How to choose the best launch extension ideas

Evolytics is excited to announce that we are participating in Adobe’s Launch Extension Idol competition. Even though the competition deadline draws near at the end of February, our Data Collection team started preparing nearly four months ago with idea generation.

We aligned our ideation process with successful product development frameworks to create innovative Launch extensions that solve real-world problems. In case you’re developing your own Launch extensions or other analytic solutions, we’d like to share our ideation and selection process to help guide your own efforts.

Ideation

Since great ideas come from everywhere, we gathered several team members from across the company to participate and submit ideas. These team members submitted ideas based on past experiences solving actual client problems and data collection challenges.

We encouraged team members to consider Product-Market fit when coming up with ideas, especially focusing on target customers, underserved needs, and value proposition. This helped ensure nominated extension ideas would meet real needs and provide real value to Adobe Launch users.

Idea Selection

Ten great ideas surfaced from our initial ideation stage. From the beginning, we wanted to focus on quality over quantity, so we used a User Value Matrix to narrow down our top ideas.

The User Value Matrix maps and evaluates product idea potential based on user need and number of existing solutions. The sweet spot for product potential and innovation is high user need and few existing solutions.

We posted a version of the User Value Matrix to a wall in our office and asked team members to place sticky notes for each idea. At the end of this very colorful process, we had four ideas rise to the top for ultimate consideration.  It produced a fun real-life data visualization as well!

We then used a Value-Effort Matrix to narrow down which extension ideas to ultimately pursue and develop. This matrix charts the amount of user value compared to the expected level of effort.

With the User-Value Matrix, we already determined value for the top four extension ideas. To complete the Value-Effort Matrix, we debated and discussed level of effort for each idea, mapping each one to a poster version of the Value-Effort Matrix.

Using this approach, we were able to collectively decide which two ideas would provide the most value with the lowest amount of effort.

What’s Next?

At this point, you might be wondering, “That’s cool, but what the heck are ideas 7 and 10!?” Or “How will these new Launch extensions from Evolytics blow my mind!?”  Well, we’re not ready to reveal this just yet, since we are still applying final polish to each extension.

For now, let’s just say both extensions will allow you to perform complicated, awesome data manipulation without writing custom code. In the near future, we’ll share tips and tricks for developing your own Adobe Launch extensions, and we’ll formally announce our two Adobe Launch extensions.

Stay tuned for additional updates on our analytics blog, and contact us if you’re looking for a partner to build innovative analytic solutions for your company.