Anthony Ulwick’s article concerning Outcome based segmentation methods has gotten a bunch of buzz from the shuttle crew. It appears several people separately pulled up the Harvard Business Review article. There’s a bit of debate as regards to testing methodology etc, Whatever… Here’s another Ulwick article outlining the superiority of outcome based segmentation.
http://www.strategyn.com/pdf/OutcomeBasedSegmentation.pdf
This brings up a good topic. What are the range of possibilities for creating strategy. This first link is a great overview of 10 or so different methods beyond customer analysis.
http://cims.ncsu.edu/documents/newproduct.pdf
Finally, here’s an interesting technique for tracking and correlating customer trends. Something for human designers to take note.
http://www.id.iit.edu/ideas/elito/DevelopingAMethodPaper.html
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The outcome based methodology should be evaluated quickly and implemented in any organization.
A simple methodology of Outcome based Customer Input Evaluation from the Harvard Business Review, January 22nd 2002 by Anthony Ulwick.
1. Plan Outcome based customer interviews
2. Capture desired outcomes - be sure to drive to outcomes not solutions. People will generally list features or solutions as a short-hand. It’s important to work the interview through the entire process to determine the optimal outcome at critical steps in the process.
3. Organize the outcomes -
4. Rate outcomes for importance and satisfaction – Ulwick provides a lightweight algorithm for prioritization. This is a key point. I’ve seen more complicated methods. His super easy…(Importance + (Importance – Satisfaction) = Opportunity
5. Use the outcomes to jump-start innovation
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