If Jobs-to-be-Done is the theory, then Outcome-Driven Innovation is the practice.

When it comes to creating an effective product innovation process, cobbling together a hodgepodge of incompatible practices just doesn’t work. That’s why we’ve  spent the last 25 years at Strategyn creating Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI), a data-driven, customer-centric strategy and innovation process that transforms jobs-to-be-done theory into practice.

Outcome-Driven Innovation is an innovation process built around the theory that people buy products and services to get jobs done. This proprietary process was developed by Strategyn CEO and founder Tony Ulwick in 1991 and has been tested and refined through its use in hundreds of new product and service innovation initiatives in Fortune 1000 companies. ODI is unique in that the process does not begin with an idea. Rather, it begins with identifying all the customers’ needs in an attractive market and then finding solutions to address those needs that are unmet. By studying the job the customer is trying to get done, companies garner insight into literally all the customer’s needs in advance of idea generation, including the needs that others often call latent or unarticulated. Companies using ODI are able to pinpoint exactly what unmet needs to focus on and direct the creativity of employees and others to find workable solutions. Knowing precisely what needs to address takes the guesswork out of the innovation process, making it possible to obtain a much higher success rate.

ODI is effective because it starts with a deep understanding of the job the customer is trying to get done and the metrics they use to evaluate competing product and service offerings. These metrics, a special type of need statement we call desired outcomes, form the basis for our innovation process. By knowing how customers measure value, companies are able to align the actions of marketing, development, and R&D with these metrics and systematically create customer value.