Ulwick began working on innovation strategies in 1980 while working at
IBM. In January 2002,
Harvard Business Review published Ulwick's article “Turn Customer Input into Innovation,” which outlined Ulwick's innovation concept of “outcomes that customers are seeking” that encourages companies to develop products to fulfill what their customers are trying to accomplish. The Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI) method outlined in the
Harvard Business Review received
Harvard Business Review’s distinction as one of the seven best “breakthrough ideas for today’s business agenda” in 2002. In 2005, Ulwick explained his theory in the book “What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services”. In October 2016, Ulwick released a second book – “Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice”. ==Strategyn, LLC.==