The Evolution of Product Development -- Has Lean Adjusted?

In October, Cécile Roche and Luc Delamotte published a book entitled The Lean Engineering Travel Guide: The Best Itineraries for Developing New Products and Satisfying Customers. This book explains many Lean Engineering practices in some detail and the best itineraries to develop better products, discussing the underlying intentions and offering advice for implementation. It includes numerous concrete cases that illustrate this part with case material drawn from the authors’ own experiences. In addition, there is a brief guide to where and how to get started.  

When I spoke with Cécile this month, I asked her: "How has Lean adjusted as product development evolves?" Here is her complete answer:

The power of the Lean approach is that it is based on two strong convictions. 

The first is that a company will succeed if it really takes care of the customers, and therefore offers products that will solve their real problems - Do the right thing!

The second is that the company will make money thanks to the ingenuity of its employees, which must be encouraged by the existence of organized thinking spaces. 

By doing this, you avoid the biggest wastes imaginable: products that don't sell, products that you don't know how to produce, maintain, or recycle at the right cost, and all the rework caused by poor choices - Do the right thing, then do it right!

The practices and tools of Lean are all geared towards answering this question: what are we doing to give our staff the means to understand customers properly, and the means to identify the waste caused by our misconceptions? This constant questioning, which always begins with "Do we know what we don't know?” is the best way of ensuring that we are constantly adapting to change.

To encourage this questioning, we must set up a system that can very quickly identify the gaps, knowledge gaps, and trade-offs that need to give rise to creative discussions and train people to solve problems using appropriate methods. It is the Lean system.

Lean is a dynamic approach. It's not about freezing practices in procedures that are excellent one day but already unsuitable the next, but about regularly questioning all changes (in the context, of technology, resources, skills, etc.) to assess their impact. This is what we call the Kaizen spirit. As Allen Ward said, "Instead of learning to surf, conventional organizations try to control the waves! This almost never works."

What do you think of Cécile Roche's thoughts on Lean methodology? Do you feel that Lean continues to benefit the changing face of product development? 

What Are the Biggest Mistakes Sales Professionals Make While Trying to Reach New Customers?

At the beginning of this month, I had the chance to speak with Shawn Casemore about his recently published book entitled The Unstoppable Sales Machine: How to Connect, Convert, and Close New Customers. His book addresses the shifts sales professionals and their organizations must make for introducing modern sales strategies. It provides insights and proven strategies for business owners, sales executives, leaders, and professionals -- anyone who desires to create a rapid and sustained increase in their sales without investing significant time or money. 

During our conversation, I asked Shawn: “What are the biggest mistakes sales professionals currently make while trying to reach new customers?” Here is his complete answer:

There is only one mistake sales professionals make while trying to reach new customers or clients – they give up.

A recent Gartner Study has outlined what sales professionals have noticed for years. Buyers spend less time connecting with sales and more time researching their ideal solution.

This continuing shift results in many buyers not engaging with sales until they believe they have a need. This results in one of three possible scenarios for sales -- They must contend with buyers who:

• Engage before they begin researching, with no intention of buying.
• Engage while researching and never circle back to confirm their decision.
• Do not engage as their need isn’t yet clear or urgent.

Unfortunately, experiencing any of these three scenarios can result in sales giving up on the pursuit and conversion of their prospect.

Instead, sales professionals must be more strategic about pursuing new buyers to build trust and curiosity. The first three steps to take in accomplishing this are:

1. Too many sales professionals find a new lead and pursue them aggressively, only to taper off their efforts within the first two weeks after no response. Instead, sales should slowly build outreach, increasing your buyer’s attention and creating the perception that you have something interesting to share.
2. Studies have repeatedly found it takes between 8 to 20 touchpoints to get buyers’ attention. As a result, outreach strategies must consist of at least 20 touchpoints if there is ever an opportunity to connect with the buyer.
3. Many of the sales teams I work with use one primary form of communication - email. Buyers are overwhelmed with emails today, and increasingly complex spam filters are removing more unwanted emails from their inboxes. Instead, sales professionals should use various methods to reach buyers, including direct mail, telephone, video, and social media. 

The only thing to give up when pursuing buyers is old methods of prospecting that are no longer relevant.

What do you think of Shawn’s perspective? Have you or your company experienced these scenarios with potential customers? If so, have you incorporated any of Shawn’s solutions? What other solutions have you tried?

Startups and the Problems They Face

Just this month, Orly Zeewy, published a very practical book entitled Ready, Launch, Brand: The Lean Marketing Guide for Startups that shows you how to close the marketing gaps that can slow down sales and make it harder to scale your business. When I spoke with Orly this past week, I asked her:  "What are the greatest obstacles that startups face when trying to scale their businesses?" Here is her response:

To quote author Seth Godin, "In a crowded marketing place, fitting in is a failure. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.”

Startups typically think of scaling as something that will happen magically if only they work hard enough and do great work. But scaling your business has less to do with magic and more to do with following the three pillars of brand building.

1.       Who Are You? If you can’t answer this question, no one else can. Founders have a unique opportunity at the start of their company to get clear on their brand’s value proposition—the one thing they offer that no one else can. But when asked about their company, they typically talk about what they do but almost never about why they do it. According to author Simon Sinek, customers buy based on the why, not the what. It’s the reason that Apple is still a leader in computer sales. Think different is not just a tagline, it’s the reason they exist.

2.       Do You Have The Right Team? Building a team is key to scaling because no founder can scale on their own. If you don’t have a clear vision, building your team becomes a game of chance that you’ll find “the right people.” A clear vision helps you identify people who not only “get it” but who are passionate about your startup. They believe what you believe and that’s a powerful incentive to join. It also turns out that having the wrong team is the #3 reason that startups fail.

3.       Are You Attracting The Right Customers? This critical pillar of brand building is a hard one for many founders to commit to. In the early days of their startup, they are focused on keeping the lights on so any customer is the right one. So, instead of scaling with ideal customers who will refer other ideal customers, you’re trying to build brand loyalty with customers who are not invested in what you offer. It’s hard to scale when you’re not clear on who your ideal customer is and why you matter to them.

What do you think of Orly's perspective on brand building? Have you tried scaling a small business? What were the main problems that you experienced? 

Employee Engagement -- Is it Increasing or Decreasing? Can it Be Sustained?

Most companies know the very visible and measurable benefits to having an engaged and involved workforce -- healthy workplace culture, lower turnover rates, and more satisfied customers. Many Gallup research studies are showing that employee engagement is rather low throughout many industries, and this topic is thoughtfully addressed in a new book by Lonnie Wilson entitled Sustaining Workforce Engagement: How to Ensure Your Employees Are Healthy, Happy, and Productive.

I spoke with Lonnie recently, and we discussed his book and the importance of employee engagement. I asked him: "Why are employee engagement levels so low?" Here is his complete answer:

The typical view of an “engaged employee” is some hard-working soul who asks few questions. He just keeps his head down and works hard to get the wash out.  Well, that falls far short of real engagement; which is an employee who is not only making a physical commitment (hard working), but an intellectual commitment (problem solving) and an emotional commitment (caring attitude) to his work, to his colleagues, and to his company.

The most comprehensive studies that have been done to quantify engagement levels in the US show that overall engagement is in the 30% to 32% range, with manufacturing even lower at 25% to 26%. These data are disturbing to most…and should be. That was not always the case.

Many years ago, engagement levels were higher, much higher. That changed when we grew as a country and as an industrial giant.  In the early 1800s, there were few factories and suppliers were very close to their customers. Think of the local tailors who made your clothes or the local smithy who fixed your wagon. They always worked hard. And at that time suppliers not only knew their customers, they cared about supplying them exactly what they needed and when they needed it.  Should problems arise, they would - Johnny-on-the-spot to fix the problems. These craft tradesmen were the epitome of engagement with physical, intellectual and emotional commitment attached to all they did.  

Then came mass production to make more products and make them cheaper. Next the railroads made distribution over long distances a reality and the craft worker became a mass producer usually making only part of a product as assembly lines were implemented. This effectively disconnected the worker from both the customer and the finished product. This drove a wedge between reality and any caring attitude they once had.  

Next, in an effort to improve both quality and worker productivity, the practice of “scientific management” was created. The most attractive aspect to the business owner was the concept of “best methods”. Known as Taylorism, it was now the job of engineers and managers, not the workers, to develop the best methods. This effectively drowned out any intellectual commitment the workers once might have had. 

With the impact of mass production, the advent of the railroads, along with the implementation of “scientific management”;  the concepts of emotional commitment and intellectual commitment were effectively severed from the worker and we are left with what we have today in manufacturing … 25% engagement levels. It need not be that way…..we can do much better.

In his book, Lonnie examines engagement from top to bottom integrating the theories of the scholars, with the experiences of the practitioners. He explains, in simple terms, how engagement can be achieved and why people try so hard to create a fully engaged workforce with both the best of intentions and a true passion to achieve it … yet fall short.

He believes there is a simple reason -- achieving engagement is all about management and the many changes that must be made, and that raises the crucial question: Is management both willing and able to recognize, accept, and execute the needed paradigm shifts? The stark reality is that the changes that must first occur are in the thoughts, beliefs, and actions of the management team. This book gives you a path to follow that may achieve just that. And the remaining question for the senior management is: What are you prepared to do?

How engaged are the employees in your company? Do you feel management is contributing to increasing or decreasing employee engagement?

Reusable Visual Models -- Are Your Product Development Teams Using Them?

In September, Penny Cloft, Michael Kennedy, and Brian Kennedy published a book entitled Success Is Assured: Satisfy Your Customers On Time and On Budget by Optimizing Decisions Collaboratively Using Reusable Visual Models. This book teaches new thinking and methodologies to convert the chaotic front end of product development into a convergent process of set-based learning and continuous innovation – a game changer for companies that depend upon a steady flow of innovative products.

I recently spoke with Brian Kennedy about the book and asked him: “What are reusable visual models and why do they make a difference?” Here is his complete answer:

Each of those three words “reusable visual models" pack a fair bit of meaning. As “models," they are representing knowledge about the real world. They are capturing what we know how to do, what we know is possible, what physics allows. In addition, they are capturing what we are trying to achieve or what value we are trying to deliver. And then they are capturing the cause-and-effect relationships between what we know and what we want.

In complex situations where we must engage people with expertise in different areas to make decisions, having models is helpful, but only if all the stakeholders can understand those models. That’s where the “visual” comes in. We need those models to be visually understandable to people without needing to know specialized notations or languages that are only understood by people in certain fields. It is not good enough to just explain what you put in your model… you need those experts in different areas to really understand the model such that they can critique it and find the holes in it or the bad assumptions in it based on their own area of expertise. Finally, to maximize the benefits of such models, it is obviously best if they are “reusable” in similar situations in the future. For many that means capturing them in a known place that can be searched. Most companies, however, have “lessons learned," “best practices," and other such databases… but they experience very little actual “reuse.”

The first key requirement for “reusability” is that it was useful in the first place -- that your team of collaborating experts was able to use it to make the decisions they needed to make. If the knowledge you capture does not change the decisions you make in the future, then it has no value. So, when you make similar decisions in the future, you should be able to use those models to better make those decisions. That’s where the “set-based” aspect of those models becomes important: the models must be designed to capture the design space not a particular design (a particular point in that design space). It is hard to reuse a design to make the right decisions on a different design trying to satisfy different requirements. But knowledge about the design space -- knowledge about how what you know impacts what you want to achieve that is easily reused when making different decisions about different designs trying to satisfy different requirements -- is what we mean by “reusable." And just to stress that point, note that building “reusable" visual models is not just of value to future projects… it is hugely valuable on THIS project. Because invariably we will learn things over the course of the project -- and requirements and conditions may change -- and thus the decisions may need to change or be re-made. When you re-make those decisions, you want to make them considering all the knowledge you used before PLUS the new knowledge (the changes). That is done most effectively and efficiently with “reusable visual models.”

What do you think of Brian's explanation of these models and how they should be used? Are reusable visual models part of your product development team's process? More information about this technique and the book can be found here: SuccessIsAssured.com

Meeting Customer Needs is Not Enough

Lance B. Coleman recently published a book titled The Customer-Driven Organization: Employing the Kano Model, and I spoke with him about its content. My main question was: “Why is meeting customer needs no longer enough?” Here is his full response:

In an expanding global economy having international competition, meeting customer needs is simply not enough. Meeting customer needs leads to customer satisfaction but does not lead to customer loyalty, which is what keeps companies in business.

Delighted customers, however, are loyal customers. The Kano Model developed by Noriaki Kano describes delightful performance as that which surprises and excites the customer in addition to meeting their basic needs. To “delight” a customer, an organization or individual must become aware of not just what is asked for but rather what is needed. They have to look to the future as inspiration for innovation today.

Quotes from two of our greatest innovators born almost 100 years apart would tend to agree.  Steve Jobs is known to have often said: "A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them." Henry Ford is reported to have said: “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said 'a faster horse.'”

Providing delightful service is more than just a nice thing to do, it is an imperative for business/professional survival both for the organization and for the individual. What I have tried to share with readers of my book, The Customer-Driven Organization: Employing the Kano Model, was threefold  -- why a philosophical paradigm shift is required to provide truly delightful service, how to practically apply the concepts espoused by the Kano model, and finally, why one should care to do so.

To Whom Do You Listen? The Customer or the Market?

Many businesses throughout the years have been using an array of processes to capture customers' explicit requirements and as well as their unstated "wants" -- these techniques strive to hear "the voice of the customer." Recently, expanded, more robust versions of these processes have been developed and applied with the intent of capturing the "voice of the market" instead of just the voice of the customer. I asked Eric Reidenbach, author of a recent book on the topic, to explain the differences between the two. He replied:

"'Best in Market' is the accolade bestowed upon the market share leader. Look at John Deere in agriculture and Caterpillar in construction and you will find the two leaders who have built their leadership on the basis of superior value. Customer value is the best leading indicator of market share and top line revenues and comes from a deep understanding of how markets define value. Note that I said markets and not customers.

Many companies slavishly monitor the voice of the customer (VOC) but ignore the more powerful voice of the market (VOM). Market share derives from three sources:
1. Retaining current customers
2. Upgrading current customers to buy more, buy more frequently, etc.
3. Acquiring new customers.

The VOC is important in achieving the first two components of market share but cannot address the third component. It is the VOM that provides the information platform for acquiring new customers by being able to provide information on the competitive dynamics that drives share gains. Your value proposition is relative to that of your competitors and requires constant management. After all, if you are not managing your value proposition, who is? Answer: your competitors."