Teams often neglect to take into account customer value when making product decisions. I believe there are 3 reasons. A thread on what they are and how to overcome them.

The 3 major reasons for neglecting customer discovery are lack of empathy, overreliance on assumptions and fear of uncertainty.

Lack of empathy leads to mistaking business value for customer value. It's "getting customers to do things helpful to the biz, but intrinsically against their own needs" (h/t @mjwhansen). That’s a big ask, and reason enough for customers to leave.

Lack of empathy also shows when asking customers to bend to business processes. The sales director who insists on showing a demo is thinking of achieving their monthly KPI of # demos organised, not about value delivered to the customer.

Reason #2 for neglecting customer value: overreliance on assumptions. It's like driving: everyone else but me is a bad driver. Everyone should test their assumptions but me. Don't assume you know what a customer values.

The cost of overreliance on assumptions is not immediately visible. But teams that do not invest in uncovering assumptions will spend marketing dollars, product design and analytics reporting efforts on flogging a dead horse.

But by the time the cost of acting on wrong assumptions about customer value is visible, the blame will be put on other parts of the process: "bad coders!", "stupid customers!", "clever competitors!".

Reason #3: fear. Bringing customer value into the mix changes processes and the way work is evaluated. That's scary for a lot of people.

Also: fear of losing control. You cannot control customer value as well as other KPI's. Less website traffic? Stoke the advertising or SEO fires. Plummeting customer satisfaction? Let the pointing of fingers commence or lets all just neglect it or blame the stupid customer.

Fearful teams refuse to accept that reality has no clear answers and that uncertainty is essential to life. Teams that stick to what they know are unable to adapt. Their companies are en route to extinction.

So, my major reasons why teams "have no time" for customer discovery are lack of empathy, overreliance on assumptions and fear of uncertainty. How to overcome them?

Fear of uncertainty is the hardest one to overcome. It's a cultural thing. The only way to change a culture is with ungodly amounts of patience, repeating the gospel and demonstrating its truth ad nauseam. I'm sorry.

Overreliance on assumptions is easier: provide evidence. E.g.: "Get competent usability testers, document product failures on video, show to people who care (typically senior management/folks with skin in the game)." says @twinfrey

And empathy, well that's both an easy and a hard one. It's easy to say: be more genuinely curious about the lives, struggles, needs and wants of your customers. But it's very hard to let go of yourself and truly adopt their perspective.

Each of these obstacles can be overcome. Empathy with the customer, openness to challenging beliefs and being undeterred by uncertainty are the superpowers of teams that create more impact, better products and happier customers.

If you want to torture yourself and read the long form, it's a chapter in the guide to the Kano model that I'm writing in public.

That chapter's here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16XhbFOxneEEsnaoOppShfR_Jon9fZjI-TPa8oiwbOdc/edit?usp=sharing

(This thread is also a response to yesterday's tweet by @agileschools https://twitter.com/agileschools/status/1391839000772677640)