Editor’s note: Drew Boyd is executive director, MS-marketing program, assistant professor of marketing and innovation, Carl H. Lindner College of Business, University of Cincinnati. This is an edited version of a post that originally appeared here under the title “The division technique: cutting innovation down to size.”
You can frequently make groundbreaking innovations simply by dividing a product into “chunks” to create many smaller versions of it. These smaller versions still function like the original product but their reduced size delivers benefits that users wouldn’t get with the larger, “parent” product. This is one of three approaches of the division technique called preserving division.
Guitar legend Les Paul used preserving division to produce his multitrack recordings by taking a single piece of media – a tape – and dividing it into multiple smaller tracks that perform the same function as the original large piece of tape.
We see this all the time in the technology industry. For years, computer makers kept increasing the capacity of hard drives. Then an engineer had a brilliant idea to use preserving division to create mini personal storage devices. Today many people won’t leave their desks without placing their thumb drives in their briefcase or pocket. These mini storage units are designed specifically for people who must carry electronic versions of documents with them but don’t want to be burdened with laptops or other computing devices.
Many food manufacturers use the preserving division technique to create more convenient versions of popular products. By taking a regular serving or portion of a product and dividing it into multiple smaller portions, manufacturers allow consumers to purchase food products in more convenient and cost-effective ways. Consumers buy only what they need instead of a larger amount. Recently, manufacturers have even used preserving division to help people curb their calorie intake by providing popular snacks in smaller, more diet-friendly packages. Kraft’s Philadelphia Cream Cheese does this by offering individually-wrapped single-serving-size portions of its flagship product for people to put in their brown-bag lunches or take to the office with a breakfast bagel.
The time-sharing arrangements that many hotels and condominiums offer provide more examples of preserving division. Under time-sharing, a year of “ownership” of a property is divided into 52 smaller units of a week each. Each unit is then sold to a different owner, who has the right to live in the property for that week. Each smaller unit preserves the characteristics of the whole. Ownership has been divided over time.
To get the most out of the division technique, you follow five basic steps:
1. List the product’s or service’s internal components.
2. Divide the product or service in one of three ways:
– functional (take a component and rearrange its location or when it appears);
– physical (cut the product or one of its components along any physical line and rearrange it);
– preserving (divide the product or service into smaller pieces, where each piece still possesses all the characteristics of the whole).
3. Visualize the new (or changed) product or service.
4. What are the potential benefits, markets and values? Who would want this and why would they find it valuable? If you are trying to solve a specific problem, how can it help address that particular challenge?
5. If you decide you have a new product or service that is indeed valuable, then ask: Is it feasible? Can you actually create this new product or perform this new service? Why or why not? Can you refine or adapt the idea to make it more viable?
Keep in mind that you don’t have to use all three forms of division but you boost your chance of scoring a breakthrough idea if you do.