Testing an Innovative Idea Before you Act

Innovators create something different that makes an impact. But how do you rapidly assess whether an idea is "innovative" or a dud? Nine ways an innovator can increase their confidence in making the right decision, each of which takes no more than an hour to do.

1. Talk to a prospective customer to get their perspective. Remember, that is likely to be different from your perspective. And friends and family members can be prospective customers. Talking to a single potential customer might feel a bit random, but, hey... it's more than you have now.

2. Go to where prospective customers might hang out and watch them for an hour. Write down things that you didn't expect to see. Think about how that might influence your idea.

3. Research an analogy. Who did something similar? What can you find out about how well that worked from public sources? Remember, a failure doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, it just means you need to understand why the failure happened.

4. Talk to someone who you think has good innovation instincts but isn't involved in the day-to-day grind of your operations. Ask what that person would do. Think about people outside your industry who have proven to be successful innovators and share your idea.

5. Begin to network toward an expert. If you could talk to three people in the world about your concept, who would they be? Who in your network might be in their networks? People love to talk about their areas of expertise, so if you can get to them they typically offer a wealth of information.

6. Visualize it. What would the thing look like? Create a sketch or mockup to bring the idea to life. Consider a six-panel storyboard (like a cartoon) that describes how people find out about, obtain, and then use your product or service. Visualization sometimes helps you understand your idea more concretely. Even more importantly, it gives you something you can share with people to get their feedback.

7. Do a simply financial calculation. Not a super-complicated one. Just one with three or four variables that help you understand what conceivably would have to be true for the idea to make sense. This exercise can help you understand the economic potential and risk of the idea.

8. Conduct a broader assumption identification exercise. This is really nothing more than asking yourself "what would need to be true" for this idea to be viable. Which of those assumptions makes you worried? Can you address those concerns using any of the techniques here?

9. Spend an hour conducting a past pattern exercise. That is, look back at things you have done that have worked, and things that haven't worked. What separates them? For example, factors could be things like "every time I am skeptical it doesn't work" or "things that person X says are crazy are in fact crazy." Once you have the list, how the current idea stacks up?

These kinds of straightforward activities can provide deeper insight into opportunities, help you formulate more compelling ideas, and help make sure that an idea moves from the notepad to the market.