“Don’t let perfection stand in the way of good [enough]” – Voltaire
Rarely have I seen an innovation that didn’t require iterative adaptation to the requirements of users. Agile product development is an imperative to anyone seeking to commercialize their innovation. While constrained resources on the one hand balance against the immediate needs of users, your response to this challenge can be the difference to early success and a missed market opportunity. Being responsive to users and mitigating your potential defensiveness to the purity of your innovation ensures enhanced value.
Determine the technical changes that are required, which are desired and which are niceties. This will guide you in development and will help sharpen the user’s requests. They will, of course, want it all; but force compromise without losing the buy decision. Don’t forget the “solution” components. These are the add-ons to your innovation that you may not have to develop but can leverage to complete your value proposition. You know you are progressing when you can predict market acceptance at the point of development milestones. This presupposes that you sold your innovation correctly: you trial closed on each and every feature enhancement or innovation adaptation. And remember a valuable maxim of entrepreneurship:
“Don’t let perfection stand in the way of good [enough]” – Voltaire