Thought Exercise: Product Box

Agile Strategy

What is it?

It’s a fun and visual way of exploring the unique selling points and differentiators of your product as well as really getting you to refine what the concise appeal you’re making to the potential customer is.

Why do it?

It helps you identify your product’s unique marketable quality and ultimately helps you position your product in the marketplace against competitors and ensure you’re conveying your product’s unique strengths when appealing to potential customers.

When to do it?

At the beginning of any new product development or before any significant change.

How to do it?

Get your project team and business stakeholders together. Intermix and form small groups.

Give each group a blank box of colored pens and sticky notes.

Each team needs to design the product box. Imagine it on a supermarket shelf next to the competition. Think about what it is specifically that would persuade a customer to buy your product and not the competitors’. Consider name, nutritional info, marketing slogans, ingredients, offers, price, and so on.

(Optional): Introduce an element of competition. Set a tight time deadline and tell each team they will need to prepare a five-minute pitch (Shark Tank style) and that the best one will win a prize.

Assemble a panel of external judges. Each judge should play the role of a customer or investor and decide which product they would buy or invest in and why. (These may even potentially be volunteer judges whom the students met when doing their branding testing out in the field).

After the time limit is up, invite each team to present in turn.

Consolidate the feedback from the judges and announce the winner.

The Agile Flavor

Make it a time-constrained an collaborative effort involving student designers, business stakeholders (if any), and potentially neighborhood volunteers or university students as judges.