Balanced Breakthrough

What it is

A simple Venn diagram of three circles representing the three key questions to ask of any potential innovation: Is it Desirable by users? Is it Viable financially? And is it Feasible from a technical and operational perspective?

When to use

Whenever you are developing an innovation of any kind—not just market offerings but also internal process innovations, such as a different approach to financial reporting or new talent policies around working from home. 

When not to use

When you’re doing only an incremental improvement on an existing offering or process, it’s probably not worth the bother. 

Tradecraft tips

The ubiquity of the model is due in part to its being scalable to context. In other words, you can use it for “blue sky” ideation of new business possibilities or to stress-test the robustness of an existing market offer in great detail—or anywhere in between. The beauty of the model is that it forces systemic thinking about all key aspects of a market offering at the level of resolution appropriate to stage of development.

For example, the Bay Area financial tech platform Intuit uses a version of this in its innovation process. The three questions it always poses: Are we solving a real customer problem? Are we uniquely equipped to do so (alone or in partnership with others)? And, can we make money doing so?

Source

The origin of this decades-old simple framework is obscure and hotly debated. You can find all kinds of expressions of this online, though none have a strong claim to definitive status. 

Download

To immediately download this Framework please provide your name and email below.