MEET THE SPEAKER

Tony Ulwick

Tony is the pioneer of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory, the inventor of the Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI) process, and the founder of strategy and innovation consulting firm Strategyn. Tony has applied his ODI process at some of the world’s leading companies and across nearly all industries to inform breakthrough innovations—achieving a success rate that is 5 times better than the industry average. 

Philip Kotler calls Tony “the Deming of innovation” and credits him with bringing predictability to innovation. Published in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review, Tony is also the author of best sellers What Customers Want and JOBS TO BE DONE: Theory to Practice.

Inspired by Failure

Tony Ulwick’s early career saw a major setback when the IBM PCjr, a project he dedicated 18 months to, failed in the market. This experience drove him to develop a method to predict product success by identifying customer metrics early in the planning process.

Breakthrough and Validation

Through years of exploring tools like Six Sigma and conjoint analysis, Tony had a breakthrough in 1990: studying the customer’s process rather than the product itself. This led to the creation of Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI). His method was validated when Cordis Corporation used it to launch 19 successful products, dramatically increasing market share.

Impact and Vision

Tony’s refined approach has delivered results for companies like Motorola and Medtronic, leading to the establishment of Strategyn and the popularization of ODI. Today, Tony continues to help companies innovate, with a vision to make ODI the global standard in innovation.

For more information about Tony and Strategyn, visit www.strategyn.com

More on Jobs-to-Be-Done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et4H4Ty1qhQ

Session
Aligning for Innovation Success: An Innovation Process for Predictable Outcomes

Despite significant investments in innovation, many organizations find their initiatives over budget, overdue, and under-delivering.

The root cause?

A lack of alignment and confidence in a common direction. This presentation delves into the organizational challenges that impede innovation success and proposes a unified innovation process as the solution.

Objectives:

  • Examine the consequences of misalignment and lack of a common innovation direction within organizations.
  • Highlight the importance of a unified innovation process that provides a common language and direction for product teams.
  • Showcase how a well-defined process can foster a customer-centric culture, streamline value creation, and deliver predictable, impactful innovation outcomes.

Findings

Our research reveals that organizations often face innovation challenges due to:

  • The use of incompatible innovation methods that lead to strategic misdirection.
  • Cross-functional misalignment and disagreement on value creation for customers.
  • Operational silos, turf wars, and decision-making driven by opinion rather than data.

Conversely, we found that a unified innovation process can:

  • Equip product teams with a common innovation vocabulary, guiding principles, and strategic direction.
  • Ensure that innovation efforts are customer-centric, data-driven, and aligned across functions.
  • Deliver predictable, impactful results by validating market-winning solutions before development commences.

Innovation success hinges not just on the act of innovating but on doing so with a unified, strategic process that aligns the organization.

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MEET

Teresa Jurgens-Kowal
NPSolutions

New Product Development author, speaker, trainer, and founder of Global NP Solutions, which helps individuals and organizations learn, adopt, transform, and sustain innovation. Previously, she worked in R&D, process technology development, and as an internal innovation expert at ExxonMobil Chemical Company.