“Life is for service.” – Fred Rogers
Customer- Connected Development is used by many people across the world to engage with the customers throughout the life cycle.
I have also personally used Customer- Connected Development across my various teams so they can connect with the customer more easily.
Customer- Connected Development means that you should include or take an opinion of your customer during planning, development, and when you are about to release the deliveries. In simple words Customer- Connected Development is to include your customer in the product and product cycle.
Key Activities of Customer-Connected Development
The following table shows the overlay of Customer- Connected Development practices:
CORE | CUSTOMER CONNECTED DEVELOPMENT | |
Exploration |
|
|
iteration 0 |
|
|
Iteration N |
|
|
Stabilization(optional) |
|
|
Release (Optional) |
|
|
Her is a summary of the table that is shown above:
- Customer Advisory Board. This board includes people that act as a sounding board, for the project that you are working on.
- Stories / Scenarios. When a customer comes with a project, they share their stories and scenarios with you. These stories and scenarios are then narrated down. These stores and scenarios then later help you to show requirements in context.
- Prioritization. Clients help organize by giving a contribution to the item build-up, the run accumulations, and cycle arranging meetings.
- Feedback. Clients give feedback during cycles and to deliver.
Guiding Principles
The best way to adopt the practice successfully is to focus on the principles. Principles help you a lot epically by following the when you are following principles you can avoid getting stuck when you are implementing the details. An implementation may vary from project to project but here are some of the concepts that will remain the same throughout the projects.
Here are a few standards I’ve found to improve Customer Connected Development:
- Set the frame. A frame is how you look at things. You need to frame the discussion and create something that people can react to. The more thoughtful the frame, the higher the quality feedback you get. You create the frame by figuring out the customers, their needs, and the business goals. You use the frame to help focus feedback and dialogue. For example, one frame could be an architectural overview. Another frame can be your product backlog.
- Shared problems. The customers you select for the Customer Advisory Board need to have first-hand experience with the problem. They need to care and be involved in the solution.
- Have an opinion. Without an opinion, you’ll get randomized. Have an opinion so you can rationalize the feedback and priorities from various customers. Each customer will be coming from different perspectives. It’s your job to frame the feedback and understand the perspectives. You should also know your own assumptions. When people challenge your assumptions, you understand why you are changing your opinion. For example, you might have an idea on a user experience. Your customers then provide their reaction, which leads to you revising your design.
- Synthesize the feedback. Step back and look across the scenarios and requirements. Look for common denominators. Prioritize across your highest ROI items.
- Scenarios are King. Scenarios are the backbone of Customer Connected Engineering. The end-to-end scenarios are one of the most important outcomes. It’s one thing to look at a list of scenarios in a document. It’s another to walk through stories and scenarios with customers. Customers can share their goals and their stories in detail. We suggest having a set of straw man scenarios, before you engage with the advisory board.
- Transparency. Transparency is letting customers see inside your process to understand how things work. It’s sharing your decision making approach so that customers understand how trade-offs are made. It’s also about sharing design goals as you know them. It’s also about making customers aware of important changes along the way, instead of at the very end when you ship. It’s opening up the door to the workshop and letting customers watch and participate as you build your deliverables. When they understand why you made a decision / tradeoff, you are more likely to have a satisfied customer, even if they disagreed with a specific decision.
- Incremental value. Find a way to flow value. As the project progresses, customers should get a sense that you are delivering value along the way.
- Fail early, fail often. Share releases with your customers so they can share feedback. You don’t want to be surprised when you’re ready to ship. Share early and share often. Use the feedback to improve.
- Timely feedback. A big benefit of Customer Connected Engineering is timely feedback.
- Stay flexible. Be responsive to feedback. Acting on feedback will show customers you value their input and that it makes a difference. The more they see the impact, the more they’ll engage.
- Real world solutions. If you have a working implementation, you have a significant starting point. Where you can, find examples of specific customer solutions that solve some of the same scenarios and challenge you are facing. For example, to speed up your success, rather than chase your competition, you can look to working solutions.
Whiteboard Notes on Customer-Connected Development
Here are some of the quick whiteboard notes on customer connected Development
- We engage customers early and throughout the process.
- Customer Advisory Board influences what we ship.
- Customers help us ship better products that meet their needs
Key Activities
Why Customer Connected Development
Customer Advisory Board Selecti
Stories and Scenarios with Customer-Connected Development
Prioritization with Customer-Connected Development
Guiding Principles
Principle #1 – Set the Frame
Principle #2 – Shared Principles
Principle #3 – Have an Opinion
Principle #4 – Synthesize the Feedback
Principle #5 – Scenarios are King
Principle #6 – Transparency
Principle #7 – Incremental Value
Principle #8 – Fail Early, Fail Often
Principle #9 – Timely Feedback
Principle #10 – Stay Flexible
Principle #11 – Real World Solutions
Are You Doing Customer-Connected Development?
Getting Started with Customer-Connected Development
- Create a Customer-Advisory Board
- Identify Customer-Connected Development activities in your product cycle
- Test Customer-Connected Development, learn and respond.
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