Continuing on yesterday’s reflection, the automotive conference that I attended had lots of demos and cars with fabulous features. Anything from vehicle to infrastructure communication to synthetic data generation for training AI models. The topic that was missing in action, though, was customer driven innovation. There was a complete lack of focus on the features, functions and capabilities from a customer’s perspective. And, consequently, a lack of evidence that all the fabulous technical solutions were things that customers actually want and would be willing to pay for. The motto was very much in terms of the old adage of “build it and they will come.” Perhaps it is because engineers love technology more than they appreciate talking to humans, but where I come from, you first prove that there is customer interest and a business case. And you do this using the cheapest, scrappiest minimal viable product demo that is put together with chewing gum, bailing wire and duct tape. Only when you have proven that there is a market will you invest in more engineering. Of course, automotive is far from the only industry approaching innovation (or rather, invention) this way. So, as my challenge today: how do you know that what you’re building is adding value? And if you don’t have a clear market signal, what can you do to fix it?