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Why the first 2 stages of design thinking are important for a startup?
Anuradha Sridharan22nd Aug 2015
Conversation with a colleague on “innovation”
What is innovation? “To each their own”
For me, innovation is all about the magnitude of the problem it solves
Relieved a new mother from grocery shopping woes
Gave options to a lady who has to travel to a new city
Helped me to easily setup a customized communication plan to increase user engagement
Gave confidence to demo an upcoming feature to business prospects
" you create wealth in proportion to how well you understand the problem you're solving, and the problems you understand best are your own." - Paul Graham in the essay “18 mistakes that kill startups”
“A product manager must understand the customer’s situation better than the customer does, and use that knowledge to develop a solution for the customer.”- Steve Johnson
I strongly believe that design and innovation are exactly the same thing. Design is more than the aesthetics and artifacts associated with products; it’s a strategic function that focuses on what people want and need and dream of, then crafts experiences across the full brand ecosystem that are meaningful and relevant for customers.- Mauro Porcini, Chief Design Officer, PepsiCo
The more time spent in understanding the problem statement of the consumer, the better the chances to identify the scope of creating "wow" moments in the overall product/service experience.
What would delight your customers? What would take them by surprise?What would make them go wow? What would make their lives better?
Image Source: http://nigeriarealestatehub.com/the-time-it-takes-to-succeed-in-real-estate-business.html/
Stages of Design thinking
Focus of this talk
Design Thinking Framework (from Dr. Jeanne Liedtka’s course)
MINDTICKLECase Study 1 – Focus on Empathy
MindTickle Sales Readiness Platform
Sales readiness – how prepared your salesreps are towards responding to customers’ needs
- Roles and responsibilities- How is their performance measured?- What motivates them?- What are their challenges?
Stakeholders
VP Sales
Sales Director / Manager
Sales Enablement
Manager
SalesRep
Personas
Interviews with the most important stakeholder VP Sales of fast growing tech startups
Principles followed:Open-ended, unbiased questions – a conversation“Listen”, don’t interruptObserve subtle expressions/cues
Sample list of Questions asked:How is your sales team structured?How do you onboard your new sales hires?What is the process followed?Who all are involved in onboarding?When are they assigned sales quotas?When do they start meeting their quotas?How do you check if they are ready to hit the ground?How do you communicate any important updates to them?How do you measure their performance?How do you identify the areas where you need to coach them?
Empathy MapHappy with the current process
It’s working well now
I expanded the team to 8 reps
I drive the process, it’s manual but it achieves the results for me
After talking to you, I feel scared now. What happens if a bus hits me or if I need to go on a long leave?
Say Do
Busy lady. Hard to get hold of her.Gave a timeslot at 9 pm but was only able to join at 10 pm
Very responsive over emails
Likes to talkOpen and willing to share
I’m busy for the next one month but do send me more details on your upcoming product
Wants to be treated as an important person, playing a strategic role in a high growth startup
Think
Proud of her achievements in the organization so far. Wants to be a pioneer/leader and a driver of change
Happy and proud with how things are going so far. But there’s an element of concern when her team starts to expand
Wants to remove the dependency on her, which will give her bandwidth to move onto more important decisions in the org
Feel
Activity - testing the pitching skills of a sales rep and giving feedback
Before During After
Identify focus areas that a salesrep need to be strong at (value proposition, product benefits, competition, common objections, pricing etc)
Decide on an order in which these areas need to be tested
Schedule time with a salesrep and his peers to have a pitching demo. Block this time from other activities
Identify the parameters/criteria on which salesrep need to be evaluated. Document in google drive.
Ask the salesrep to do the pitching demo
Take down notes/observations on areas they are good at and areas to be improved
Give your feedback to salesrep. Assign a score.
Peer also shares his feedback and the score.
Come up with an action plan and a timeline on action items.
Ensure all the notes are updated in google drive
Followup with salesrep to check if there is improvement in the areas identified
Schedule a followup session
Share relevant material/docs to help the salesrep improve his skill
Journey Map
Defining the problem statement / Framing the problem
How can we make the skills assessment and coaching workflow smooth and hassle free?
How can we ensure that pitch assessment is seen as a productive coaching tool and not as performance management system?
How can we improve the coaching experience of a Sales Head?
What can we do before/during/after skills assessment to ensure salesrep are sales-ready?
How can we minimize the dependency on VP Sales / senior salesrep?
Missions – Testing various skills of your salesreps (Pitching, Communication, Negotiation, Objection handling)
HEALTHIFYMECase Study 2 – Problem Definition
A comprehensive weight-loss solution
Helps you to achieve fitness and weight loss goals
Calorie Tracker for Indian foodsTrack your meals and exerciseGet analysis and actionable insights on your calorie intakeGet personalized advice from coaches
Premium Product
Photo tracking
More data
Dietitian Messagin
g
HealthifyMe Premium Product (V1.0) – May 2013
1.• Why are our highly engaged free users
not purchasing our premium plans?
2.• Why are our premium users not
renewing their plans?
Issues to address
“I’m happy with “free” product, I don’t see much value in upgrading to premium”
“I usually repeat my foods which I can easily track using your Quick-Track. Why upload a photo and wait for you to track it for me?”
“Reaching out to a dietitian sounds interesting. But I’m a little skeptical about this whole online model”
Interviews with highly engaged free users
“I’m traveling and I forget to log my meals. Sometimes, it gets so boring”
“What should I do with the micro-nutrients data? Your app says that my diet is high on sodium. What should I do?”
“My dietitian is not customizing any recommendations for me”
“I’m not seeing much progress with my weight loss goal”
Interviews with premium users who are not renewing their plan
GoalHow do we make the premium product more valuable to our
users?
User + Need + InsightCustomers who want to lose weight
Get personalized guidance from dietitians and trainers to help them achieve their fitness goals in a fun manner
- Trust factor is very low in an app-only model- Premium users don’t like to log regularly, even though they have paid for it and inspite of repeated reminders from the dietitian
Framing the problem
How can we provide personalized guidance?
Skype sessions / Phone consultations
Understand the goal of the customer more clearly
Understand their eating preferences
Understand their workout preferences
Get more info on their lifestyle
Hire more nutritionists
Hire trainers who specialize in cardio, strength training, yoga etc
How can we make the experience more fun?
Design a game (points, badges)
Make it more competitive
Come up with Group challenges
Give some interesting insights on foods consumed by others
Give weekly targets to break the monotony
Offline meetups
HealthifyMe Premium Product – Sept/Oct 2013
Set of experiments
Weekly targets, manual rollout
Manual email based
engagement
Basic gamification (points and
leaderboard)
Coaching sessions with
manual scheduling
HealthifyMe Premium Product – Aug 2015
Take-aways
1) Leverage your network to connect to people who match your target persona definition. People are generally helpful, irrespective of their position.
2) Prepare a list of questions (how, what, why etc) and ensure you don’t direct them towards the problems you want to hear
3) People love to talk about their problems/issues/challenges - If you care to listen with an open mind- If you treat the discussion as a learning session and not a channel to
confirm your biases
4) Be ready to absorb and assimilate surprises that come your way
5) Problem identification and definition needn’t be 100% accurate but should give you enough insights to create “test-able” hypotheses
For further exploration
Lean Customer Development by Cindy AlvarezBadass: Making users awesome by Kathy SierraHBR Sept 2015 issue
https://www.coursera.org/course/designbiz - Design thinking for business innovation course by Dr. Jeanne Liedtkahttps://hbr.org/2015/04/a-process-for-empathetic-product-design https://hackdesign.org/lessons/12
Thank you!
Want to continue the conversation? Say hello!Twitter - @anura
Email – [email protected] – http://anusridhar.blogspot.in
http://anura.blogspot.in