Finding the Sweet Spot of Innovation

Our five "templates of innovation" have emerged from our historical analysis of product development trends, which in turn grew out of research by the Russian engineer Genrich Altshuller. (For more on Altshuller's research, see the sidebar "Seeing Patterns in Creativity:) Our research indicates that most successful product innovations fit into at least one of these five patterns Indeed, we have found that the patterns can help predict the emergence of new products before the appearance of signals indicating market demand. The patterns, or templates, are therefore useful not just for categorizing new product ideas but also for generating them.