Everything I needed to know about product development, I learned from a 10-year old.

Her name is Lily and her dad’s name is Joe Born.  Melissa Harris wrote about them in the Chicago Tribune over the weekend. Joe is a successful lifelong inventor, which helps explain why Lily invents things too. 

Her grandfather has Parkinson’s Disease, which causes him to frequently spill beverages.  Lily wanted to create a spillproof cup for him.

So naturally, she conducted some focus groups, developed some insights, wrote some concepts, tested them qualitatively, refined them, tested them quantitatively, refined them some more, did some BASES testing, went through several rounds with Legal and R&D, then got the go-ahead to create a model of the cup.

Actually, her process was a little more simple.

1. Assess the challenge

2. Sketch out a solution

3. Build a prototype

4. Go to your dad’s friend’s pottery studio in China to create pre-production samples

Other than the China part, it’s pretty simple, intuitive stuff.  In her dad’s words, “The is the way you should do product development.”  It led to her creation of the  Kangaroo Cup, which is basically a cup with legs.  Duh.

When it comes to product innovation, if you know what the challenge is, and have an insight around how to solve it, and have just a little bit of sketching skills (or have a friend who does), you can do a pretty good job of developing great product ideas.  Even if you don’t have a friend in China.

Of course, it isn’t always that easy in corporate America.  There’s lot more at stake than a coffee cup with legs and I’m not sure Lily would survive longer than a few hours.  That said, she still has a lot to teach us.  Primarily, that understanding a challenge can lead to a simple, desirable solution:

 An idea with legs.