Steps in product design and innovation

Precondition: know your customer

When designing a product you must know your customer. New product innovation can be challenging, especially in the pet industry: pet product innovators need to design for both the person buying the product and the pet it is serving. So knowing both these ‘customers’ intimately is very important to success. 

I find that some of the best innovators in the pet industry tend to have one thing in common: they love, live with and study their pets. Before you can begin the product innovation process, you needto understand the human and animal behaviour patterns that occur when these two species interact together. How do we interact with this pet? Where does this pet live in the home environment? By living with a pet, we start to understand both ‘customers’. It’s important to get other peoples perspectives on how they live and interact with their pets: not everyone’s dog or cat behaves the same, not allpeople interact with their pets the same way.

I usually start the product innovation process by brainstorming with six to eight of my employees, who all differ in terms of sex, age, lifestyles and what they do for a living. The only pre-requisite for this focus group is that they own the pet we are innovating for.

Step 1: determine the job to be done

Once you understand your customers, the first step in innovating a new pet product is to determine the ‘job to be done’. What, specifically, is going to cause a person/animal to need or want this new product? When we set out to solve a problem, we must identify and understand this job. For example, there are many ‘jobs’ that pet owners routinely do: feed the fish, play with the dog, and brush the cat. In addition, there are many jobs that our pets need to accomplish each day to stay happy and healthy, such as drinking water, exercising (physically and mentally) and staying warm or cool. Once we have identified these jobs for both owner and pet, we analyze and lay out these job processes, step by step from beginning to end.

Step 2: figure out the pains

Now we are ready to figure out what ‘pains’ the customer has when trying to get these jobs accomplished. When I take my dog for a walk he pulls me on the leash. If I don’t change my kitty litter weekly, my house starts to smell. Pains are not necessary painful, but may be things we find unpleasant while getting the job done. Some ‘pains’ may have a greater affect on the pet owner than on the pet. I may hate the smelly dog bed in the house, but this doesn’t affect my dog. Equally important are ‘pains’ the pets experiences. 

To understand these issues, one needs to understand their biology, behaviour, physiology, and instincts. For example, the parrot that has plucked his breast feathers’ from boredom, or the dog that burns his paws on the tarmac in summer and resists walking afterwards. Some ‘pains’ can affect people and their pets simultaneously. When the salinity in a reef tank fluctuates because of evaporation, owners have to continually ‘top off’ the tank with fresh water – a constant chore. To the corals and fish, fluctuating salinity causes stress and disease. ‘Pains’ are also a perspective: what my pet or I find frustrating or unpleasant may not bother another. Gaining others perspectives on these pains/issues, will help you see patterns that people/pets have in accomplishing jobs. If the majority of people in my focus group have the same ‘pain’ in accomplishing a job, this gives the innovation team a great place to focus on when finding a solution or new invention.

Step 3: Come up with a solution

The next step is to come up with an invention that does the job and solves the pain associated with that specific job. For me personally, a team of diverse people supports my creativity and problemsolving skills. This team is made up of designers, engineers and marketers worldwide. Working with this creative group, allows us to come up with new innovative ideas and designs to help solve some of today’s common pet problems. Sometimes we find solutions that have been used in other industries and adapt them for the pet industry. Sometimes we look at existing pet products in the market and try to improve them.

By understanding your customers, the jobs that need to be done and the pains customers experience when doing these jobs, we can find solutions that actually solve a problem – and have higher success rates in the market place.