Laws of Software Engineering · Pattern
Pattern
The Innovator's Dilemma
Successful companies fail at disruptive innovation precisely because they listen to their best customers and protect their existing business.
How to use it. When considering a small, low-margin, unfamiliar opportunity that your current customers do not want, take it more seriously than you naturally would. The threats that look small and unprofitable now are the ones that displace incumbents later.
How it gets misused. Christensen's specific predictions have been contested empirically (Lepore 2014, follow-up studies). Use the mechanism (incumbent blindness to low-end disruption) as a lens. Do not treat the predictions as prophecy.
Related
- Pattern Crossing the Chasm There is a gap between early adopters of a new technology and the mainstream market. Most new products die in it.
- Framework Jobs To Be Done People do not buy products. They hire products to do a job. Understand the job.
- Saying The Future Is Already Here (Gibson) The future is already here. It is just not evenly distributed.
Clusters
- The Adoption cluster - Why technology arrives unevenly, and what to do about it.