Near-Far-Sweet

Let's build up on the previous post!

Learning Objectives:

• Define the near-far-sweet model
• Apply tools to change the feasibility of an innovation idea

Consider the two right quadrants in the impact-difficulty matrix that promise high impact: the High ROI and Strategic quadrants.

It may be tempting to prioritize concepts in the High ROI quadrant, since they provide maximum impact with a relatively low amount of effort. However, the more challenging concepts in the upper-right (Strategic) quadrant may have significant long-term strategic value, despite their difficulty. Ultimately, the one you choose to prioritize will depend on your particular context and strategic plan. Regardless, it is important to consider a variety of concepts with both short and long-term impacts.

It may also be possible to move concepts from the upper-right (Strategic) to the lower-right (High ROI) using ideation tools.

After creating the impact-difficulty matrix, you will understand which concepts are long-term strategic ones and which are quick wins. Quick wins may be attractive and worthwhile solutions. However, we always hope to find concepts in the lower right quadrant—the high-ROI solutions that have the maximum impact with the lowest difficulty to implement.

This is when we ask: if your concepts aren’t in this quadrant, what can you do about it? We will now introduce another principle from Systematic Inventive Thinking, or SIT. The principle is called near-far-sweet.

Essentially, some concepts will be very near the existing situation. These are the concepts in the lower left of the impact-difficulty matrix. They’re innovative, but perhaps not innovative enough. Other concepts are far from the existing situation. These are like the concepts at the top of the impact-difficulty matrix. They may even be so far that they are difficult or impossible to implement.

SIT proposes another category of concepts—those that hit the innovation sweet spot. In other words, the high-ROI concepts. These are just far enough to be truly innovative but not so far that they cannot be implemented.

As you will soon learn, you can take near and far concepts and pull them closer to the sweet spot by applying the ideation tools.

Consider again our two concepts for redesigning pay phones:

Concept 1 creates an updated digital interface and offers a few new services. Compared to Concept 2, these are relatively incremental improvements to the existing device and infrastructure, so Concept 1 is near the existing context.

In the following video transcript, Yoni Stern of SIT explains the near-far-sweet model and finding the innovation sweet spot.

YONI STERN: The idea behind “Finding Your Innovation Sweet Spot” was based on research conducted in previous years. What the research showed is that when organizations decide to innovate, they do it for a reason. They want to increase the value they provide, usually within the context of a specific product, system, or platform they are looking to expand or further develop.

Their default method was often listening to the voice of the customer. By listening to what people think and what they might need from that system, organizations found they were getting ideas that were very close to what already exists within the system. These ideas often revolved around making the system cheaper, better, stronger, or faster—what we sometimes call “-er” ideas. Essentially, customers suggested improvements based on what they already knew about the system.

This approach often led to minor, incremental improvements rather than substantial innovations. And that’s not what organizations are typically seeking when they aim to innovate.

As a response, the world of creativity and innovation started to develop methodologies to help break free of these “-er” ideas. Brainstorming became one of the most common methodologies. It forced innovators and creative thinkers to suspend judgment and go beyond what they already knew about the system. Conducting brainstorming in groups allowed individuals to piggyback on each other’s ideas, gaining momentum and moving further away from these incremental improvements.

While brainstorming encouraged outside-the-box concepts and ideas, it often became more of a cognitive or team-building exercise. What was missing were the sweet-spot ideas—those that are far enough away from existing solutions to be innovative, but still close enough to be feasible, understandable, and implementable.

To address this gap, you can take near ideas and apply fixedness-breaking tools to push them further out towards the sweet spot. Similarly, you can take far ideas, which may initially seem too far-fetched, and apply principles like the closed-world assumption and tools like task unification. These techniques creatively leverage existing resources to make far ideas more feasible and bring them closer to the sweet spot.

The ideation tools—from the structured SIT tools to alternate worlds and brainstorming—all have value because they support novel thinking. The key is to use them well together to enable the implementation of innovative concepts.

After you assess where concepts are in the near-far-sweet model, you can apply tools to change their location:

• Near concepts: Use the structured tools that break cognitive fixedness—multiplication, attribute dependency, subtraction—to find more disruptive opportunities in the concept.
• Far concepts: Experiment with the closed-world principle, task unification, and other tools to learn if your existing resources and capabilities might make the far concept easier to implement.

Not all of your proposed solutions need to be in the sweet spot right away. It is actually beneficial to have a mix of concepts as you decide which ones can be fine-tuned and advanced to prototyping.