The Progress Economy

What we’re thinking

Progress – a deceptively simple concept – is the beating heart of the progress economy. We are all trying to make progress in everything in our lives. Learning, moving, fixing, getting nourishment, are just some examples.

We’ll define it as:

progress: moving, over time, to a more desirable state

When we focus first on progress, rather than value, we improve our chances of innovation and sales success. In fact, we’ll see value as a set of progress comparisons; emerging only as progress is made.

We’ll unlock the deepness of progress by viewing it in four ways, as a:

• verb – our moving over time to a more desired state
• state – functional, non-functional and contextual elements
• noun – names of useful states on the progress journey
• state transition – another useful way of observing progress similar to being a verb

Insightfully, a progress-first perspective explains job-to-be-done theories, Christensen’s “innovator’s dilemma“, Blue Ocean strategy, Drucker’s rallying call of “innovate or die”, and leads us to minimise value-in-exchange blind spots and Levitt’s marketing myopia; as well as much more. It provides the levers to make more successful innovations and sales.

Understanding progress is necessarily complex, but, trust me, much less complicated than it first sounds!

What is progress

Progress is a lens for understanding the world – leading us to insights solving the innovation problem, driving sales success, and accelerating growth. It is the horse that pulls the value cart, though we often make the mistake of prioritising value before progress.

Conceptually, we’ll define progress as:

progress: moving, over time, to a more desirable state

We are all progress seekers. Everything we do in life is an effort to reach a more desirable state. For example, progress could mean becoming fitter, learning a new language, transporting something to a new location, or increasing wealth. These examples point to four core categories of progress, relating to our:

• bodies
• possessions
• minds/mental state
• information/intangible assets

These categories are adapted from Lovelock & Wirtz’s Services Marketing and help us conceptualise what we’ll come to call functional progress. We’ll also need to explore non-functional and contextual elements of progress.

While progress may seem a simple concept, that is deceptive. It forms the foundation of a rich operating system explaining how our world works – one that we propose leveraging to fix challenges in innovation, sales, and growth.

A deceptively simple concept

When we move over time to a more desirable state, we are taking a journey. Every journey requires an attempt, which may succeed or not. Every journey has a starting point (state) the influences the attempt. And every journey might need some support to increase the lijelihood of success.

• we’re all striving to make progress in all aspects of our lives (we’re progress seekers)
• we make progress attempts – executing a series of progress-making activities that are resource integrations – on a specific aspect of progress sought
• we often struggle to make progress due to a lack of resource – time, skills, knowledge, physical traits, tools, etc; this is the foundational progress hurdles
• some seekers attempt to progress even if the lack of resource hurdle is high; if they succeed they will have created/generated new resource(s); they may decide to offer those resources to other seekers (they have become a progress helper offering a progress proposition)
• progress helpers offer bundles of supplementary resources intending to reduce a seeker’s foundational lack of resource; we call these bundles progress propositions and they consist of i) a series of proposed progress-making activities and ii) a progress resource mix (some specific combination of employees/Ai, systems, data, goods, physical resources, locations)
• helpers offer their help to progress in exchange for help with progress they seek – we are all progress seekers, remember. This is not a barter economy. Commonly this exchange of help is obfuscated and mediated by service credits, of which cash is a successful implementation

Placing progress in context

• verb – our moving over time to a more desired state
• state – functional, non-functional and contextual elements
• noun – names of useful states on the progress journey
• state transition – another useful way of observing progress similar to being a verb

Lets look at these four views of progress and link to the related deeper articles. We’ll start with progress as a state.

Progress as a State – snapshotting progress

What do we mean by ”state” in our progress definition?

A progress state is a snapshot of progress at a specific moment in time, comprising three equally critical elements:

• functional – state of an progress attempt
• non-functional – performance and feelings
• contextual – when/where/constraints.

Functional progress

Consider the more desired state’s functional progress as the desired situation after progress is made: able to run a half marathon, fluent in a new language, arrived in Oslo, net worth increased by 10%. These would contrast with the functional state before progress, such as your current running ability.

While these capture functional outcomes, they do not account for non-functional progress.

Non-functional progress

Non-functional progress encompasses factors such as speed, safety, ease, enjoyment, flexibility, or the freedom to attempt progress when you want. For instance, the sense of achievement or the ability to progress without delays can be just as vital, sometimes more, as reaching the end goal.

While the list of potential non-functional aspects is endless, only some are genuinely sought by progress seekers. It’s critical to identify the specific non-functional elements that matter to your seeker and avoid focusing on imagined needs.

For a structured approach, we can reference the hierarchy produced by Almquist, Senior, and Bloch, which uncovers various elements of what they call value. Most of their insights relate to non-functional progress considerations.

The importance of Contextual element of progress

Finally, progress is shaped by its context—the conditions and constraints that impact how progress is pursued. Examples include “no driver’s license” or “in rush hour.” Context is essential to understanding progress, as Christensen has noted:

A job can only be defined – and a successful solution created – relative to the specific context in which it arises

Christensen, C (2016) “Competing against luck”

Measuring state

Defining a state implies the ability to compare different states, which requires measurable criteria. Some state elements – particularly functional ones – are straightforward to measure. For example, if progress involves traveling a distance, we can measure it in kilometers, miles, or even light-years.

However, other state elements are less easily quantified. Take language fluency, for example. Societies or governing bodies often introduce artificial scales to standardise measurement. The European Union, for instance, has an objective framework for assessing language competency.

Non-functional progress – aspects such as enjoyment, fulfillment, or perceived reward – can be more difficult to measure. Organisations often rely on qualitative methods like focus groups, surveys, and follow-up questionnaires to gauge these elements.

Misunderstanding, or not recognising, non-functional or contextual elements of progress sought will impact success of your progress proposition. Supermarket self-checkouts, is a good example of where there is misunderstood non-functional and contextual progress.

These three elements also allow us to discover better market segmentation – beyond the product feature or demographic approaches usually used today.

Progress as a Noun – naming waypoints and judgements of progress.

Naming key progress states helps us more effectively discuss the progress journey.

It simplifies conversations about moving from a seeker’s progress origin to their progress sought, as well as identifying where they are along the way—their progress position.

We can also talk about a progress proposition offering to help reach a state we call progress offered from the proposition’s origin. Where both may differ from a seeker’s progress sought and origin.

Two named states – progress reached and progress potential – are phenomenological judgements of progress that the seeker makes and uses in determining various facets of value (eg can I reach a sufficient amount of progress compared to my progress sought).

Progress as a Verb – attempting and making progress.

Getting fit, learning a language, moving, investing, these are all examples of seeing the (functional) progress as a verb. These actions represent the seeker’s journey from their progress origin to their progress sought.

Seekers make this journey through a progress attempt – a series of progress-making activities. Each activity is driven by resource integrations involving:

• Seeker’s time
• Seeker’s knowledge and skills
• Tools/goods the seeker currently has available to them

The Role of Progress Helpers

A lack of resources is often the foundational progress hurdle challenging progress. This can cause seekers to either avoid starting or abandon their progress attempt.

Though we call it a hurdle, rather than barrier, since some seekers attempt anyway. If they succeed, they have created/generated new resources. They may then decide to offer those resources to other seekers – they become progress helper with a progress proposition

Progress helpers, then, offer supplementary resources to overcome this lack of resource hurdle. These helpers typically offer two key resource bundles:

• a proposed series of progress-making activities
• a progress resource mix (some combination of employees/AI, systems, data, goods, physical resources, locations.

Now the progress-making resource integrations are between seeker’s and helper’s resources and are driven by some combination of seeker and helper. However, propositions introduce 5 additional progress hurdles: (adoptability, resistance, lack of confidence, continuum misalignment, inequitable exchange).

However, proposition go from their own origin to a state of progress offered, these may not fully align with the seeker’s original state or their progress sought. Too much of a difference and the Seeker may fail to see how they make progress with the proposition.

Some notes of non-functional and contextual progress

Non-functional and contextual progress elements also play a critical role. Interestingly, some non-functional elements, like “safety,” would remain constant throughout the entire progress journey. Others, such as a “sense of achievement,” you would expect to improve as the journey progresses.

Contextually, we make a convention that this does not change during a progress journey. If context needs to change it should be reframed as the functional/non functional element of another progress journey.

For contextual elements – typically constraints – we make the convention that they are fixed for the duration of a specific progress journey. If a change in context is necessary, it should be reframed as the functional or non-functional element of a separate progress journey.

For example, the travelling constraint of ”no driving license” is better addressed through a new progress sought of ”gained driving license” than through trying to address in the ”travel to Oslo” functional progress attempt.

Progress as a State Transition – a useful alternative view

Since we move between states, we can equivalently see progress as a series of state transitions.

Welcome home some key business theories

Taking a progress-first view nicely explains a number of important business theories. Let’s take a quick run through these.

UPDATING AND SIMPLIFYING

“Job to be done”

Both Ulwick’s and Christensen’s “jobs to be done” theory recognise that customers aren’t just purchasing goods and services; they’re seeking to fulfill specific tasks or jobs.

And

We define a ”job” as the progress that a person is trying to make in a particular circumstance

Christensen, C. M., Dillon, K., Hall, T., Duncan, D. S. (2016) ”Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice” Harper Business; 1 edition

The coupling of progress sought, progress origin and progress as a verb let us describe, in deeper detail, the job to be done, and the definition of done. The progress economy also tells us conceptually how the job should be done, what may hinder it, how someone can help and what challenges that brings. All working together to supercharge innovation and sales.

Levitt’s Marketing Myopia

Drucker’s ”Innovate or Die”

Seekers are constantly gaining new resources and raising their expectations of progress potential through the progress attempts they make – not just in your industry, but across all industries and markets. Rising expectations evolves their progress sought; gaining resources changes their origin.

This is a challenge to progress propositions, who’s:

• progress origin fall behind the seekers – leading to over resourcing, and potential seeker frustration at time/progress wasted
• progress offered fall behind progress sought – leading to lower offered vs sought comparison (a part of value judgements)

To stay attractive, progress helpers must adapt their propositions.

A direct succinct explanation of this is Drucker’s enduring insight:

Innovate or die

P. Drucker, via “Innovation on the fly”, HBR

Disruptive innovation (The Innovator’s dilemma)

Whilst the progress economy explans ”innovate or die”, Christensen warns us of the innovator’s dlimma and the impact of disruptive innovation. The progress economy also explains this.

Blue Ocean Strategy

Kim & Maugborne describe Blue Ocean Strategy as

the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost to open up a new market space and create new demand. It is about creating and capturing uncontested market space, thereby making the competition irrelevant

https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/what-is-blue-ocean-strategy/

Relating to value

Let’s take 1970’s disco composer extraordinaire Giorgio Moroder’s advice.

Once you free your mind about a concept of harmony and of music being correct you can do whatever you want

Giorgio Moroder

When we free our minds from the deeply embedded concept that manufacturers embed value and we exchange that for cash, we find that:

• Reaching their progress sought creates maximum possible value for a seeker
• There is no value at their progress origin

Value, then, incrementally emerges as the seeker moves over time between their progress origin and progress sought. There is value-through-progress.

We say that value is a trailing indicator for progress. It’s not value we try and create, it is progress.

If a seeker engages a proposition, then progress is a joint endeavour. Seeker and helper co-create value. We often referred to this as value-in-use. Though the maximum value co-created with a proposition is likely to be different than progress sought.

Interestingly, emerged value is not meaningful to a seeker. They need to recognise it for it to become meaningful. Value recognition is a process similar to revenue recognition, that anyone with a finance background will be familiar with.

Although a seeker’s schedule for recognition may differ from the continuous emergence of value. For example, it could occur:

Relating to innovation

Innovation should enable a seeker to reach as close to their progress sought as possible. Since that is where maximum value has emerged. Failing that, innovation should enable the seeker to make the progress currently possible in a better way. Practically both these require reducing the lack of resource progress hurdle.

Seekers may attempt to improve their progress themselves. They may design and try different progress-making steps. Or utilise existing resources they have access to in novel ways. Perhaps they find new resources in their environment, or acquire them in seemingly unrelated progress attempts. They may even engage progress propositions in a novel manner.

Helpers, likewise, look to innovate their propositions. Aiming to help seekers reach further or make progress currently possible better. Or to close the gap between seekers’ and proposition’s assumed progress origin. They may additionally reduce the five additional progress hurdles that progress propositions introduce.

Finally, we observe that innovation is continuously required. It is driven by the fact that progress sought continuously evolves. It is shaped by seekers’ experiences in attempting progress in various aspects of life, including in other industries, markets, and global perspectives. As well as their observations of others attempting progress. Similarly seekers’ progress origins can shift over time.

Although innovating to chase the evolving progress sought of your most demanding seekers may expose you to be disrupted. That’s part of Christensens “Innovator’s dilemma“.