Defying Solution Gravity

Imagine that you have the task of finding gemstones near the top of a rugged mountain. Getting to the top of the mountain is not easy. You'll need to defy gravity to discover the gemstones. Your route has many shortcuts down to the base of the mountain. You need to avoid those shortcuts until you have collected enough gemstones.

Discovering customer needs is like searching for the gemstones around the mountain. Solution Gravity will pull at you and the other stakeholders anxious to get the solution. If you have not yet discovered all of the customer needs, you will end up with an incomplete solution and a disappointed customer. The previous article, The Force That Leaves a Solution Unfinished illustrates how Solution Gravity pulls stakeholders towards an incomplete solution.

Defy Solution Gravity that pulls you into solution design before discovering all of the customer needs that your solution would fulfill.

Defying solution gravity begins with preparation. You want to get as much information about the customer needs before your first discovery meeting with the stakeholders. Read any document the customer has pertaining to their needs or the context of those needs. For example, they may have documentation or reports from the system your solution will replace. The discovery meeting should focus on what only the stakeholders know about the customer needs. This makes the best use of their time, energy and attention.

You should set goals for the customer discovery meeting, starting with determining scope. Scope specifies what customer needs the solution will fulfill, and only those needs. If you have questions about the documents you read to prepare for the meeting, set a goal to get answers to those questions, within the scope. The meeting should result in a document summarizing the customer needs in the scope, with supporting details.

Customer stakeholders may have "pain points' that they want your solution to relieve. For example, their staff spends a lot time copying information from one system to another. Your solution will automatically transfer the data between the systems. Customer stakeholders will lead with their pain points because they are anxious to get relief. Pain points provide a good start to defying Solution Gravity by thrusting you into a customer need. Make sure you capture pain points and acknowledge that back to the stakeholders.

Once stakeholders recognize that you have captured their pain points, Solution Gravity becomes stronger. The stakeholders want relief from their pain as soon as possible. You must continue to defy Solution Gravity to capture all other customer needs in the scope. if the pain points hurt enough, the stakeholders may decide to limit the scope to only relieving the pain points. That risks ending up with an incomplete design, needing additional discovery and design rework. Ideally, the scope will include pain point relief and needs for improvements, making the solution more complete.

Have you defied Solution Gravity, covering enough customer needs to develop what your customer expected? Has Solution Gravity pulled you into an incomplete solution design? Please share your story! We also welcome your questions, suggestions and challenges in the comments below.