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Step 2 of 5 · Matching solution
Design the matching solution
Once a customer need is clear, the question is no longer “What should we build?” It is “Which mechanism has the best chance of improving the outcome set that matters?”
The first internal idea, technical possibility or customer request belongs in the comparison. It must not become the comparison criterion.
STEP 2 DECISION
We have selected an opportunity–solution combination because it improves the same underserved outcomes more credibly than the alternatives, within the business constraints that matter.
COMPARE BEFORE YOU COMMIT
Laying every credible mechanism side by side, before features enter the conversation, keeps better options visible.
Compare mechanisms, not feature lists
Product features are useful only after the team has selected a mechanism. Before that point, they can hide better options.
A mechanism is the core way the solution delivers the outcome, independent of which features it ends up with. The main mechanism types are:
- Product or application — a tool the customer buys, licenses or installs and operates themselves.
- Expert-led or remote service — a person or team who delivers the outcome on the customer’s behalf.
- Data product or insight workflow — packaged data or analysis that informs a decision the customer makes.
- Redesigned operational process — a changed way of working that does not depend on new technology.
- Embedded, edge, cloud or AI-enabled capability — technology built into equipment, infrastructure or software.
- A combination of these — most winning solutions blend more than one mechanism.
Use the outcomes as the common scorecard
- Desirability: Does it materially improve the outcomes the underserved segment values?
- Feasibility: Can the solution work in the customer’s real operating context?
- Viability: Can the business create, deliver and capture enough value?
- Strategic fit: Does the option fit the customer boundary, mandate and capabilities that are genuinely available?
- Cost and risk: What data, adoption, safety, integration, delivery or commercial risks could invalidate the option?
Example: more than one answer to the maintenance problem
| Candidate mechanism | What it could improve | Key uncertainty |
|---|---|---|
| Prediction model | Earlier indication of developing faults | Data quality and enough labelled failure history |
| Remote triage service | Faster prioritisation and fault isolation | Whether customers value an expert-assisted workflow enough to adopt it |
| Condition-monitoring view | Shared operational visibility | Whether another dashboard changes the next maintenance decision |
| Maintenance-planning tool | Better coordination of preventive work | Fit with existing planning systems and decision rights |
Remote triage may be the first matching solution because it improves the urgent decision with lower data and deployment risk. The prediction model is not discarded; it becomes a later option that needs stronger evidence.
Record the assumptions that can kill the option
Rank the assumptions by consequence and uncertainty. The next step will turn the selected opportunity–solution combination into a coherent market position and business model. Do not pretend that a concept comparison has proved the whole business.
The decision gate
- the customer outcomes used to assess every serious option
- the alternatives considered and why they were not selected now
- the selected mechanism and its expected value mechanism
- the adoption, technical, delivery and commercial assumptions that remain open
- a first model for creating, delivering and capturing value
- the evidence threshold that would require the choice to be reopened
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