The Dilemma of Better is an excerpt from a series of posts on LinkedIn concerning how to define the word Better in the context of the Front End of Innovation. The paper uses a new cleaning product as a case to illustrate some tools to help break down value into easy to understand elements. The elements include product functions, brand, quality, performance and price.

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Abstract: On October of 2010 Al Lee launched a discussion thread on the FEI group, Front End of
Innovation, within LinkedIn.com. The thread was titled, Compellingly Better, Faster or Cheaper:
Strategies for Innovation. This title was used as a ploy to pique the interest of potential contributors most
of whom are consultants or who are actively involved in the front end of innovation processes.
A common response a customer gives when asked what they want is, “What I have now but only Better,
Faster and Cheaper.” Then when asked how they would define better the response often is, “I’ll know it
when I see it!” The discussion thread was launched to help participants understand different methods
and tools that can be used to help them navigate through different methods on how to discover and
categorize better. The approach taken in this paper involves putting value into context because all value
is relative. Relative to what become the key truths each person must discovery for critical thinking to
occur. Key truths are market segment dependent and critical thinking is the precursor to any innovation.

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Cleaning Product Case Analysis: Extracts from a LinkedIn Discussion on How to Determine Better
As part of the discussion thread Peter Balbus put forth a case concerning the efficacy of a new cleaning
product with certain attributes. This became the vehicle for illustrating a key tool that can be used to
break down the notion of value into four discrete elements which can be further decomposed. This
allowed readers to understand where critical thinking could be rapidly applied for innovative outcomes.
Also included is a simple application of Bayesian methods to assess probability in potential constraints.
At the end of this paper the concept of The Buying Dynamic is introduced to identify the key stakeholders
in any purchase decision.
All the material in this paper excluding the Conclusion was concatenated from the discussion thread. The
value expression on page 2 was also not included as an illustration in the thread as LinkedIn does not
support formulas.
Input from Peter Balbus
So given the proclivity of this FEI group for retail consumer businesses, let’s assume that our hypothetical
target customer is the everyday buyer/user/consumer of household cleaning products, and our
hypothetical company has just launched an innovative new line of cleaners that they hope markets will
recognize as being more “effective.” What might those dimensions of effectiveness be -- as experienced
by the consumer?
Let’s assume that our hypothetical consumer values ease of use the most. In this case, more effective
might mean greater cleaning power to cut through tough grease and grime in one swipe, without needing
to be rinsed. This would be more effective than existing products that require multiple swipes, extended
scrubbing and rinsing.
But our hypothetical consumer is also eco-aware, and insists that the cleaning products they use be eco-
friendly and safe for pets and small children. How fortunate that the new innovative cleaner is 100%
organic – in both manufacturing and final product chemistry – and naturally biodegradable, with no
volatile fumes or toxic residues. Clearly, this is more effective than existing inorganic cleaners with volatile
fumes and toxic residues.
Finally, with its greater effectiveness in cleaning, the consumer will use less of this product, making its
unit volume per cleaning less than existing products – so greater effectiveness also translates into
potentially lower costs and conservation of resources. Not just less of the product, but fewer rags and
paper towels, less water, and fewer trips to the store to buy more cleaner when it runs out - which it won't
do as often: All things that the consumer highly values.
Clearly, "more effective" in this case translates into "better" in the consumer's experience. They will prefer
this product to traditional competitors'.

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Al Lee’s response and analysis
While I was at Motorola I developed a business modeling method called the Business Systems
Architecture Process, BSAP. It won a number of internal invention awards. As part of the method I also
developed several tools and algorithms that could be used as part of the client engagement that the client
could understand and use. I will be sharing the most effective tool in my kit with you. If you find it is a
useful then you are free to use it as long as you give me credit. It is presently being evaluated for
copyright protection. If you feel you have a tool that is better, faster and cheaper then you can share that
with us after this exercise. I created an expression I called the BSAP Value Dynamic. It looks like an
algorithm but it does not capture the precision of work like Greg Yezersky nor is it designed to. It
capitalizes on you and your client’s existing intuition and assessment capabilities: Bayesian Lite will come
up later.
My conjecture, yet to be refuted in well over a hundred engagements which included Fortune 100 clients,
is that there are 4 things embodied in a product, aka service, the customer is willing to pay for: Functions,
Brand, Quality and Time. My conjecture continues with my belief that the customer’s notion of value is
based on how the product enhances their daily life countered by the price of the product relative to
competitive alternatives including the cost (price) of doing nothing. A competitive alternative may also
include the customer producing the product themselves. The tool looks like this (FBQT)/P. We will be
using this extensively. This tool can be understood by 7th graders as well as your clients.
F stands for Function, B for Brand, Q stands for the Quality of the Function(s), T stands for Time aspect of
the Function(s) which can be performance but it is used for anything that can be measured using time as
an index. P stands for Price. Price can be extended to include the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) which
is very relevant in product/systems that cost a lot of money. For this exercise we are only considering the
price of the product.
If the customer is willing to pay for Functions, Brand, Quality and Time attributes then I can consider
these to be strategic product investments if one or more of these are the basis of my brand strategy as
well as compelling differentiation against competition. We’ll get to the emotive aspects of brand a little
later. At the highest level, Function is ALWAYS the first criteria in the buying decision. The highest level in
this case is a product that cleans using a solution. To make this simple I will say it is a general purpose
cleaning product. To say anything else will start getting into more market segmentation than what Peter
implied. The customer wants to buy a product that facilitates the act of cleaning surfaces. All general
purpose cleaning products have the same Function. How they all differ is a combination of (BQT)/P which
in this case Peter has introduced some highly desirable attributes in Q and T.

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The next post will go into detail on how to do a rapid analysis and decide where to make the strategic
investments: innovative thinking applied to (BQT)/P. It is not exhaustive but it will help you quickly focus
your client’s attention on what they believe is important. We may also see some implication based on
input that took me less than an hour to gather.
Peter did an excellent job listing customer benefits in terms of outcome as well as product attributes such
as eco-friendly. Let’s pick the example of an investment group who wants to jump into the green
bandwagon and a brilliant inventor showed up with a super eco -friendly cleaning solution. You may
notice in my earlier post when I responded to Peter that I started to categorize his input.
FUNCTION: cleaning product. This is the first consumer consideration. Other examples of first level
considerations: a car, something to remove hair from my face, a pan for cooking with liquids, etc. The
consumer outcome is a cleaner surface that the previous state. There is nothing that is better, faster or
cheaper yet. The product is in solution form (a combination of ingredients) used for cleaning. Innovation
may have been necessary to create the right mix of ingredients in order to get all the attributes Peter has
specified.
BRAND: there is product brand which also may contain branded ingredients (think YKK zippers or GORE-
TEX), there is the brand of the product producer as well as the brand of the end consumer. In this case
the consumer believes they get a halo green effect from associating themselves with a product with eco-
sensitive attributes. Brand in this context is their personal belief relative to how they think about
themselves and how they want others to perceive them. We don’t have a company yet so the Producer
role is only a glint in the eye of the hot shot inventor and venture capitalist. We don’t have a product brand
yet but as you will see there is a lot we can work with. In the retail consumer market it is Brand that
dominates as the second consideration. In this case we can build an emotive connection; this has the
highest value in the retail market, to a particular market segment because of the association with “green”.
One can apply innovative thinking to develop a unique message that becomes very personal. Methods of
communicating that brand also represent innovation opportunities using social media or other channels. I
noted Personal Brand may be a good value component. We’ll come back to the other aspects of Brand
shortly.
QUALITY: this is a bucket to represent any other end consumer value other than attributes associated
with Time. Don’t worry about precision here. This is just a handy place to put anything the workshop
participants think their customer or potential customer is willing to pay for other than FBT.
That the solution is 100% biodegradable can fall into this Quality bucket because it has nothing to do with
making the cleaning faster nor does it add a function to the product. It however is a defining attribute of
this product which means it is a non-negotiable feature and must always be present. That this product is
green automatically ties into customer emotion.
No scent is also a product attribute that does not add Function or impact Time. That it has no scent
compared to competitors implies this appeals to a market segment that does not like odors or is sensitive
to odors. It may have required innovation to neutralize odors in the finished product because powerful
cleaners often have an unpleasant odor without treatment. The lack of scent can be tied to a customer
emotion. The use of scent always ties into a customer emotion.

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TIME: this is anything that can use time as an index. Again don’t worry about precision until we have to
get to proof requirements. The reason we treat Time separately is because it is relatively easy to measure
and thus prove this type of claim especially against competition. One of the key claims is that it will take
less time to clean due to the power of the cleaning solution in addition to the fact that it does not require
rinsing: the first step was faster and the second step was no longer required. Both of these directly
enhance the end consumer’s outcome. Again innovation may have been required to have the solution
meet these attributes.
Another Time element is less frequent need for replenishment compared to competition. Innovation may
have been required to get the solution to the ideal concentration level. This impacts the customer in
replenishment time not for cleaning itself.
PRICE: your price is your customer’s cost. In the case of concentrated solutions there are two direct
measurements one can use. One is cost per concentrated ounce or cost per diluted ounce. You must
normalize in some fashion in order to make an equitable comparison against competition: e.g. dilution
ratio for 22 oz of solution when used for cleaning windows. A more creative way may be to calculate the
cost to clean 100 windows with one person compared to the competitor’s product. You could calculate the
cost of the window washer’s time as well as how much diluted solution was required to clean 100
windows. The difference between the two products in the end is all the customer cares about. We can
also indicate there is less cost in achieving the customer's outcome using this product because fewer
towels need to be washed as well as the use of paper towels can diminish.
In general equitable products have equitable price points where (FBQT) is similar. We are striving for
premium pricing in this case so let’s see what chance the hot shot inventor has to achieve their goal.
Based on the information we’ve captured the product appears to have a very compelling value
proposition. We haven’t really dealt with price yet or product brand and we will do so now. The general
rule in pricing is you charge whatever the market will bear. Price premiums are due to some uniqueness
in the product or even messaging. You may recall something I call Bayesian Lite where I use the
principles of Bayesian methods in a very simple way. Here is the observation I made earlier which Peter
agreed with: “the client should be able to charge a premium for this product if the market segment for
green is large enough in the geography targeted and if competition does not have a like, not necessarily
identical, product and if there is a strong marketing campaign to ensure a successful launch. This product
can be targeted to both the commercial and retail consumer market which means packaging differences
as well as channel implications.”
We certainly want a price premium so the first key probability that must come true is: if the market
segment for green is large enough. While there is a lot of promotion concerning the need to go green we
need to look at this more critically. I would argue the US market is saturated for cleaning products. This
means this becomes a market share battle and this becomes a true test of whether people will pay extra
to migrate to green products that serve the same function as existing non-green cleaners. The second
probability is a conjunctive AND_IF statement which means the second statement depends on the first
statement coming true. If there is no market there can be no competition. This answer shows up with a

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little data gathering and drawing some inferences you may or may not agree with but that’s all right
because they force the discussion where needed.
Is there competition for eco-friendly cleaning products? Of course there is and those products have been
in the market for over 30 years: Shaklee’s Basic H and Sunshine Maker’s Simple Green. They do sell at a
premium and they appear to meet the same specifications as what Peter described. Both products have
been certified by Green Seal, a non-profit organization. While I am skeptical of some certification
agencies that is besides the point as certification represents a trust token. Consumers for the most part
have no clue of the efficacy of Green Seal’s or any other certifying body’s processes.
Let us call the new potential product, Eco-Speed Cleaner. Let’s just assume its FQT is the same as the
existing eco cleaners. It is obvious there is no product brand equity yet so the existing ones have a major
advantage in B because they have been around so long. Simple Green has production facilities in Europe
as well as the US. Europe is much greener conscious than the US. So if FQT is the same and Eco-Speed
Cleaner has no brand of substance maybe it can just compete on Price. Well, not so fast. Clorox has a
separate division called Green Works and if you look at their site you can just make out a tiny Clorox logo
in the bottom right corner: http://www.greenworkscleaners.com/ . If on the other hand you look at the
Clorox product page the logo is prominent in all their products: http://www.clorox.com/products/ .
I believe the consumers associate Clorox brand so much with bleach and disinfectants that Clorox could
not afford to make their logo dominant on their green products so they created a separate unit. The
Clorox logo is on their green products but it is very small. A big Clorox logo will put the wrong “halo” on
their Green Works product line. Did Clorox do this for a price premium for a market segment or were they
just trying not to lose market share. Remember, if you agree with me, the US market is already saturated
for cleaning products. The market leader has no place to go but down. Well the market talks loud and
clear. Staples sells both Green Work’s 32 oz bottle of general purpose cleaner and Clorox’s 32 oz 409
bottle for $5. They received no price premium for green. This implies the first IF statement may be at a
higher risk than thought: is the green market big enough? Competition lets you know if it is or not because
all product eventually normalize, reach their natural levels, through price adjustments.
That leaves the third AND_IF statement that they launch a strong marketing campaign. One that is better
or more pervasive than Clorox or even their Green Works product group? Clorox has a much bigger
enterprise brand than Shaklee and Sunshine Maker but no brand equity in green products. Even they
have to sell at a big discount from Basic H and Simple Green. So where does this leave Eco-Speed
Cleaner? They cannot compete on FQT. Investing in more Q capability does not appear to gain more
consumer value as competition already has scented and unscented products for general purpose
cleaners. Remember green and faster were the primary value attractors. Even a huge investment in
Brand leaves Eco-Speed Clean with a Pricing problem. You can invest a lot of money in Brand as long as
you have enough profit margins to support it. It is unlikely Eco-Speed Clean can exceed Clorox in brand
spend so this may not be a good investment. That leaves low price as a strategy. Bad move because
Clorox already rode the cost curve down a long time ago. In order to compete on Price you have to have
the lowest COGS, cost of goods sold, than any of your competitors as well as a high performing
distribution system. This requires innovation in operational excellence as well as distribution.

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We now have baseline assessment on Peter’s set of conditions. It is a little bleak but it is factual and the
inferences, IMHO, are reasonable. I took long time to get here but we can now start to see if we have
other ways to analyze the problem as well as innovate. We can go back to Function and try a new
combination. If we add a disinfectant capability the customer would only have to buy one product instead
of two. We just added compelling customer value because health associated products like disinfectants
are less price sensitive especially if there is little competition. Incidentally this is hard to do for 100%
biodegradable products so innovation would certainly be a promising investment. If the hot shot inventor
couldn’t take this to market there are still licensing opportunities. You could add a different ingredient like
Teflon for toilet cleaning as Joe indicated for a different market segment.
We can innovate on packaging also with new combinations. Because people don’t like to mix
concentrates a new spray bottle could be developed that provides the proper dilution for the job. There
could be a concentrate cavity separate from the water cavity with a dial for dilution ratio.
These are all derivations from the baseline. It makes it easier to evaluate new ideas in that a framework
exists to discuss aspects of value while keeping the whole picture in context. The known knowns are
covered and some unknown knowns are exposed. Serendipity is allowed but focused on how to create
value by looking specifically at FBQT categories and then comparing each of those against competition.
Only look at the ones relevant to the end consumer. The rest is the cost of doing business.
I believe in this example there was customer value but not enough customers perceive green to be worth
a price premium. The US market may just not be ready for green products based on the current culture.
Competition has been in the market for over 30 years so this also adds to the challenge. Add to this the
fact that major players like Clorox have entered the fray. This implies investment must be more than just
developing a fast cleaning 100% biodegradable cleaning product. Incidentally we normally do the
baseline in less than an hour. A bit of time in this thread was explaining how (FBQT)/P is used.
I know this was a very long read. I can assure you it took a long time to write it. Think about applying the
BSAP Value Dynamic on another case just to see how far you get with this tool versus the way you do the
analysis today. You have to frankly ask yourself if it can used to improve the critical thinking of the group.
If the answer is yes then I say what are you waiting for? If not then I'm sorry this was such a long slog as
David would say. (FBQT)/P has proven to be very effective for both the business and technical side to
engage in discussion because it is a simple way for all people to see the context of value. It includes
Gemba because consumer intimacy shows up through the detailing of consumer outcomes.
Most new value shows up in new Function combinatorials as well as Quality attributes. Just remember to
map to customer outcomes where you can. Did I enhance their outcome or did I make it less expensive
for them to achieve their outcome than they could using my competitor's product?

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Peter Balbus asked about Durability as better.
Al Lee’s response
Now that we have a common baseline in terms of method and a tool, let's test this in terms of speed in
understanding and application. Durable often has quality connotations from the viewpoint of the Specifier
and/or Purchaser. I am now going to introduce a new tool. Note I did not state Consumer. We have to put
the value of Durable in context. There is another model I use, I have many but all are client friendly
except one. The new tool in this context is what I call The Buying Dynamic. (Role-based modeling is the
foundation of my method.) I am going to tie in the word Durable with who really cares about that attribute
in the end consumer's domain. You may remember this from my presentation on Slideshare as well an
earlier post: "Identification of people/departments using specific tools to accomplish their goals." The one
key role you always need to find is the Specifier. I'll get back to how to treat Durable in a little later in this
post if I am lucky.
When I go to a vending machine to buy a Pepsi I am assuming all three roles of Consumer, Specifier and
Buyer. When it came time for me to buy a new car I, in the role of end consumer, wanted a Porsche
Boxster. As I was the main provider for my family I also assumed the role of Buyer. Want to guess who
assumed the role of Specifier? My wife tells our friends how much I enjoy driving a Toyota Matrix. Actually
I do, at least that's what my wife hears.
The role of specifier dictates the precise requirements that have to be met for the purchase. If the
purchase is a systems type product then the specifier must understand all requirements: end consumer,
administrator, technical support, operations support etc. The Specifier adds to this any specific ...ilities
such as durability, manageability, configurability that address the needs of all users from a systems point
of view. These requirements are not negotiable by anyone else in the organization once the business and
technical needs are fixed. Incidentally, the end consumer in the commercial consumer market works in a
department and cares less about durability although they may care a lot about stability. The Buyer cares
about Durability for economic life reasons but Durability cannot trump the other requirements. The Buyer
cares about economic life and methods of financing. The Buyer's mission is to pay the least they can for a
product that meets the Specifier's requirements. If there is a much cheaper product available but with a
loss of FQT the Buyer MUST get permission from the Specifier to relax the requirements.
In terms of Durability, you can market the product's durability as a Quality attribute but it has a time
component implied. This means you can focus innovating and investing in Durability only if it is important
to the Specifier. If it is extremely important you now have to make a strategic investment in T to make
your product compellingly more durable, lasts longer, than the leading competition with the same
attribute. There is a big caveat here. Investing in ..ilities and T can get very expensive. You must make
sure you are getting a price premium for this. To make this clear, Durability is not a Function. It is an
attribute of the product which embodies the set of all Functions.
I started this post to share techniques and tools that may be useful to others as well as learning from
others. I very much value the knowledge of those that contribute to this thread and I would like all of you
not just to make an observation or a counterpoint but to contribute in ways that make it easier to arrive at
what is Better, Faster and Cheaper. At the end of the thread launched by Wim Soens I admitted that I
used Better, Faster and Cheaper as a marketing ploy. Better, Faster and Cheaper is the traditional

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customer response when you ask them what they want. They don't really know so they say they want the
same thing they have now only Better, Faster and Cheaper.
If you had the staying power to read through my posts you must, conjecture on my part, have realized I
use those words sparingly and my focus is really to help my client enhance an existing customer outcome
or reduce the cost of that outcome. I introduced (FBQT)/P as a tool to illustrate it is possible to break
down needs into value components and in that same process give you the material that can be used for
product branding and collateral. This also included the use of this value expression to help the client
make decisions in terms of strategic investments to create compelling differentiated value against
competition which in the end is the only path to sustainability. I introduced areas where innovative
thinking could apply using Peter's cleaning solution as a case. Bayesian Lite was also introduced as a
tool to help the client understand constraints in the form of probabilities. This helped to force critical
thinking, again conjecture on my part, when tested against commonly available data. Incidentally, for
those of you that want to use this technique the art is in how you build the set as well as in the
sequencing.
We actually agreed early on that Better is simply the opinion of the customer and by itself does not help
us determine How. I have introduced some material that should help with How. I am now looking for other
methods, tools or algorithms that you have settled on because they consistently brought you rapid and
high quality results when used on customer engagements.
Conclusion
All methods and tools have the same ultimate goal: solve problems that have economic and/or social
consequences. Methods and tools differ not just in achieving greater accuracy and completeness, Q, in
discovering customer value but also in lowering the cost of learning, P. The methods and tools in this
paper were designed not just to improve on those goals but also to improve the speed, T, in achieving
those goals.
At the conclusion of this segment of the discussion thread the participants continued to use the same
case to share other methods and tools for capturing customer data and problem solving. The immediate
discussion following the one in this paper focused on capturing emotion laden messaging for the cleaning
product. Messaging with emotional resonance must be part of any retail consumer experience. This falls
into the category of perceived differentiated value which when combined with measured differentiated
value defines the complete set of value propositions that must resonate with the retail or commercial
consumer. I call this set the Essential Truths one must arrive at: That which makes your product
compellingly better, faster or cheaper against competition.

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References
The thread often made reference to Lee’s presentation on SlideShare.net. This presentation breaks
down the journey from an idea to monetizing it through a commercial product or service. It also identifies
opportunities to become innovative along the way. Lee also authored a Motorola whitepaper on the
lifecycle of innovation. The whitepaper puts the front end of innovation into context and describes the
ideal conditions for success. It does not guarantee success only that it will enhance the likelihood of
success.
About Al Lee
Al Lee is the head of ALEE LLC, an independent consulting firm providing business and technical
modeling services. Lee was the inventor of the Business Systems Architecture Process within Motorola
and was the principal consultant in Strategic Services for the Motorola Home business unit. Lee provided
business and technical consulting across Motorola’s business units as well as to some of their Fortune
100 customers. His prior assignments included director positions in business and systems architecture
for the Motorola Global Software Group as well as Motorola’s Worldwide Smartcard Systems Division.
His work on modeling and financial analysis has appeared in IEEE publications. Prior to Motorola, Lee
was a Vice President in Advanced Technology for Visa International. He holds patents from his work at
Motorola as well as Visa International. He also received innovation awards for business modeling within
Motorola. Prior to Visa International, Lee was a Vice President in the IT organization at Bank of America.
Al Lee can be reached at alee-exed@kellogg.northwestern.edu.