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Still today in our industry, if you go to a trade show, you walk around and you will find a lot of technology for which there is not problem that exists,” he says. “It’s like, he look at this, we’ve got a great solution and there is no problem to solve here”. - Micheal Dell
Innovation is sometimes boxed into generating ideas or dreaming up concepts and thinking about solutions. Designers who are more like artists, tend to focus on the _creation _aspect of their work. That is where the fun is. However, in a lot of cases that is the not enough.
The focus has to be on creating value. In terms of creation of value first we have to focus on who are we creating for and what is value according to them. The first step is what I would call understanding value and answering the questions “who is the customer? and what does the customer value?”. If we cannot answer these questions then there is not point in what we are creating. Atleast there is no business logic to it. These questions provide the grounding to the work of creation. It provides a logical constraint and pushes creativity towards solving a real need.
Next time you are tempted to implement an idea or go crazy over a solution, think about whether there is a real need to solve.