5 ms·

I like the article, HATE the title. You should ask your customers lots of stuff, and take VERY LITTLE at face value. Implementing features that customers ask

by csours 3y ago

I like the article, HATE the title. You should ask your customers lots of stuff, and take VERY LITTLE at face value. Implementing features that customers ask for is a sure path to ruin; you have to keep asking questions and digging in beyond just "I want it to do X." To be fair, that is basically what the article says, I'm just very tired of the cliched title. Also, I second the recommendation for Christensen and Deming, and I will add Sidney Dekker, primarily "Field Guide to Human Error" but I'm sure the other books are also very good.

mindcrime 3y ago
You should ask your customers lots of stuff, and take VERY LITTLE at face value. Exactly. But a time when you can take it at face value is when the question is something along of the lines of "will you sign a purchase order for this right now?" or the like. And to tie back to what someone in another post here said about validation: one of the best way to validate that your solution is real, and will actually sell to the customer (which is the only thing that matters, from a certain point of view) is exactly to ask your customer "will you buy this, right now?" or a close variant. If the answer is "yes, send the bill and get the order underway" then you've validated something. If you get hemming and hawing and "well, maybe, let me talk to the purchasing committee" or whatever, you're still just thrashing around. And even if you don't go for the actual sale yet (maybe the product isn't ready yet) you can take the approach Steve Blank[1] talks about, and work up to a questions of the form "would you pay a million dollars for this right now" and "well, how much would you pay for it then?" and "if I offered this to you FOR FREE right now, would you start rolling it out immediately" etc. Those answers will really tell you something about where you really stand in your customer's eyes vis-à-vis actually selling your thing. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/0989200507 https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/09...
- bluGill 3y ago
  Even the purehase order isn't always enough. If the cost of developing that feature, inclueding long term maintenaece is less than they are willing to pay fine. However often they are buying from you to share costs wiht your other customers, and what they want is you to split the costs.
bitexploder 3y ago
Listen to customers. Learn their business. Help their business be better. There is a difference in asking and doing what they want vs listening and synthesizing.
AntonZ234 3y ago
Thanks for the recommendation for Dekker, added it to my list! Honestly, I'm not super with the title too :) It's hard to find something that's eye-catching but honest to the truth. What would you choose?
- kevindamm 3y ago
  "Thinking like a customer." But your title will probably get more clicks.
- csours 3y ago
  As sibling comment states, the title is pretty good clickbait (not an insult). The problem is, the people you're trying to reach are clickbait connoisseurs. You need to hit another level of interest. "What to do after just asking the customer fails" "Why I didn't implement your excellent feature request"

by csours 3y ago

mindcrime 3y ago

You should ask your customers lots of stuff, and take VERY LITTLE at face value. Exactly. But a time when you can take it at face value is when the question is something along of the lines of "will you sign a purchase order for this right now?" or the like. And to tie back to what someone in another post here said about validation: one of the best way to validate that your solution is real, and will actually sell to the customer (which is the only thing that matters, from a certain point of view) is exactly to ask your customer "will you buy this, right now?" or a close variant. If the answer is "yes, send the bill and get the order underway" then you've validated something. If you get hemming and hawing and "well, maybe, let me talk to the purchasing committee" or whatever, you're still just thrashing around. And even if you don't go for the actual sale yet (maybe the product isn't ready yet) you can take the approach Steve Blank[1] talks about, and work up to a questions of the form "would you pay a million dollars for this right now" and "well, how much would you pay for it then?" and "if I offered this to you FOR FREE right now, would you start rolling it out immediately" etc. Those answers will really tell you something about where you really stand in your customer's eyes vis-à-vis actually selling your thing. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/0989200507 https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/09...

bluGill 3y ago
Even the purehase order isn't always enough. If the cost of developing that feature, inclueding long term maintenaece is less than they are willing to pay fine. However often they are buying from you to share costs wiht your other customers, and what they want is you to split the costs.

bitexploder 3y ago

Listen to customers. Learn their business. Help their business be better. There is a difference in asking and doing what they want vs listening and synthesizing.

AntonZ234 3y ago

Thanks for the recommendation for Dekker, added it to my list! Honestly, I'm not super with the title too :) It's hard to find something that's eye-catching but honest to the truth. What would you choose?

kevindamm 3y ago
"Thinking like a customer." But your title will probably get more clicks.
csours 3y ago
As sibling comment states, the title is pretty good clickbait (not an insult). The problem is, the people you're trying to reach are clickbait connoisseurs. You need to hit another level of interest. "What to do after just asking the customer fails" "Why I didn't implement your excellent feature request"