Focus on understanding customers' jobs

when developping a new product or service


Finally something refreshing:

"Innovation is the process of devising solutions that address unmet needs; solutions are the means by which unmet needs (in our terminology, requirements) are satisfied. Consequently, when talking with customers to obtain their requirements, companies must focus only on capturing those requirements- and these statements must not include or make mention of a solution in any form....... We know that this is a widespread problem because many companies use scaling methods such as paired comparison and forced choice to get customers taking a survey to make trade-offs between attributes of various solutions, a practice that is totally unwarranted when trying to figure out which needs are unmet" Giving Customers a Fair Hearing; Anthony W. Ulwick and Lance Bettencourt