A layered illustration emphasizing the Methods as the upper layer. — Methods — established standards.

Becoming a customer-obsessed tech company is the blueprint mission. Part 3

Becoming a customer-obsessed tech company is the blueprint mission.

DAYONE

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DAYONE — A new perspective.

6 min readJun 10, 2020

Part 3: Our Methodology

Part 1 and part 2 of the Digital Innovation as a Service-series (DIaaS) explained our mindset and framework. Though these elements are very important to excel in customer experience, we also need hands-on methods and techniques to actually apply that mindset and framework.

As designers, it is our position to make things work — not to reinvent the wheel. That is why we trust and build upon industry standards for research, ideation, prototyping and testing. Our methodology follows the principles of Design Thinking and lean frameworks. The magic of our approach is found in the way we combine our framework with proven, standardised methodologies.

Even though we our framework gives us the freedom to approach each use case individually and with focus on its specific needs, there are still some methodologies we always resort to. These are our favorites that have proven their effectiveness over time.

Strategy methods

Team Canvas

The Team Canvas is our preferred way to help setup an end-to-end product team. It’s a great strategic framework for kick-off projects or mid-project check-ins.(4) We use this canvas at the start of new projects to assign the roles for each team members, discover common goals and values, establish team rules and activities and define our purpose.

Customer Journey Mapping

One of our proven ways to successfully kick-off a project of workshop is customer journey mapping. A journey map is a visualization of the process that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal. It is build on several elements: the user, a certain scenario, the different phases of the journey, behaviours and actions and opportunities.(5) The journey map can be tweaked according to the project and also include touchpoints, features, jobs-to-be-done etc.

We find this method extremely useful to consider customer jobs and needs in a broader context and gain a holistic view on the customer experience.

Alongside the Customer Journey Map we also employ the Service Blueprint to paint the broader context. The customer journey maps solely focuses on the customer’s perspective and his touchpoints with a brand, whereas the service blueprint also shows employee actions. The Service Blueprint completes the Customer Journey Map with backstage actions and support processes that might not be visible to the customer.(6)

Value Proposition Canvas

Another one of our go-to methods for customer experience excellence is the Value Proposition Canvas. This is the customer-focused counterpart to the Business Model Canvas. The Value Proposition Canvas enables us to position products and services around real customer jobs, pains and gains. It helps us gain a deeper, more holistic understanding of what jobs a customer has, which benefits he expects and what blocks him from performing that job. With this deep understanding, it is easier to match products and services and find value for customers.

Ideation Methods

We regularly run workshop with participants from all kinds of professional background and so have collected a few ideation techniques that are fit for both Design Thinking experts as well as team members new to the practice.

Crazy 8s

This brainstorm technique is also employed by Google’s Design Sprint and encourages participants to think further than their initial ideas. The exercise starts with a topic or question that needs to be answered, for example: “How might we enable customers to limit search results to their preferences?” All participants grab a piece of paper and fold it into eight smaller sections. After that, the participants have eight minutes to sketch one idea per section. The goal is to fill all eight sections with different ideas. Crazy 8s allows us the generate ideas fast and motivates people to focus on the bigger picture instead of losing themselves in details or making “pretty” drawings.

Lightning Talks

What we value the most about close collaboration with partners is the opportunity to tap into a broad set of expertise. During Lightning Talks team members share their knowledge on a certain area. The format is simple: the team decides which topics are important to their challenge and invites relevant experts to share their knowledge in 10 to 15-minute talks. This method is a powerful way to get everyone on the same page and build ownership.

Affinity Mapping and Dot Voting

Affinity Mapping and Dot Voting combined are an easy way to make sense out of dozens of ideas that were generated in brainstorming sessions. We cluster sketches, post-its and ideas that are similar to identify the focus of our ideas and build a shared understanding. To select the best ideas we use Dot Voting. Each participant gets a limited number of dot stickers and is invited to vote for their favorite ideas. The result of this is a democratic approach to selecting ideas with the most potential.

Summary

Customers are more and more demanding, expecting companies to deliver experiences that fit exactly what they want, when they want it. Companies have to change fundamentally in order to sustain valuable relationships with customers. They have to organise themselves around the customer experience and live a company-wide obsession with the customer. We believe good design can help with that.

Digital Innovation as a Service is our way to design experiences that matter. It brings together three important components for digital transformation: the right mindset, the right framework and the needed methodology. Through co-creation we turn the relationship between service providers and companies into one of enablers and participators. Our experiment-driven framework guarantees design that is proven to solve problems. Lastly, industry-standard methodologies offer us the hands-on tools to ideate, test and validate.

We believe so strongly in DIaaS that it became part of our DNA and we constituted it our manifesto:

We feel, that design isn’t a job description — but a mindset.

We think, that an idea doesn’t just come from inspiration. But from asking questions.

We believe, that a product isn’t a bunch of code. But an experience.

And we trust, that you can pull things off without showing off.

We know that one may have a creative thought — but only a team can make it happen.

That’s why we work together. Experiment together. Stay curious together. Seek new perspectives together. Explore, evolve and enhance together.

Because together, we can shape experiences meaningful to people. So let’s:

Pre-think tomorrow — for experiences that matter.

Companies like Volkswagen, Deutsche Bahn, TUI and Burda as well as start-ups already put their trust in our Digital Innovation as a Service. Are you the next to be convinced?

Reach out to Nico Wohlgemuth (info@dayone.de) for more information

When this sounds like a place you want to work at, we’ve got good news for you: we’re hiring! Reach out to Annika Köbsch (career@dayone.de) for more information.