Innovation Assessment

A VP of product who describes herself as highly creative and generates ideas constantly. Her team is recognized for creative output but struggles to ship. The DFV Venn is useful here because her ideas typically land in Desirable territory but fail on Feasibility or Viability - she hasn't connected creative volume with the conditions that make an idea innovate-able.

Frame the Venn as a diagnostic, not a critique of her ideas. 'We're going to map your recent ideas against three lenses - does the market want it, can you build it, does it work as a business? The interesting question isn't which ideas score well, it's where in the Venn most of your ideas land.' The resistance here is pride: she's built her identity on creativity. Don't contest that. 'This isn't about whether ideas are good - it's about which conditions are present when good ideas actually ship.'

Watch where she places recent ideas on the Venn. If most cluster in Desirable only, she's generating user-validated ideas that haven't been tested against delivery or business model. If she resists placing anything in the Venn because 'it's too early to know,' she may be protecting ideas from the friction of practical evaluation. Also watch whether she can name the feasibility or viability constraints at all - clients who live in Desirable often haven't developed the muscle for the other two lenses.

Start with one idea from Desirable only. 'What would need to be true for this to also land in Feasible? And in Viable?' Let her work through it. Then: 'What's your current team's capacity to evaluate the Feasible dimension before you spend time on ideas?' The question that creates movement: 'If you applied the full Venn before pitching an idea, what would change about how you generate them and which ones you pursue?'

A middle manager who was given an 'innovation initiative' to lead and has been running it for four months. He describes his work as innovative but when examined, all deliverables are improvements to existing processes - faster, cheaper, simpler versions of what already exists. He hasn't attempted anything that doesn't already exist in some form. The 3-step innovative thinking model is useful for surfacing the difference.

Frame the exercise as a category check. 'There's a difference between improvement and innovation - improvement makes something better, innovation makes something different. The thinking model we're working with today looks at both. Before we map your initiative, let's be clear about which category it's targeting.' The resistance here is label attachment: 'innovation' has organizational currency and he's been given credit for it. Challenging the category feels like undermining the initiative. Name it carefully: 'This isn't about whether the work is valuable - it's about whether you're building the kind of innovation the organization is expecting.'

Watch how he responds to Step 1 of the model - defining the problem worth solving. Clients doing improvement often define problems in terms of current processes ('our approval workflow takes too long') rather than unmet needs ('decision-makers don't have the information they need when they need it'). The problem definition predicts whether the solution will be incremental or genuinely new. Also watch whether Step 3 (generating novel approaches) produces ideas that exist nowhere in the organization.

Start with Step 1. 'Read me the problem statement. Is this a problem with how something works, or a problem with what exists?' Then move to Step 3: 'Of the approaches here, which ones don't exist in any form anywhere in the company right now?' The question that creates movement: 'If you were starting from scratch with none of the current systems in place, what would you build - and is that what you're building now?'

A senior individual contributor who generates original ideas, gets positive responses when she shares them, and never follows through. Her ideas die in the ideation stage. She attributes this to 'not having time' but when examined, the real gap is that she has no consistent method for deciding which ideas are worth pursuing and how to take the first step after an idea is formed.

Frame Step 3 of the model as the translational work she's been skipping. 'You're good at generating ideas and you get validation on them. The model we're working with adds a step that you may not be doing: deciding which approach to pursue and what that approach requires to move from idea to action.' The resistance here is usually idea identity: she gets social reward from sharing ideas and hasn't felt the cost of non-execution. Name the pattern without judgment: 'The gap between idea and follow-through is a specific skill, not a character flaw.'

Watch whether she can complete Step 3 with a single preferred approach rather than generating more ideas. Clients who are stuck in ideation often respond to 'choose one approach' by generating three more. If she produces additional ideas where the model asks for a decision, she's in a familiar pattern. Also watch whether she can name concrete first actions - 'I'd explore it' is not an action. 'I'd send a proposal to my manager by Friday' is.

Start with Step 3. 'Of all the approaches you've listed, which one are you choosing?' Push for a single answer. Then: 'What's the first physical action that moves this from idea to in-motion?' If she returns to ideation instead of naming an action: 'We're past the idea stage now. What do you do this week?' The question that creates movement: 'What's the smallest version of this you could test in the next two weeks, and what would you need from me to commit to that test?'