Tuesday
Oct252005
Developing A Better Understanding Of Your Customer Should Be Fun
Tuesday, October 25, 2005 at 04:49PM
I can often tell when a client has been focusing too heavily on market research or requirements gathering "technique" by the kinds of reactions I get when suggesting that the product team needs to better understand their customers. When a product team groans out loud about doing this, I know there is a problem! Developing a better understanding of your customers should be fun, not something you dread! Lighten up a bit on the technique, and have a bit more fun. And if your team groans when they start talking about having fun, reread this blog again.
Reader Comments (2)
Per the recommendation from one of your colleagues, I was reading _There are no shortcuts_ by Rafe Esquith (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375422021?v=glance) and he says the same thing about teaching children reading. It begs the question -- which part of what you do shouldn't be (or shouldn't necessarily be) fun?
Also, one of my Physics professors told me something once that stuck. He had been spending some time studying cubic equations during the nights and weekends, and someone in the class gave him some grief about just "dorking around" with math. He replied "You need to learn to love this stuff. If this works out for you, you are going to be doing it for 8 hours a day for the rest of your life, so you had better love it or go find something better to do." He wasn't trying to dissuade us so much as inspire us to dig deeper and find something we loved.
My experience is that qualitative market research should be "fun", in the sense that it is something you look forward to doing. If you're not looking forward to talking with customers, it is probably a good idea to figure out why. It may be a difficult process to get the answers, but better to have them than not.