Attribute Listing, Morphological Analysis and Matrix Analysis

Tools for creating new products and services

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Attribute Listing, Morphological Analysis and Matrix Analysis are good techniques for finding new combinations of products or services. They are sufficiently similar to be discussed together. We use Attribute Listing and Morphological Analysis to generate new products and services.

How to Use the Tools:

To use the techniques, first list the attributes of the product, service or strategy you are examining. Attributes are parts, properties, qualities or design elements of the thing being looked at. For example, attributes of a pencil would be shaft material, lead material, hardness of lead, width of lead, quality, color, weight, price, and so on. A television plot would have attributes such as characters, actions, locations, and weather. For a marketing strategy you might use attributes of markets open to you, uses of the product, and skills you have available.

Draw up a table using these attributes as column headings. Write down as many variations of the attribute as possible within these columns. This might be an exercise that benefits from brainstorming. The table should now show all possible variations of each attribute.

Now select one entry from each column. Either do this randomly or select interesting combinations. By mixing one item from each column, you will create a new mixture of components. This is a new product, service or strategy.

Finally, evaluate and improve that mixture to see if you can imagine a profitable market for it.

Example:

Imagine that you want to create a new lamp. The starting point for this might be to carry out a morphological analysis. Properties of a lamp might be power supply, bulb type, light intensity, size, style, finish, material, shade, and so on.

You can set these out as column headings on a table, and then brainstorm variations. This table is sometimes known as a "Morphologial Box" or "Zwicky Box" after the scientist Fritz Zwicky, who developed the technique in the 1960s.

Power Supply	Bulb Type	Light Intensity	Size	Style	Finish	Material
Battery	Halogen	Low	Very Large	Modern	Black	Metal
Mains	Bulb	Medium	Large	Antique	White	Ceramic
Solar	Daylight	High	Medium	Roman	Metallic	Concrete
Generator	Colored	Variable	Small	Art Nouveau	Terracotta	Bone
Crank			Hand held	Industrial	Enamel	Glass
Gas				Ethnic	Natural	Wood
Oil/Petrol					Fabric	Stone
Flame						Plastic

Interesting combinations might be:

• Solar powered/battery, medium intensity, daylight bulb – possibly used in clothes shops to allow customers to see the true color of clothes.
• Large hand cranked arc lights – used in developing countries, or far from a mains power supply.
• A ceramic oil lamp in Roman style – used in themed restaurants, resurrecting the olive oil lamps of 2000 years ago.
• A normal table lamp designed to be painted, wallpapered or covered in fabric so that it matches the style of a room perfectly.

Some of these might be practical, novel ideas for the lighting manufacturer. Some might not. This is where the manufacturer's experience and market knowledge are important.

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