How to Figure Out What the Solution Is
Recently we walked through a process for finding a problem. Once you’ve completed that process, you will have a better understanding of what the problem is that both you and your customers have.
But so what?
Knowing the problem helps you with two important concepts.
A common enemy
When you have a common enemy, you can unite your customers around the work in a unique way. It becomes about being a team trying to solve a problem and not you trying to shove a product down anyone’s throat.
An agreed upon starting point
Starting from the same place is important because you can agree on vocabulary and you have a point to return to when you get lost along the way. Knowing that you did the work to get off on the right foot will help save you plenty of frustration along the way.
But, we don’t stop here. If we did, we’d all just be complainers. What we want is the solution. How do we solve this problem?
Repeat the process that you just completed, but this time for solutions. It might go something like this.
You’ve established that your customers and you agree that knowing how much time has been spent on a project is difficult if we skip a day of recording time. So you might create a solution domain that is along the lines of automating the time tracking. And in that domain, you will create five solutions to the problem.
For each solution, you will ask the same three questions.
- On a scale of one to five, with five being the highest, how excited does this solution make you?
- On a scale of one to five, with five being the highest, how much of a priority is this solution for you?
- Do you use this solution now and if yes, tell me about it?
When it comes to scoring the solutions, I will refrain from committing to a path until I have double fives. You can keep repeating the process till you get there You might refine the solution or change the solution domain, but the point is you want your customer advisors to agree that this is an excellent idea and it’s a high priority for them. There are lot’s of great ideas in the world, but if it’s not a priority to your customers, they won’t matter.
One last thing to note. I know this is obvious, but don’t skip this process. The problem/solution cycle will change the way that you think. And talking to customers will be incredibly valuable to that process. Without it, you are guessing while wasting time and money.
Soon we’ll jump into starting our research for how to build something that matters.
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This is the from the archive of an ongoing series called Making Things That Matter. Each week I will send you an email with another step in the process of building products and launching ideas. Signup here to join the conversation.
