About
Early in his career, Strategyn founder Tony Ulwick worked on a new computer product whose launch was anticipated around the world. It failed miserably. Rather than defeating him, that experience ignited within him a passion that still drives him today.
Tony founded Strategyn in 1991 with a simple mission. He believed he could transform the innovation process into a predictable business discipline – no small task, given that at that time, innovation was an ineffective, fragmented, and highly misunderstood process.
Together, Tony and an extended team of Strategyn innovation experts worked to develop, test, and refine innovation theories and practices. In the mid-1990s, this effort resulted in Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI), an end-to-end strategy and innovation process that is built around the theory that people buy products and services to get jobs done. Strategyn holds several patents on this process.
Since that time, many respected firms have adopted ODI. It has replaced VOC and QFD in many others. Using our process, companies create winning products, lower development costs, and get to market quicker. Over the years, we’ve helped companies realize billions of dollars in equity value.
Harvard Business Review called the approach one of the best business Ideas of 2002. In 2003, our “jobs-to-be-done” thinking was cited by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen in his bestselling book The Innovator’s Solution. He has since publicized the approach and advanced the theory in award-winning articles published in the Harvard Business Review and other respected publications.
Meanwhile, Strategyn has taken the jobs-to-be-done theory to new levels. Strategyn has spent nearly 20 years transforming this innovation theory into an end-to-end innovation practice. Companies are often told they need to be more innovative; Strategyn offers the process, tools, and resources required to make that possible. Strategyn uses the jobs-to-be-done framework to execute every step of the innovation process, from market selection and understanding customer needs to concept creation and validation (see Approach).
Now that Strategyn has a well-defined and effective process, it is focusing on ways to enhance its services. Currently, we are developing a way to automate much of the innovation process. In addition, we are launching a nonprofit foundation that will use our methodology to help address complex social and economic issues.
As your partner in innovation, we will keep you at the forefront of innovation theory and practice. Learn what it takes to adopt the ODI process (see Adopting ODI) and achieve your growth objectives.
