In design thinking or management consulting, finding a solution is the objective but finding a robust solution quickly is ideal. Using the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, is a simple but effective method of increasing the robustness of the solution.
In 1896 while at the University of Lausanne, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto developed what is now known as the 80/20 rule. Its contemporary popularity grew when the famous management consultant Joseph Juran stumbled upon Pareto’s work in 1941.
In simplest terms, the rule is believed that by solving the top 20% of causes of your problems, you can solve around the top 80% of your problems.
For example, if you group your customer feedback into ten major issues and only focus your resources on resolving or improving the top 2 issues, you will resolve roughly 80% of the total number of issues.
This can be applied to generating innovation as well. Normally during the engineering design process or the equivalent ideate stage in design thinking, many ideas have been filtered down to a select few. Traditionally, only one solution makes it through the filter. However, to build robustness into your solution and to compensate for any unknown unknowns, one should always allow the top 20% of the solutions through the selection filter.
These top 20% solutions should then be compared with new evaluation criteria. These solutions, which are so closely matched, criteria that seemed trivial during the greater selection process will now become more significant. In so doing, increasing the value of the final solution, reducing the effects of the unknown unknowns, and thus increasing the robustness of the solution.