Product development teams often have a problem determining what kind of idea they have before deciding whether it is worth developing. In ideation sessions, every function is bringing in a different form of expertise.
- Marketing: Can we sell this?
- R&D: Can we technically make this?
- Operations: Can we manufacture this?
- Supply Chain: Can we source this reliably?
- Finance: Does this make financial sense?
- Sales: Can the channels support this?
All of those perspectives matter. The problem is that teams often jump from the idea itself to everything required to execute it before establishing what the idea could mean for the brand.
Changing how an idea gets evaluated starts with understanding:
What kind of idea is this?
Ideas Are Often Evaluated via Execution Too Early
Ideas do not emerge in ideation sessions neutrally. They are immediately translated through the expertise of the people evaluating them.
- If it’s an unfamiliar product format to the team, it may immediately raise questions about how feasible it is to develop.
- If it’s a new ingredient, it may introduce sourcing, formulation, testing, or regulatory considerations.
- If it’s a custom component, it may introduce concerns about cost, MOQs, or supply chain.
These are all legitimate concerns, but they are also downstream considerations entering the conversation before the idea itself has been evaluated.
When they emerge in the conversation too early, the requirements of executing an idea can begin determining its value before the team has established what the idea actually represents.
As a result, ideas that are familiar and feasible within existing capabilities are more likely to advance to the next stage of research. Defaulting to what’s easiest to execute is often how brands continue making variations of the same products.
Feasibility alone does not tell you what an idea is worth.
The Load Test™ Classifies the Idea Before Execution
To evaluate ideas differently, teams need a way to classify the idea before the execution requirements become the entire conversation.
The Load Test™ is a framework I’ve used in several ideation sessions to incorporate another layer of evaluation by asking:
What is this idea asking the brand and development process to do?
It moves the conversation to understanding the idea before deciding what to do with it.
Ideas Have to Be Evaluated Against What the Brand Already Promises
Ideas cannot be evaluated independently from the brand promise. While the brand story explains what the brand represents to the consumer and why it exists, the brand promise establishes what the brand is committed to delivering consistently across everything it makes.
From there, the idea can be evaluated against what already exists.
- What is the brand committed to delivering across everything it makes?
- What product logic has already been established?
- What does the idea retain?
- What does it introduce?
- And what would actually have to change to make it possible?
Now you’re no longer evaluating whether the idea introduces complexity. You’re evaluating where the complexity of the idea actually sits and whether it is justified by what the idea adds to the brand.
The Load Test™ Reveals Why an Idea Makes Sense
Consider rhode’s Caffeine Reset Sculpting Cream Mask launch.
To the consumer, rhode is intentional, essential skincare. To the product development team, the brand promise translates into a technical directive to deliver hydration through a barrier-supporting ingredient philosophy. Rhode centers skin-barrier nourishment across its core routine, while its products express that philosophy through different formats, ingredients, and benefits.
At first glance, the product seems to deviate from the brand promise. However, when evaluated against the brand promise and its technical directive, the rationale for the product makes strategic sense.
Evaluated through The Load Test™, the product retains its established philosophy while introducing a new hero ingredient and consumer benefit:
- Retains: The hydrating, barrier-supporting product experience already established across the skincare portfolio.
- Introduces: Caffeine as the hero ingredient supports the depuffing and sculpting benefits.
- Strategic Result: A product launch that expands the portfolio without requiring the brand to redefine the product philosophy underneath it.
The idea feels new without asking the brand to become something new.
This is how The Load Test™ can also be used diagnostically. By separating what a product retains from what it introduces, you can reverse-engineer why an idea may have made strategic sense for the brand.
Complexity Should Inform the Decision Not Become the Decision
Once an idea has been properly classified, technical and operational expertise can be applied more effectively.
Now those considerations have somewhere to go and the conversation becomes:
This is what the idea requires. Is what it could add to the brand worth that requirement?
Sometimes the answer will still be no. Sometimes an idea should remain in the pipeline until capabilities, timing, or resources change. Sometimes the team may realize that the original execution is unnecessarily complicated and find a simpler way to preserve what made the idea valuable.
And sometimes an idea that initially looked too small or too difficult may turn out to be exactly the kind of innovation the brand needs.
The Load Test™ exists to make the reason an idea survives or dies more deliberate.
Better Ideation Strengthens the Innovation Pipeline
Better ideation does not require every idea to become a product. It requires teams to understand what they are evaluating before deciding what the idea needs to advance to the next stage.
That creates a different role for expertise in the room. Instead of every function using its knowledge to independently argue for or against an idea, that knowledge is contributing to a shared understanding of what the idea requires.
It also creates a record of why an idea was not pursued.
An idea that is wrong for the brand today may not be wrong for its future. Knowing why an idea was previously rejected makes it possible to reconsider it when those conditions surrounding it change.
The brands with the strongest innovation pipelines are not necessarily the ones producing the most ideas. They are the ones that know how to evaluate an idea at its actual size before deciding what to do with it.
So, when a new idea emerges during these sessions, start with:
What kind of idea is this?
—by THE BUILD BRIEF