Exploring the Real Customer Needs
The Lean Launchpad (LLP) entrepreneurship methodology created by Steve Blank guided BIE Cohort Team Blue through the process of real needs discovery and validation while developing Business Model Canvas. According to the LLP approach, customer needs’ hypotheses are rapidly tested and validated by interviewing prospective customers and acquiring real customer feedback. After speaking with Dr. Jonathan Carter and learning more about the design challenges of the laparoscopic cautery/suction device, my team was ready to “get out of the building” (using Zoom) to talk with general surgeons specialized in advanced laparoscopic surgeries and other suitable experts in order to learn about their design needs and refine our initial needs for the redesign.
Over the first week of interviews, my team has contacted over 55 surgeons, 34 suitable experts and was able to complete in total of 10 interviews, with 6 scheduled. Our interviews included various stakeholders such as a general surgeon, an obstetrician-gynecologist, a human factor engineer for medical devices, R&D engineer, an ICU Registered Nurse, and a Hematology Cancer Registered Nurse. Before each interview, my team would prepare to ask questions that were neither too broad, nor too narrow in scope. We truly wanted to provide unbiased space for our interviewees in order to understand their real unmet needs. With each interview, my team became more synchronized at asking the relevant questions and gradually improved our interviewing process.
Gaining insights from different stakeholders’ perspectives provided us with validation for our existing needs and exposed us to important overlooked needs. Customer insights helped us to broaden our solution with a larger customer segment and to recognize other significant aspects in the ergonomic design process. After interviewing female surgeons, my team learned that they are experiencing more ergonomic difficulties than male since surgical instruments are usually designed for a larger grip size. In addition, due to the bulkiness of the handle, the multifunctional electrocautery device presented to us by Dr. Carter is not used at all by the interviewed female surgeons. My team and I have also learned that surgeons end their careers earlier due to arthritis which might be caused by ergonomic issues. By interviewing a human factor engineer, our team discovered the various levels of ergonomic consideration, useful force simulation software, and practical hand tool design guidelines. Ultimately, we have gained a valuable understanding of the purchasing system in hospitals and the product innovation at established companies.
As of this week, my team and I would like to continue conducting interviews in order to collect more customer data, validate our new or existing customer needs, and come up with a ranking system for our hypothesis testing. Additionally, we would like to interview other stakeholders, so that we could have a better understanding of the entire customer ecosystem. These stakeholders include surgical nurses, surgeons from the Hospital Board, hospital administrators, competitors, and retired surgeons. Lastly, from the usability standpoint, we would like to gather visual demonstration of the device usage in order to understand how surgeons might use this device differently.
The BIE Cohort Team Blue would like to thank Dr. Rita Kwan-Feinberg, MD, MPH, FACS, Dr. Prasanna Mennon, MD, FACOG, Swati Bhalerao, Jin Tanizaki, John Bergman, ICU RN and Jennifer Lo, Hematology Cancer RN for joining us remotely and sharing with us their knowledge and experiences.
