Reframing Innovation: Lessons from Those Who Find, Focus, Define, Create, Test, and De-Risk the Future

Innovation is often mythologized as a moment of genius—a lone inventor’s flash of brilliance that changes everything. But when you look closely at the most transformative breakthroughs, a different story emerges: a process-driven, human-centered, and deeply iterative approach. The best innovators don’t merely chase ideas; they rigorously find, focus, define, create, test, and de-risk them, ensuring that creativity translates into impact.

Five breakthrough cases—from aerospace to healthcare to entertainment—illustrate how reframing problems, empathizing with users, redefining value, and systematically reducing risk are the true engines of lasting innovation. They also helped the visionaries behind the cases avoid the Eleven Deadly Sins of Innovation.

Lesson 1: Find—Reframe the Problem to Unlock New Possibilities

In the 3M Medical-Surgical Division, Rita Shor faced stagnation in product innovation. Standard market research yielded only incremental improvements. But when she adopted the Lead User Method, studying veterinarians, military medics, and makeup artists, her team realized infection prevention had to start before surgery, not during. This shift—from designing better surgical drapes to proactive infection control—transformed 3M’s healthcare strategy.

Similarly, when SpaceX entered the aerospace industry, Elon Musk didn’t ask how to build better rockets—he asked why space travel was so expensive. By focusing on cost reduction rather than incremental performance enhancements, SpaceX pioneered reusable rockets, fundamentally altering the economics of space travel.

Takeaway: If innovation stalls, step back and reframe the problem itself. Often, the real breakthrough lies in questioning the premise, not refining the existing answer.

Lesson 2: Focus—Empathy Uncovers Unseen Barriers

JioVio Healthcare’s Senthilkumar Murugesan learned that many pregnant women in rural India skipped prenatal checkups—not due to cost, but because their husbands couldn’t afford a full day off work to accompany them. Traditional solutions focused on making hospital visits easier. Instead, JioVio designed a culturally familiar health-tracking bracelet disguised as gold jewelry, ensuring women could monitor their health without disrupting their routines.

Similarly, Salesforce discovered that sluggish CRM adoption wasn’t a technology problem but an organizational inertia issue. Instead of targeting IT buyers, Salesforce’s Ignite team worked with executives, frontline employees, and end customers to co-create transformation roadmaps.

Takeaway: True innovation isn’t about what we think users need—it’s about discovering what they truly value and the unseen barriers that hold them back.

Lesson 3: Define—Identify the Root Cause and User Insight

Defining the problem isn’t about redefining value; it’s about uncovering the true root cause of an issue. Innovation succeeds when it accurately identifies what’s preventing end users from achieving their goals—and then designing around that insight.

For example, in rural India, many pregnant women weren’t skipping medical visits because they didn’t care about their health. The real issue? Their husbands couldn’t afford to miss a day of work to accompany them. Identifying this deeper problem allowed JioVio to design a culturally familiar health-tracking bracelet instead of assuming hospital access was the main barrier.

Similarly, Salesforce initially struggled with CRM adoption because they designed primarily for IT departments, assuming they were the primary stakeholders. The real insight? Adoption was low because the business teams—the real users—weren’t engaged in the process. By shifting their focus to executives and frontline employees, they created transformation roadmaps that made CRM a business priority.

Takeaway: The most effective innovations solve the right problem. The key question isn’t "How do we improve this?" but "What’s the deeper user insight we’re missing?"

Lesson 4: Create—Build to Learn, Not Just to Launch

IDEO, the design firm behind Apple’s first mouse, operates on a simple principle: “Fail often to succeed sooner.” When designing the Palm V handheld computer, IDEO didn’t start with a single refined prototype. Instead, they built dozens of crude models, testing each for ergonomics, aesthetics, and usability.

Drew Houston, founder of Dropbox, followed a similar philosophy. Instead of developing his cloud storage platform in secrecy, he released a simple explainer video demonstrating how Dropbox would work. The response was overwhelming—75,000 sign-ups overnight validated demand before he wrote a single line of code.

Takeaway: The best way to validate an idea is to test it early and often. Stop perfecting in isolation—start building, observing, and adapting.

Lesson 5: Test—De-Risk Before Scaling

Rent the Runway, the high-end dress rental company, could have failed spectacularly had it invested in inventory before proving demand. Instead, the founders tested the concept in a pop-up shop at Harvard, learning how customers interacted with rentals, handling of returns, and logistical challenges before scaling.

Similarly, Handpresso disrupted the espresso machine industry not by adding features but by stripping them away. Instead of building an internal heating system, they asked: What if users simply heated their own water? The result was a portable, simpler, and cheaper espresso solution.

Takeaway: Before committing resources, test ideas in a controlled environment. Innovation isn’t about making bold bets—it’s about calculated, incremental validation.

Lesson 6: De-Risk—Leverage Global Intelligence

Dr. Raymond Mak, a Harvard oncologist, faced a daunting challenge: developing an AI model to match expert radiation oncologists in identifying lung tumors. Instead of keeping the challenge in-house, he launched a global competition. In just 10 weeks, 564 participants from 62 countries developed an AI model equaling expert accuracy.

Takeaway: The best innovations don’t happen in silos. Open innovation—crowdsourcing, partnerships, and ecosystem collaboration—accelerates breakthroughs.

The Future of Innovation: A Call to Action

Innovation isn’t about genius—it’s about process. Whether you’re launching a startup, transforming a corporation, or shaping policy, the most powerful question isn’t “How do we improve this?”—it’s “What problem are we really trying to solve?”

By systematically finding, focusing, defining, creating, testing, and de-risking ideas, we can build a future where innovation isn’t a matter of chance—but of disciplined, repeatable success.

Have an innovation question or need? Email us at innovation@growthinnovationstrategy.com.