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 – anuradha.sridharan@gmail.comBlogs – http://anusridhar.blogspot.in

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