In both medicine and technology, diving headfirst into solutions without a thorough grasp of the problem more often than not leads to failure. Over my 12 years of leading healthcare startups and my decade of experience as a physician, I’ve learned that the key to success lies in deeply understanding the problem before jumping to solutions. This careful, methodological approach ensures that our efforts are both effective, efficient and impactful.

The Physician's Perspective: The Danger of Premature Diagnosis

As a physician, diagnosing too early—before completing all necessary tests and investigations—risks misdiagnosing your patient. This can lead to ineffective treatments, considerable harm to your patient not to mention your own reputation. This situation mirrors the technology world, where rushing to implement a solution without a deep understanding of the problem can lead to months, if not years, of wasted time, effort and resources.

In his book, The Lean Startup, Eric Ries emphasises that “The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else” underscoring the importance of comprehensive problem analysis before solution development.

The Innovator’s Bias: A Parallel with Medicine

The Innovator’s Bias is a common pitfall where entrepreneurs become overly attached to their solutions, neglecting to fully explore the problem. This bias is akin to a physician who prescribes a treatment without comprehensive diagnostic testing and understanding the whole picture. As Steve Blank, author of The Startup Owner's Manual, points out, “No business plan survives first contact with customers.” This is why, across both medicine and technology, the risk of not fully understanding the problem can lead to wasted resources, time and differing degrees of failure.

The Innovation Trinity: Balancing Risks

To navigate these challenges, consider the “Innovation Trinity,” a concept popularised by IDEO that balances three crucial types of risks:

• Customer Risks: Does your solution address a real problem? In healthcare, this is similar to ensuring a diagnosis accurately addresses the patient's symptoms. As Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, notes, “Customers don’t want to buy a product; they want to solve a problem.”
• Market Risks: Is there a demand for your solution? Like evaluating the supporting evidence-basis for a proposed treatment plan, this involves conducting thorough market research to determine if there is an overall picture supporting the need for your solution. Christensen also emphasises that “The market for new innovations is often not what you expect,” again highlighting the importance of fully understanding your market before building anything so as to avoid launching solutions for the wrong target audience.
• Product Risks: Can you effectively deliver the solution? This is akin to ensuring a treatment plan is feasible and practical. Do you have the resources (time, people, money) to not only build the solution but successfully launch to your target market?

IDEO’s “Innovation Trinity” suggests that desirability, viability, and feasibility should be tested in this order:

• Desirability: Do people actually want your solution?
• Viability: Can your solution be supported and sustained?
• Feasibility: Can you build and deliver it?

A Balanced, Evidence-Based Approach

Just as a physician wouldn’t rush to treatment without analysing all potential differential diagnoses, technologists and innovators should avoid leaping to solutions without a thorough understanding all facets of the core problem. By balancing desirability, viability, and feasibility, and by thoroughly investigating before committing to a solution, you position yourself for success.

Call to Action

I encourage you to reflect on your current projects or ideas. Are you focusing too much on the solution and not enough on understanding the problem? Take a moment to evaluate whether you’ve fully addressed customer needs, market demands, and product feasibility. Rather than chasing after solutions people don't need, let's use the same stringent set of principles that guide the decision-making process of today's clinicians, to ensure the new technology innovations of tomorrow have the most impact. Clear minds and precise, data-driven decisions can quickly drive forward any project, no matter how complex.

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