How companies find new innovation opportunities

Companies do not find innovation opportunities in offsites. They find them in the work they already touch: tickets, scrap, unpaid favors, and the step before or after what they invoice.

Inside: the constraint you are ashamed of

The month-end spreadsheet. The mill that waits on inspection. The founder who is still the integration. If you are hiding it from customers, it is an opportunity or a liability. Either way it wants a name.

Outside: the job they hired you for, plus the next one

A shop paid to cut may be paid to report. A studio paid to launch a site may be paid to take the booking. Adjacent jobs are not “pivot.” They are the next sentence of the same work.

Skip the adjacent industry fantasy

Entering a market you do not stand in is how slide decks die. Find the opportunity in a job you already see. Then decide if it is a process change, a product, or a “no.”

How to tell if this is a real job

“How companies find new innovation opportunities” only matters if someone already does the work and it hurts. Write the job in one line. Write who does it on a Tuesday. Write what they do when the new thing is down. If the answer is “we wait,” you have a toy. If the answer is “we lose a day,” you have a product problem.

Prototype in the open, production on a domain you own

A prototype is a test you can fail. Production is a URL, a login, a bill, and a person who can turn it off. Do not mix them. Do not call a deck a prototype. Do not call a prototype a company.

Weekly increments you can click. Acceptance is a non-engineer completing the job. You own the repo on final payment. SINLE Technologies LLC bills in USD against a written scope.

What we decline

A brochure with a new logo. A chatbot with no job. “The Uber of” a market you do not serve. If the next step is a system a company can run — with a human lock on money and sends — write.

The steps — do these in order

1. 01

   List the last twenty support tickets or traveler notes

   Patterns beat workshops.

2. 02

   List work you do for free because the product is incomplete

   That unpaid work is a product line or a hole.

3. 03

   Look one step upstream and one step down

   If you cut parts, the next job is inspection or assembly. That is often the real product.

Keep reading

• Opportunities

  How to identify opportunities for innovation

  Look for waits, rework, and jobs only one person can do. Opportunity is a constraint with a user, not a whiteboard full of ideas.

• Innovation strategy

  How to build an innovation strategy

  A strategy is what you will not fund. Pick a job family, a time box, and a kill rule — not a lab with a slogan.

• Small companies

  How small companies can innovate

  You already have the constraint. You lack spare people. Innovate in the job that hurts this month, with tests that fit in a week.