How to run a Product Feedback Workshop

There are a plethora of methods that Product Managers can use to obtain feedback from customers. One that is often overlooked is the good old fashioned workshop. There are plenty of reasons why you shouldn’t run a workshop, but don’t discount it as it can be an incredibly rewarding experience.

The challenges

Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. There are lots of reasons why you shouldn’t run a product feedback workshop:

• It’s difficult to organise (trying to get a date where you & several customers are free is hard).
• It’s costly (you may need to hire a venue, provide food etc.).
• Distance might be difficult to overcome (it’s unlikely to customers will travel far, especially if your product isn’t integral to their day job).
• Feedback can be narrow (one customer may be passionate about something that isn’t important to most customers).
• Chairing can be difficult (especially when dealing with one or more customers that have a big personality).
• Customers can see it as being a ‘jolly’ (it might be a nice day out for them, but you’ll want a productive one).
• You can probably get the same feedback through other methods quicker/easier/cheaper.

So why do it?

Well, there are a few reasons:

• We live in an increasingly digital world. A world that can be quite a cold one. A product workshop really brings things to life.
• You can get a real sense of priorities based on reading your customers emotions. This something that is easily lost via data-driven digital channels.
• It can be incredibly motivational. Seeing your customers speak (hopefully passionately) about your product is rewarding.
• Direct personal relationships can be built. Customers are often hidden behind Sales/Accounts people and building direct relationships may lead to you to have a list of customers you can quickly pick up the phone to and get instant feedback on new ideas in the future.
• Conversional structure to feedback will lead to unexpected insights. Going off on tangents should be encouraged in these sessions (though naturally need to keep an eye on the time!).
• It may lead to increased customer engagement & possibly new sales opportunities. This shouldn’t be the focus, but simply getting into a room and speaking to your customers will often organically lead to these types of conversations.

Since you’ve read this far I hope you’re considering running a workshop. If so, here are some pointers on how to organise and run a product feedback workshop.

Step 1 — Figure out who you want to invite.

• Include customers who from varying businesses — Getting feedback from any customer is valuable, but you’ll need to make sure that you aren’t just covering the view of the budget holder for your product (who may not actually be using your product). This can be difficult if you sell your products to businesses that aggressively compete with each other, but your customers will find additional value meeting those in the same industry and this helps ensure that feedback is not just specific to one customer need.
• Cover all of your use cases — this is really important. You need to make sure that you aren’t just speaking to one type of user. Ensure that you invite people who cover each use case.
• Don’t just invite your ‘noisy’ customers — customers that are most engaged by your product are great to have, but you’ll often know their needs & current concerns. Make sure you include those customers that you know less about.

Step 2 — Sort a venue, a date and send invites.

• Find a venue — I wouldn’t recommend using your office as it’s likely your location won’t meet everyone’s need and your meeting space may not be ideal. Also being on ‘neutral ground’ changes the event from a meeting formally held by you to something much more collaborative & relaxed. So first step is to short list a few venues that will be a suitable place for the customers you want to invite.
• Try and combine the time with other meetings — everyone is busy. As such try and add more value by suggesting other meetings on the same day (e.g. meeting with Sales/Accounts/Finance/CEO etc.).
• Get a feel for dates — speak to customers you want to invite, see if they are likely to attend and if so when they would be available. I’d recommend you suggest a few dates rather than have it totally open ended, though don’t suggest anything in the next couple of weeks (nobody is turning up with one day notice!).
• Book the venue & send invites — once you have a rough commitment from your customers for a certain date, then book the venue and get formal invites out.
• Chase up — before the day is here, make sure you pop them an email with a reminder. Include an outline agenda in this email & remind them of start/end times etc.
• Get prepared — your attendees will want to be fed, make sure you have food & drink ordered. Also make sure you bring along pens, pads, sticky notes and flipcharts (if the venue doesn’t provide it). Any goodies with your logo on it like coffee mugs & USB sticks can go down well too.

Step 3 — The big day… start with intros.

• Who you are & why we are here — Once everyone has arrived the first thing to do is intro who you are and the objectives for the day.
• Put your product on a big screen if possible — there will likely be questions throughout the day about certain features. If you are focussing on one area of your product you can be clear about what you desire feedback on by placing that on the screen for all to see.
• Split into groups — If you have 8 or more attendees then I recommend you split into groups. This will ensure that the bigger personalities don’t take over and more voices are heard. Consider splitting groups into user roles if possible as that will ensure each group has a common ground and there will then be an equal balance of feedback between roles. Make sure you have one person from your company with each group at all times. This person will chair the group and prompt the questions below. This means they need to be prepared! BA’s, Product Managers and Account Directors can all do well in this role.
• Allow 30 mins for this step (people will be late!)

Step 4 — Ask what they use it for and what they like

• “So, what do you use our product for?” — this is all about understanding the value the product brings to them & parts of the product they use the most. As such prompt discussion by asking follow up questions around value and whether there are some features they use more than others. Write all feedback in the notebook. Learnings here can then be used to update your user personas later on.
• “.. and how often?” — do they use it daily or twice a year? This information can feed into your UX/design processes (i.e. how you position a feature that is used infrequently should be different to one that is used frequently).
• “What do you like the most about the product?” — this is a key question. To answer it, give everyone a stack of post-it notes and give them 5 minutes to write down as many things they like about your product (one thing per post-it note). Tell them to be high level (we can go into detail later). Then go around the table and ask each person to read out-loud each post-it note. Go into more detail on the items that other people in the group also have on their post it notes (if it’s mentioned multiple times then it’s likely something your user’s love). Collect all post-its for later sessions.
• Allow 30 mins for this step (everyone likes hearing what’s great, but there’s only so much you can learn here… so don’t dwell on it).

Step 5 — Ask what they don’t like

• “What do you finding challenging about the product?” — this is the key question. Like the previous step, give everyone a stack of post-it notes and give them 5 minutes to write down as many things they find challenging about your product (one thing per post-it note). Try and avoid negative words like “dislike” when positioning this to ensure the conversation remains positive. Like before, tell them to be high-level (we can go into detail later) and once done go around the table and ask each person to read out each post it note. Go into more detail on the items that other people in the group also have on their post it notes. Collect all post-its for later sessions. Feedback here could be items that are stopping customers from continuing with you and as such naturally items you’ll want to address. Generally, people are good at telling you what they dislike, so you shouldn’t need too much prompting. If you do need prompts, ask about they find clunky and if there are things that could be better.
• “Are you aware of feature x?” — customers naturally won’t mention what they don’t know about. As such use this as an opportunity to ask whether the group know about features that haven’t previously been mentioned. This will help understand if your UI is signposting these items correctly.
• Allow 1 hour for this step

Step 6 — Quick lunch

• Give customers a bit of free time — they have given up time for you, so feed them and let them do their own thing at this time.
• Keep this bit informal — chat with customers who want to chat. Learn about them and not just their business. Understanding what drives them as individuals will help you emphasise with their needs.
• Allow 1 hour for this step.

Step 7 — Recap on feedback

• Make this a collective session — if you split into groups for previous steps, do this step as one big group.
• List out everything that is liked — go through everything that is liked and write it up on a flip chart. Focus on the items that are mentioned the most. Encourage individuals to talk through the items they have raised.
• List out all of the challenges — same as above. Go through all the challenges and write it up on a flip chart. This will really start highlight needed areas of improvement.
• Ask if anything is missed — you’re now nearing the end of the session, so ask if there is any other feedback that hasn’t been covered. Allow customers to go off on tangents here (they may want to feedback on a feature you are not reviewing today, so this is their opportunity to cover that type of feedback).
• Allow 1 hour for this step.

Step 8 — Show something

At this point, you’ll have lots of feedback on your product that you can then use in your product development processes. Now is the time to shine and do a bit of a show & tell.

What I recommend is that you present something to the group. This can be anything from a quick overview of your current roadmap to a prototype of a new feature to a new design idea you have been exploring.

The purpose here is to ensure that the session ends on a high and to demonstrate you are on the right path.

Allow 30 mins for this step.

Step 9 — Outline next steps… and keep to them

The workshop is now coming to a close. Thank everyone for them time and outline what you are planning to do with feedback. Don’t commit to timetables, none of the feedback is prioritised as yet (you should do this internally… there will be a blog post on prioritisation soon).

Allow 10 mins for this.

I hope you’ve found this article insightful. If you have any thoughts then please let me know.

Originally published at Product Ponder.