests - Value Proposition: prototypes, pre-sales, smoke tests and surveys - Competitive Advantage: requires prototypes, product tests, or pre-sales to assess effectively. - Growth Strategy: growth tests needed to evaluate scalability and potential expansion. - Business Model: surveys, pre-sales, and product tests to confirm viability. This ensures exhaustive and resource-efficient validation for each dimension.

When designing experiments it is important to adopt lean principles and fail fast and cheap. I often see people get lost and invest way too much time (and money) at this phase. The emphasis should be on rapid and robust feedback e.g a few phone calls on an idea instead of a focus group, a quick picture instead of a shiny prototype. This is often the phase at which people feel most vulnerable as it can be scary putting ideas and concepts that are not fully formed into the world, it is however invaluable to ensure you are making things people want and need.

Quanto mais rápido e com menor investimento você puder projetar os seus experimentos, melhor. O maior risco aqui é você investir tempo demais ao projetar os seus experimentos e, por conta disso, acabar se apegando demais ao seu projeto. Ent?o caminhe com o projeto até o mínimo necessário para que você possa partir para as etapas seguintes. Mas n?o avance demais. Esteja disposto a descartar esses projetos iniciais se os próximos passos do processo de inova??o mostrarem que isso precisa ser feito.

It's important to build prototypes based on your experiment design, and not the other way around. Prototypes should be the cheapest and easiest way to test a given assumption. Some teams make the mistake of investing too much time and effort into high fidelity designs too early in the process, then wrap experiments around them. This is a fast track for confirmation bias and incremental thinking.

Given the high risk of early stage development, MVPs and prototypes sometimes make a huge difference in whether a partner may want to pursue specific inventions and IP. This can make or break a tech and de-risks the innovation for industry.

After developing your point of view statement and brainstorming, it's important to create prototypes to test and validate your ideas or solutions. Prototypes can be physical or virtual representations of your solution that you use to communicate, test, and learn from your customers or users. They help bridge the gap between idea and execution and should be created in the fastest, cheapest, yet most feasible way possible. This allows you to refine your concepts based on feedback quickly. Tools like the Prototype Canvas or the Prototyping Toolbox can help you select and create practical prototypes, making this stage crucial in innovation.

I have found that prototypes can be as simple as a Whatsapp or Facebook group coupled with a spreadsheet. In many cases is not necessary to design and develop a website or build an MVP to validate your hypotheses. Look for the simplest, cheapest way to start testing for your most critical assumptions before you dedicate resources to building a high fidelity prototype.

Artigo no EHandbook.com me fez repensar o "Minimum Viable Product" (MVP). O autor defende o "Minimum Viable Experience" (MVE): foco na experiência inicial do usuário! Diferen?a? MVP: funcionalidade básica. MVE: experiência encantadora desde o primeiro contato. Reflex?o: Mercado competitivo, expectativas altas: primeira impress?o é crucial! Pessoas buscam solu??es e experiências memoráveis. MVE bem elaborado: diferencial para fidelizar clientes e impulsionar o sucesso do produto. Experiência acima de tudo!

Engaging with customers/users should be done throughout the innovation process. Validating assumptions may include more qualitative and open ended interviews ("tell me about the last time you..."). Prototype feedback could include questions around usage, needs, desired features etc...

Na minha experiência, uma boa prática é utilizar guias de entrevistas bem estruturados para conduzir conversas com clientes de forma imparcial e empática. Isso ajuda a obter insights valiosos sobre suas necessidades e preferências, facilitando a valida??o eficaz das suas ideias de inova??o.

Estudar as necessidades, expectativas e desejos dos diversos públicos envolvidos com seu projeto é fundamental para: - Garantir que você está criando algo que realmente tem valor e relevancia. - Identificar falhas e oportunidades de aprimoramento desde o início. - Aumentar as chances de aceita??o e sucesso do produto ou servi?o. A pesquisa com stakeholders pode ser feita de diversas formas: entrevistas, questionários, grupos focais, cocria??o... O importante é encontrar a metodologia mais adequada ao seu público e objetivos. Lembre-se: a colabora??o e o diálogo s?o essenciais para uma valida??o rica e eficaz. Ou?a com aten??o as vozes dos seus stakeholders e use seus insights para guiar o desenvolvimento da sua inova??o.

I find it very helpful to visually organize the data in either physical or digital boards to help better connect the dots and gather insights. However, I find that what is most important, besides finding the appropriate tools to organize and analyze these data, is to stay objective and measure all results against your initial hypothesis. Be honest with yourself - do not try to make the data fit your hypotheses, or to make excuses and exemptions. Instead, if it has not gone the way you expected, focus on what you can learn from the data and if there are changes that can be done to the prototype to provide a better test.

Com a análise de dados, você pode: - Identificar tendências e padr?es de comportamento do seu público-alvo. - Avaliar a efetividade de suas a??es de marketing e comunica??o. - Medir o impacto da sua inova??o no mercado. - Tomar decis?es mais assertivas e baseadas em fatos. Exemplos de como usar a análise de dados: - Analisar as métricas do seu site ou aplicativo para entender o que os usuários est?o buscando. - Realizar pesquisas de mercado online para coletar dados sobre as necessidades e preferências do seu público. - Monitorar as redes sociais para identificar o que as pessoas est?o falando sobre sua marca e seu produto. - Utilizar ferramentas de análise de dados para segmentar seu público e criar campanhas direcionadas.

You should iterate and pivot the product after every stage of testing. Qual sessions conducted - pivot and improve Quant done - pivot and improve Smokescreen - pivot and improve. In that way the product is continuously iterated and improved based on audience insight.

Iterate on your innovation ideas based on the insights gained from testing and validation activities. Continuously refine your concepts, prototypes, and solutions to address emerging needs and feedback.

Testing and validating innovation ideas should be well backed into the overall cycle and not as an one-off effort. Below are a few best practices that successful firms have adopted to test, validate, and learn forward with Innovation ideas. 1. Early involvement of customer through interviews and validating the MLP design prototypes 2. Customer feedback gained through UAT 3. Controlled launch through A/B testing in production

Conduct a Freedom to Operate (FTO) search before scaling or launching. This search helps determine if your innovation ideas infringe on existing patents (third party IP rights), thus avoiding legal liabilities. It is crucial to perform an FTO search when you have defined the core features of your idea and before market introduction. This ensures you can develop, make, and market your innovation with a clear understanding of potential legal risks, allowing you to proceed confidently and mitigate the risk of infringement claims.

Uma grande referência para esse tema é o livro "Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days", que descreve o método utilizado pela Google Ventures para testar novas ideias.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Foster collaboration between different teams and disciplines throughout the validation process to leverage diverse expertise and perspectives. Market Validation: Validate your innovation ideas not only with potential users but also with key stakeholders and industry experts to gauge market viability and potential adoption. Risk Management: Identify and mitigate risks associated with your innovation ideas early in the validation process to avoid costly setbacks later on.