What are Main Parameters of Value (MPV's)?

MPV's are the critical features and functionality that differentiate products and drive customer purchasing decisions.

Why are they important?

GEN TRIZ relies on MPV's as an important vehicle for ensuring a clear line of sight to the market and profitability. Without this line of sight, even the most elegant technical solutions risk yielding only limited economic value. A disciplined focus on MPV's helps ensure that scarce R&D innovation resources are focused exclusively on improving the things that matter most to customers, as opposed to improving all product features.

How do we uncover MPV's?

Typically, most companies are well adept at deploying Voice of the Customer (VOC) tools to understand the things that are important to their customers. What do customers want? Simply ask them. However, we distinguish three important caveats with regard to deploying VOC data:

  1. It is important to distinguish between what customers say they want and what they are actually willing to pay for. Understanding this distinction is critical when allocating R&D investment funding.
  2. Customers cannot ask for features that they are unaware of (You don't know, what you don't know).
  3. Customers may not ask for features that they do not believe are technically feasible.

To address the second and third issues, we deploy a tool called Voice of the Product (or Voice of Technology), a complementary approach to VOC aimed at surfacing unmet customer needs. By "interviewing" the product with the aid of a number of analytical tools, the goal is to uncover unmet needs that can be exploited through innovation and offer the potential to capture market share, drive growth, and boost the bottom line.

What do we do with MPV's?

Of course, uncovering MPV's is only one step on the pathway to success. Once MPV's are surfaced and validated with the client, GEN TRIZ is well skilled at translating these needs into the functions responsible for driving performance. And, by analytically determining the underlying physical parameters that can constrain performance, we are then well positioned to begin applying problem-solving tools that can lead to breakthrough ideas.

Read about our other core innovation processes and guiding principles.