ThoughtWorks
  • Contact
  • Español
  • Português
  • Deutsch
  • 中文
Go to overview
  • Engineering Culture, Delivery Mindset

    Embrace a modern approach to software development and deliver value faster

    Intelligence-Driven Decision Making

    Leverage your data assets to unlock new sources of value

  • Frictionless Operating Model

    Improve your organization's ability to respond to change

    Platform Strategy

    Create adaptable technology platforms that move with your business strategy

  • Experience Design and Product Capability

    Rapidly design, deliver and evolve exceptional products and experiences

    Partnerships

    Leveraging our network of trusted partners to amplify the outcomes we deliver for our clients

Go to overview
  • Automotive
  • Cleantech, Energy and Utilities
  • Financial Services and Insurance
  • Healthcare
  • Media and Publishing
  • Not-for-profit
  • Public Sector
  • Retail and E-commerce
  • Travel and Transport
Go to overview

Featured

  • Technology

    An in-depth exploration of enterprise technology and engineering excellence

  • Business

    Keep up to date with the latest business and industry insights for digital leaders

  • Culture

    The place for career-building content and tips, and our view on social justice and inclusivity

Digital Publications and Tools

  • Technology Radar

    An opinionated guide to technology frontiers

  • Perspectives

    A publication for digital leaders

  • Digital Fluency Model

    A model for prioritizing the digital capabilities needed to navigate uncertainty

  • Decoder

    The business execs' A-Z guide to technology

All Insights

  • Articles

    Expert insights to help your business grow

  • Blogs

    Personal perspectives from ThoughtWorkers around the globe

  • Books

    Explore our extensive library

  • Podcasts

    Captivating conversations on the latest in business and tech

Go to overview
  • Application process

    What to expect as you interview with us

  • Grads and career changers

    Start your tech career on the right foot

  • Search jobs

    Find open positions in your region

  • Stay connected

    Sign up for our monthly newsletter

Go to overview
  • Conferences and Events
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • News
  • Open Source
  • Our Leaders
  • Social Change
  • Español
  • Português
  • Deutsch
  • 中文
ThoughtWorksMenu
  • Close   ✕
  • What we do
  • Who we work with
  • Insights
  • Careers
  • About
  • Contact
  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Engineering Culture, Delivery Mindset

    Embrace a modern approach to software development and deliver value faster

  • Experience Design and Product Capability

    Rapidly design, deliver and evolve exceptional products and experiences

  • Frictionless Operating Model

    Improve your organization's ability to respond to change

  • Intelligence-Driven Decision Making

    Leverage your data assets to unlock new sources of value

  • Partnerships

    Leveraging our network of trusted partners to amplify the outcomes we deliver for our clients

  • Platform Strategy

    Create adaptable technology platforms that move with your business strategy

  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Automotive
  • Cleantech, Energy and Utilities
  • Financial Services and Insurance
  • Healthcare
  • Media and Publishing
  • Not-for-profit
  • Public Sector
  • Retail and E-commerce
  • Travel and Transport
  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Featured

  • Technology

    An in-depth exploration of enterprise technology and engineering excellence

  • Business

    Keep up to date with the latest business and industry insights for digital leaders

  • Culture

    The place for career-building content and tips, and our view on social justice and inclusivity

  • Digital Publications and Tools

  • Technology Radar

    An opinionated guide to technology frontiers

  • Perspectives

    A publication for digital leaders

  • Digital Fluency Model

    A model for prioritizing the digital capabilities needed to navigate uncertainty

  • Decoder

    The business execs' A-Z guide to technology

  • All Insights

  • Articles

    Expert insights to help your business grow

  • Blogs

    Personal perspectives from ThoughtWorkers around the globe

  • Books

    Explore our extensive library

  • Podcasts

    Captivating conversations on the latest in business and tech

  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Application process

    What to expect as you interview with us

  • Grads and career changers

    Start your tech career on the right foot

  • Search jobs

    Find open positions in your region

  • Stay connected

    Sign up for our monthly newsletter

  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Conferences and Events
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • News
  • Open Source
  • Our Leaders
  • Social Change
Blogs
Select a topic
View all topicsClose
Technology 
Agile Project Management Cloud Continuous Delivery  Data Science & Engineering Defending the Free Internet Evolutionary Architecture Experience Design IoT Languages, Tools & Frameworks Legacy Modernization Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence Microservices Platforms Security Software Testing Technology Strategy 
Business 
Financial Services Global Health Innovation Retail  Transformation 
Careers 
Career Hacks Diversity & Inclusion Social Change 
Blogs

Topics

Choose a topic
  • Technology
    Technology
  • Technology Overview
  • Agile Project Management
  • Cloud
  • Continuous Delivery
  • Data Science & Engineering
  • Defending the Free Internet
  • Evolutionary Architecture
  • Experience Design
  • IoT
  • Languages, Tools & Frameworks
  • Legacy Modernization
  • Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence
  • Microservices
  • Platforms
  • Security
  • Software Testing
  • Technology Strategy
  • Business
    Business
  • Business Overview
  • Financial Services
  • Global Health
  • Innovation
  • Retail
  • Transformation
  • Careers
    Careers
  • Careers Overview
  • Career Hacks
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Social Change
Experience DesignInnovationTechnologyBusiness

Customer learning for product success

Jonny Schneider Jonny Schneider

Published: Oct 10, 2018

There are a number of reasons why great products fail – it happens all the time. It’s easy to think that success is linked to how much a team knows at the start of a project; however, the potential to develop new skills, learn by doing, and adapt to what is learned is equally, if not more, important. Tackling problems, exploring opportunities and making better decisions comes from a culture that encourages teams to make a learning opportunity out of every action.

A common mistake is to confuse a good prototype result with strong affinity for the problem, or customer demand for the solution.
Even when we try to minimise risk by testing our ideas and running experiments, we don’t always get it right. A common mistake is to confuse a good prototype result with a strong affinity for the problem, or customer demand for the solution. Each of those – problem, solution, demand – are separate concerns that require different learning approaches.

Validating the problem

It might sound obvious, but before we do anything else, we need to ensure that the problem we are trying to solve is indeed one worth solving. There needs to be a significant number of customers who have a genuine pain point, or a process in an organization that is so inefficient that it needs an overhaul.

No matter how confident you are in your solution, it’s critical not to get carried away with your ideas before getting to grips with the real issues facing customers. It’s astounding how many products fail because they solve a 'problem’ that no one really cares about.

Mapping out the customer experience and the processes involved are important steps for deeper learning. These two methods are worth exploring:

  • A great way to create a shared understanding of customer interactions and pinpoint problems along the way is Experience Mapping - a visualisation showing the outside-in view of the complete customer journey. In essence, it’s a map that exposes key insights and allows you to build a more seamless customer experience.
     
  • Value Stream Mapping plots the inside-out view of everything that happens in the organization to deliver value to customers. It’s particularly useful for identifying and eliminating waste and bottlenecks, allowing for a more efficient process and giving customers more value.
When it comes to understanding customers’ needs, behavior and challenges there are many tools and methods to choose from. Designing a statistically accurate and unbiased survey is a skill that, if well executed, has an important place. But more often product teams gain deeper insight and discover real customer needs through direct observations and open conversations.
 
This is never about certainty to make decisions, and always about confidence to continue through understanding things more fully.
Interviews with customers are a fast way to test initial assumptions. When done well, the insights you gain will give you confidence in the problem to solve, or reveal the flaws and gaps in your thinking. This is never about certainty to make decisions, and always about confidence to continue through understanding things more fully.

Evaluating potential solutions

Once you’ve got a good grasp of the problem and have thought up ideas for the best solution, it’s time to test those ideas to ensure you’re on track to a desirable outcome. The approach you take to evaluate your solution will depend on the time and resources available, your budget and whether you are building a new product or optimising an existing solution. Here’s a summary of some approaches to consider:

  • A concept prototype is a throw-away sketch or mock-up for rapidly exploring concepts with customers. It’s low cost and often gets more honest feedback because the sketches are low effort.
     
  • A high-fidelity prototype is a detailed and interactive mock-up of the product experience and helps validate the interaction design, content, look and feel.  Based on the feedback received it’s easy to iterate and build upon.
     
  • The concierge model is a personalised service provided to a small cohort of early customers to learn what works before building an automated solution. The constraint with this approach is that it’s difficult to scale and there is a risk of building for a niche, because the cohort might not represent the broader market.
     
  • Although high-cost, a working prototype tested on a sample of real customers can be a great way to learn what really works, especially when building new products.
     
  • When it’s an existing product or service, quantitative analytics and split/multivariate testing create feedback loops that help agile product delivery teams decide what to do next.
Prototyping exercise

Testing market demand for a solution

The solution we build must be technically feasible, commercially viable and perfectly timed for market demand. Before spending money to build what we think people want, we aim to measure what solutions they actually want or need. Measuring demand helps determine where to invest or whether to invest at all. It’s the reverse of build it, and they will come. Demand validation says, when they come, build it.
 
It’s the reverse of ‘build it, and they will come’. Demand validation says, ‘when they come, build it.’


One way to test this, is by running a marketing campaign before building anything. Try setting up a search marketing ad to direct target customers to a simple landing page about the product.  This facade ad campaign allows you to experiment with different variants to see what resonates. Pairing this with a waitlist registration or pre-order can tell you a lot about who’s out there, and how interested they are in your solution.

To get an accurate feel for organic market demand, before investing in a complete solution, try a Wizard of Oz Prototype. This gives the appearance and experience of a complete and working service, yet all of the back-of-house processes are done manually, mimicking a real-time automated solution.

Design the right experiments to learn the right things, and be open-minded and nimble in response to learning things that are unexpected.
In summary, customer learning is critical to product success, but it’s no good if we have the wrong mindset. Don’t fall prey to thinking that we test things just to ‘validate’ them and that it’s simply another check-box in the delivery process. Decision making can’t be codified, and there is no certainty when executing strategy. True customer learning means we have to break through the validation mindset. Be clear about what to learn to support the next decision, design the right experiments to learn the right things, and be open-minded and nimble in response to learning things that are unexpected.

Discover Perspectives

Timely business and industry insights for digital leaders.

Explore
Related blogs
Languages, Tools & Frameworks

Idea to product: the working model

Dinker Charak
Learn more
Experience Design

Good design is about more than just customers

Ben Melbourne
Learn more
Innovation

Practical Product Innovation

Ben Melbourne
Learn more
  • What we do
  • Who we work with
  • Insights
  • Careers
  • About
  • Contact

WeChat

×
QR code to ThoughtWorks China WeChat subscription account

Media and analyst relations | Privacy policy | Modern Slavery statement ThoughtWorks| Accessibility | © 2021 ThoughtWorks, Inc.