Reverse innovation: The action or process to use innovation methodology to build a solution that for various reasons already has been presumed.
(Thanks to Ash Maurya for enlightening conversations on this subject.)
It happens all the time: We already know what to build, or we’ve quite possibly built it already.
It’s not an elephant! (but it’s huge)
In the corporate world, reverse-innovation is usually rationalized as follows:
- We finally have time / budget to pursue that solution we’ve been dying to pursue for years
- Customers have asked for this solution since the beginning of mankind
- We need to develop this solution to support our market position / strategic objectives / visionary goals
- We have all this technology, and we don’t quite know what to do with it..
- We already know this solution will be a success (it’s freaking obvious)
Now, all we have to do, is to turn that thing into a successful product..
