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What, Want, How

In this presentation I’ll discuss a decision modeling concept we’ve developed that is based on voice-of-the-customer prioritization models created with our clients and their customers.

We call this “What, Want, How, and How Much.” Many problems can be seen from this simple metric. The order of these are important, which you will see later.

So if all else fails, ask the customer!

Introduction

Based on our research work with best-practice teams we’ve developed a 5-step voice-of-the-customer, or “VOC” process for aligning customer requirements with product requirements in order to determine what customers value most. The customer’s requirements are their “wants” and the product requirements are “how” you will fulfill those wants with your product or service.

This process permits the development team to focus the creation of a new product on what customers actually want and deliver it when they want it. The prioritization of customer and product requirements focuses finite resources where they can add the greatest value--this focus accelerates development cycle-time.

If all else fails… ask the customer… seems obvious, but in our experience, actually asking the customer what they want is rare, especially in the technology business. Rather, we hear technologists say, “they don’t know what they want until we show it to them…this is leading edge stuff” and so on… There is a reason 9 out of 10 new products fail… could this be one of them?

VOC & thoughts from outside the Washington "echo chamber"

This Yutube video (above) is from the President Elect's announcement of his economic team. Many of the themes in his announcement today of a new  Economic Recovery Advisory Board link back to this earlier announcement (above).

The White House released "Advice from 'beyond the echo chamber'" where President Obama announced the appointment of the new economic advisory panel. He said the panel was designed to breakdown the "groupthink" concerning solutions to the current economic problems and to provide solution alternatives directly to him and his economic team. He used a phrase I really liked when he said that he wanted the board to reach beyond the "Echo Chamber of Washington" for new ideas.

What's In It For Me (W.I.I.FM)

When people listen to one another many times the listener is hearing their own radio station playing--W.I.I.FM.

I used this analogy recently to describe why most voice-of-the-customer (VOC) efforts fail to get good VOC information about what people really want (and value).

This often leads to the wrong products being defined and is one of the contributing factors that cause 9 out of 10 new technology products to fail in the market place.

Focus to get the right-customer

Highly successful companies base their business plans on the market. They study market segments and carefully choose which ones to compete in, looking for the most suitable dominant Tier 1 customer in a particular segment—the Right Customer.

The Right Customer’s product requirements are the ones to zero in on. If the dominant customer buys the product/solution, the Tier II customers are more likely to jump on the bandwagon and buy it too. 

Derive product requirements from a Tier II customer, and the product will likely appeal only to the Tier II customer, and end up capturing a small share of the market—if any. Fast teams have methodologies that help focus on the Right Customer:

• Engage with customers directly to define and develop the product
• Analyze market segments in-depth to position products precisely
• Put the emphasis on finding and meeting customer requirements, rather than letting the product’s potential capabilities drive the process

Links | Quickly moving from target market to product definition using VOC  | Best Practices

Right-product represents 80% of future product success

Simply stated, the Right Product is the one that precisely meets the Right Customer’s  product requirements. But determining those requirements and translating them into product specifications is a complex process, and businesses don’t always put in enough effort.

The problem: it’s possible to wind up spending money and time developing a product that has a fabulous array of features—which the customer doesn’t turn out to need. Designing unnecessary features can also lengthen the development cycle, causing the product to miss its window of opportunity. Fast teams have a process for taking the guesswork out of determining the Right Customer’s real product requirements:

• Identify the right people in the customer organization to ask
• Develop questions that get to the heart of what they need
• Find out what the customer’s own customers actually want
• Obtain the customer’s involvement throughout the entire development cycle, to keep up with their changing requirements
• Quickly translate the customer’s priority requirements into product specifications
• Convince engineers to buy in to those product specifications

Links | Quickly moving from target market to product definition using VOC  | Best Practices

Failure of VOC on the new Blackberry Storm

Designing a product around a customer's needs - though blindingly obvious to most of us - tends to be an afterthought at best, typically "we know what the customers want" and worst none at all.

Regardless of what fancy technology is built inside the latest hi-tech gizmo, the user interface and the user experience has to be a high priority as ultimately, this is how the user will judge your product. In reality, the user doesn't care if you're using a custom made processor or an old Intel 8086. If the user finds your gizmo hard to operate, this is how they will judge it.

Quickly moving from target market to product definition using VOC

The following example outlines a voice-of-the-customer (VOC) process we applied with a client developing a GreenTech product. The product had the potential to serve many market segments and perform many functions. The question for the development team was; "which segment would drive 80% of the functionality requirements and where could they get the fastest and biggest bang for their investment?" The goal was to accelerate time-to-revenue. They essentially had one bullet in their gun and needed to hit the target with the first shot.

We developed three decision models to focus the limited development resources and ensure we were right the first time with the first product. Further, the idea was to find the most valued features from a customer's perspective in order to optimize the very short target development cycle time. Following, is a series of vignettes that give some insight into the process.

Who influences your product direction decisions?

"I know what customers want. I've been in this business for a long time. We are forging a new direction and customers don't know what they want until we define it for them... "

How many times have you heard declarations like the comments above. Typically, product direction is driven by two types of power; people in leadership positions and/or people who are the declared subject matter "experts." In fact, these are the two primary influences on decision-making in most organizations. "I'm the boss and I will tell you what our product should look like" or "I have been in this business for 25 years and I know what customers really value." All too often the customer is left out of the equation or has a very small part to play in the product definition process.

Differentiate "wants" from "hows"

Five-steps to understanding customer wants and quickly translating them to product definition.

View quicktime animation of this slide

Based on our research work with best-practice teams we developed a 5-step voice-of-the-customer (VOC) process for aligning customer requirements (wants) with product requirements (hows) in order to determine what customers value most.

This process permits the development team to focus the creation of a new product on what customers actually want and deliver it when they want it. The prioritization of customer and product requirements focuses finite resources where they can add the greatest value, this focus causes accelerated development cycles.