Spaghetti Effect

In product development, many companies doesn’t bother investing a lot of money in market research, focus groups, taking with Research firms etc. They just build PowerPoint-ware about many ideas and are asking clients what they think about them, selling the fact that it’s an early stage product from their innovation lab.

Afterward they will put more energy on ideas that are getting traction.

Just like throwing spaghetti on the wall, and take the one that stick on it.

Does weight matters?

The size of the spaghetti really matters. If it’s think, heavy, it should be a lot more sticky, a lot more cooked to stick on the wall. If it’s thin, short, it might stick, but maybe clients will not see enough value in it.

If it’s short, when it will fall you will not loose a lot. If it’s long, the gain will be higher – but the challenge is to let it stick.

So, what is the recipe. The best recipe depends on the stickiness (how good is the business case) and the weight (what are the total cost, not only in terms of dollar but also in terms of absorption, operation, learning curve etc).

Does size really matters?

The length of your spaghetti is underestimated. The shorter the better. If it’s short, some will stick some will drop, but ultimately the risk is managed.

Length will depend on the modularity of the offering. If there is a minimum length, it should be carefully tough and it’s stickiness should be clearly defined.

Don’t forget the bowl.

Even if you want to eat a single spaghetti, a bowl is required.

For every product, there is a minimum to buy for the product to be workable – the bowl. It’s required to easily use it, to operate it or simple to keep it for the lifetime of the product. The bowl should be deep enough to handle the majority of the spaghetti, and wide enough to handle new spaghetti-and even a bit more sauce.

But, were are the utensils?

Now that you have some spaghetti in your bowl, you can eat it with your fingers, reuse a fork that you already have or build your own tools to eat it.

What about a new fork? a new spoon? and maybe some bread? and maybe you want spaghetti for 4 every sunday at 5pm?