Let's first start off with what is a Gartner Hype Cycle. The Infograph below provides a pretty good summary of what you need to know.
Ok, now back to the question at hand, "How Unique are Gartner Hype Cycles, Really?". The short and easy answer is, sorta… I know, that’s a very “consultant-esk” answer but there is a lot of truth to it. It really depends on how you look at the hype cycle and what you are looking to get out of it.
The actual process for the creation of the Gartner Hype Cycle I do feel is very unique. Especially when it is compared to similar tools in the market. While I can’t go through the internal detail of the making and profiling of technologies with you, I can point you to a publication (“Mastering the Hype Cycle”) that goes through much of that process.
However, the overall from a final visualization and representation of the data the Hype Cycle actually isn’t anything new. There are a few similar and much older tried and true methods out there that were being used.
Below is an example of the overlap. The image below I got from a great article from Craig Armour entitled “More than the Hype: Beyond Gartner’s Hype Cycle”.
This article did a fantastic job with breaking down the similarities of each stage of the Hype Cycle with the high correlation to other models for human change (Kubler-Ross) and team performance (Tuckman) .
See the striking resemblance below.
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