The Elegant Solution

I am currently working with two clients, helping them define new online services for their members.  For a new product to work it must fit into the capabilities of the organization.

This goes against some of the current focus on innovation, which aims to stretch the boundaries and thinking of organizations. 

But particularly in a resource-strapped non-profit, having the new project integrate with current capabilities or customer expectations is a real boon.  If the organization focuses on core competencies, the the new ideas are often a very natural fit, which reduces additional resources and effort needed to bring it to life.     

The elegant solution occurs when the project leader takes great pains to bring out all the issues.  When she listens deeply to people and asks questions about why something would be good or bad, necessary or dispensable and generates a comprehensive understanding of all the needs.  The project leader documents these and gets agreement that this is indeed what the organization is trying to achieve.

With that overall view, she then goes to the core to find those aspects that are absolutely necessary.  What is the minimum thing that will meet all or most of those core needs, with as few bells and whistles as possible.  What one process or product will satisfy those core needs. 

That's the elegant solution.

When I'm working with people on ideas like this, I have an abstract visual sense of whether a solution is elegant or not.  I tried to represent those on my Pinterest board.  When we're adding on features, audiences, or products that don't quite mesh with the overall solution, the system feels ugly, knobbly, cumbersome, awkward.  It's a sense I get in my chest as well as a vision in my head, that this will take too much work to develop and our members won't use it because it's not clear.

But when we define a new product in exactly the right way to meet the needs of a new audience in a way that utilizes the best of the organizational capabilities already available, then it just all flows together.  Everyone can feel it, they can see this working from their point of view.

I often know that we've reached the right solution when everyone in the room breathes a sigh of relief - Yes, that's it!  Sometimes we have many of these sessions, and sometimes the feeling of having hit the nail on the head doesn't quite last.  In that case, you keep exploring.  When you get a sense of a right solution and that feeling lasts and develops into solid ground upon which to build the next phase of the project, then you do have the elegant solution.