Unlocking the Power of Visualization to Solve Complex Product Problems with Christoph Steinlehner

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Convergence Podcast. I'm your host Ashok Sivanand. I'm not talking about the method you have to do like this or like that. For me it's really to connect whatever the user is seeing and doing,

[00:00:14] [SPEAKER_01]: to what you are doing to enable the user to do this.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_00]: On this show we'll deconstruct the best practices principles in the underlying philosophies behind the most engaged product teams who ship the most successful products.

[00:00:36] [SPEAKER_00]: This is what teams are made of. Welcome back folks! On this episode we are joined by Christoph Steinlehner.

[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Christoph started his career as a web designer and developer before moving into product management and product leadership roles.

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: He sharpened his product leadership skills at organizations like the World Bank, Airbus, Art Pluscom who do phenomenal interactive kinetic work.

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_00]: The German Unicorn Tax Fix and the List goes on. Christoph then found his calling in Product Coaching and specializes in the area of visualization to enable product teams to communicate and collaborate better.

[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_00]: He has even developed a Mapper method which we get to hear a lot about and that he's made generously available to you our listeners.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I really enjoyed nerding out with Christoph on the effective use of user journeys and especially the tool service blueprint.

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a super important communication and collaboration tool and I continue to be surprised that not all product teams are using service blueprints.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Something that I found particularly insightful about Christoph's advice on the benefits of sharing rough and unfinished sketches goes well beyond the typical efficiency and flexibility.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So we get to hear about that and other advice from Christoph about visualization and product mapping on this episode.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Subscribe to the podcast to get future episodes as soon as you're published.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_00]: If you find this helpful give the podcast a 5 star rating on your podcast app or hit that like button on YouTube.

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Christoph, welcome to the show.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Hi, I'm Shukets. I'm amazing to be here and to talk about everything about the product management mess and how to get out of this.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, why don't we start with your opinion on where do you see the mess or the pain or the importance of visualization in the product realm.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_01]: One story where I developed like the first parts of my method where when I was with an educational publisher and day one to change their business model.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_01]: The idea was that it's pretty easy to make all the technical changes to go through what's needed and to have bundled products and have a subscription model like the first step to a subscription model.

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_01]: But when I went in there I moved from team to team and it was pretty unclear because I ended up remitting with care for more questions than I had before.

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And at more loose ends and it was quite confusing at this time and I struggled a lot with how to get out of this.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So because I have a design background, I did like my note taking individual style. So I mapped out the custom maturity and added what I heard like what systems are involved, what teams are involved, what processes are involved, add each step to customer is taking.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_01]: But I just wanted it was for myself. It was my note taking and I didn't share it in the beginning.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And at some point I shared it and it was a game changer because people started to point out things I haven't seen before.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_01]: They changed like my perspective on things because I was of course not aware of everything and they just could point at things and say, okay let's.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And talk to these people or let.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Correct us because you have a wrong impression here and with that we really aligned around a shared picture shared language without going down this endless rebutols in our conversations.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I love that. I think it might be an Einstein quote, it's something as simple as if I can't picture it, I can't understand it and it sounds like that started out is something you were doing for yourself and this really complex product organization and then.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Good for you that you're a designer so.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_00]: How you presented it visually might have been better than the chickens crash that I do and what I really like is that it's there's only so much you can convey in a picture and so you don't necessarily get.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Drawing into the weeds but at the same time everyone's looking at the same picture when you have something to visualize and I'm curious to know what if you could get into some of the before and after.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Of when you presented that that image of what that was like for the product teams before and then what that turned into after they got to see the visualization.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. First of all, so I myself even have I'm designer I can't draw and I'm like not the person who does like really fancy nice visualizations in the end it's posted it's like sticky notes next to each other which are just giving a shared understanding there's no need to be like the original mastermind.

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So that the change for the teams was that they put have a shared understanding of something because in character, we have a lot of different perspectives we come from a business perspective, we come from a design and user perspective come from a technical perspective.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And oftentimes like these people are speaking different languages having different mental models in their head and as soon as they get the thought they see like how their counterparts are thinking what is their mental model.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And then can a line on a shared one for example the free high often work with service programs which align around the customer journey and then add what technical systems are needed what teams are needed what processes are involved and all things like that even adding user data adding insights we generate a little longer way.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And with that everybody can look at this and can see like okay that's where I understand most of it.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I can add to this picture and we can discuss this shared artifact.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So you mentioned sticky notes there and I think there's certainly ways in which folks can try and jam too much in there and I love that sticky notes only allow you to put so much information.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And that simplicity with some level of accuracy will give us all the same metaphor what are some other ways that you think are best practices or ways that folks may be getting wrong when they try to visualize stuff that you're coaching them into.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the one main thing and that's why I say sticky notes and why I say be scrappy is to over shoot so to try to make a thing out of the visualization to make it pretty to make it like a good way to present it's not about the presentation it's about the discussion around it.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So really keeping it scrappy, keeping it changeable is a key aspect because with that people approach it also differently so imagine if you walk into a room and there is this nice map and everything is like looks done.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody will challenge this nobody will walk into this room and be like that's an error and I understand that differently and so on and so on it looks like somebody spent a long time figuring this out so it's probably right and be who am I to now challenge this person.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_01]: They probably spend a lot of time on it better not disturb that so when I walk into with the first idea of a map.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I keep it really open and maybe I'm put some question marks in between where I'm not sure what's happening there or I put like several versions of something where we can discuss what's the right version three is a if it's an as a state where we often begin.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Or if it's a to be state where we imagine how the future is you can then discuss multiple version so it's not about presenting it's about a tool to have a better conversation and have a better collaboration.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I love that if we think of the original goals with the intent of why we're doing the extra work to visualize I'm making some assumptions here.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_00]: It's on aligning your team on the context it's on a very important way you just brought up around soliciting feedback input clarification and then it's on maybe prioritizing a plan in terms of what are we going to do next.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And we want a minimum effective dose of precision or polish on a visualization whereas helping us make those better decisions and clarify and solicit more feedback.

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And so anything beyond that it's probably wasteful and I love that maybe pairing it down from even the minimum effective dose is a psychological trick maybe to actually get people more engaged and involved in wanting to help versus assuming that everything set in play and there's still a number of teams that are collaborating remotely right even as folks start to go back into the office here.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And what are some tools or even techniques is naturally things are going to seem a little bit more scrappy if we're at a whiteboard or if I'm in the back of an afghan versus if I got to put something online there's some level of implicit polish and at the same time we want to give the same level of collaboration that it's similar to if you want I was standing at a whiteboard trying to convey some information so what do you think about the online collaboration side of things of visualization.

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I use usually virtual whiteboards so things like mirror mural fiction I think most companies already are familiar with the things there's also I think a Microsoft version of it there's an apple version of it.

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So use whatever is a free form tool I think that's quite important that you're a flex just endless space you can put things in there however you like to not get limited by some tool which is taking away your freedom in the beginning it might help you then to move into other tools later on but begin at something which is free form like an endless.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Virtual canvas and these tools also allow you to collaborate so you can work on these together and the nice thing why I now even sometimes in office settings prefer a virtual whiteboard is that it stays there it can evolve you can like drag it around presented and so on and so on because that's a little bit like I love to.

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_01]: the hardware stickies I love like working in a wall but it's tricky to transport that it's tricky to like then take pictures of it and work for there with it so virtual whiteboards are a big win for me.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah I feel like we're likely around the corner of one of those apps allowing us to upload a picture and.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_00]: turning it into something a little bit more dynamic and updateable versus the static image and I'm curious so starting out scrappy when especially in the early days of an idea.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_00]: whatever size of granularly or that idea is we talked about the benefits of showing the vulnerability into litcing feedback.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Once you get to kind of a place where you're ready and feeling good about the level of inputs that have gone in and you want to transition to making a plan.

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_00]: what happens to either the virtual whiteboard or the the whiteboard stickers there and what do you ideally like to do in order to continue getting the benefits of the visualization.

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_01]: yes, me personally I emphasize people to really do like the next actions so don't get stuck into.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_01]: the visual part of it but the final next actions that then move also into your other artifacts so might be for bigger things throat mapping but oftentimes it's.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_01]: like planning just your next action what information don't you don't you have yet what where do you have to talk to customers.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_01]: you have maybe to a technical investigation where to you have maybe models something in your business things like that and don't put now the visual thing.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_01]: as a holy grail in the middle of yourself but just like move on and probably also throw it away at some point because half of the magic.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_01]: like in the creation and in the discussion of the creation if you have a piece which is already stale for a year.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: probably nobody remembers what the mindset was around that what were your discussions so.

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_01]: these are the notes of your discussions it's not the documentation of anything it's not sensing you take out three years in the future and we'll look at it and it will be totally clear what you discuss.

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_00]: that makes a ton of sense is nice to have that as an artifact in case we want to go back in time and remember why we made a decision but forcing yourself to stick to a plan there versus rethinking it is definitely always a risk.

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[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_00]: something I'm really interested in about your work is the work that you do around service blueprints at integral it's oftentimes a tool that we have introduced to our customers folks have a customer journey maybe maybe not.

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_00]: but a service blueprint is something that tends to be fairly novel we require a little bit of convincing folks to do that next level of it so maybe you know let's go into the basics a little bit before we get into.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_00]: the deeper details why don't you tell us about a customer journey in service blueprint first yeah of course so.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I love that you use service pooperants because for me it's one of the approaches where you really can connect what your customer is doing and seeing to what your business is doing.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_01]: so a customer service blueprint is based on a customer journey so on top you have like all the steps a customer is going through in interacting with your business this could be.

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_01]: often a digital interface but could be also a shop could be also a customer service rep could be a mail their writing and so on doesn't matter which interface more that they're using with your business.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_01]: and then below this backbone of your customer journey you start to add the systems you're using the teams are involved in that your processes maybe regulations.

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_01]: maybe also data points you collected it's I use it pretty flexible I'm not dogmatic about the method you have to do it like this or like that for me it's really to connect whatever the user is seeing and doing to what you are doing to enable the user to do this.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_01]: and with that we have exactly this cross functionality of our teams represented in the customer journey because.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_01]: often times some.

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_01]: back and process is really disconnected from what it means for our customers but visualizing this in a service blueprint we can directly look at one glimpse.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_01]: okay here like the customer is paying and here these payment systems are involved for example.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_00]: so.

[00:18:59] [SPEAKER_00]: let's try and create an example here I'm I'm throwing a party up my house soon and we'll make something pretty relatable and that we can bring back into product development right so.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_00]: what I heard from you is you got to start with the customer journey right so.

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_00]: let's talk me through if if you're helping me host this party and you say hey we got to do a customer journey what are some best practices and stuff and what do we end up with.

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_00]: so.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_01]: what's like the final goal of your customer of probably your friend you're inviting to your party what's like the end state we want to have folks connect with each other I want them to celebrate.

[00:19:44] [SPEAKER_00]: and event with myself and and really have maybe.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_00]: call it a book end to the summer and fall season before the winter comes around.

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_00]: so everybody gets home with like some like new.

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_01]: great story to tell about their friends in this party that that would be the last step and then we go on to the first step and say like okay what what's the first thing which needs to happen.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_01]: that everybody can have this great time probably an invitation right okay they got to know about the party.

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_01]: the invitation is then probably the first step but then you map out all the steps in between so you start with your invitation.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_01]: you then go through like okay probably there's maybe already something before the invitation you have to write it you have to define how to send it and so on and then you.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_01]: plan your party you have to organize the food you have to organize drinks maybe you have a party game maybe you're.

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_01]: some entertainment going on maybe you need to get a barbecue from a friend something like that you map out the steps which are going through this experience.

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_01]: and then add from the perspective of your guests and then you can add like okay and you barbecue I need to get the drinks for the drinks I need to use this online order service and so on and so on.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_01]: and then you can add like the groceries or you have a friend who is like amazing at invitation writing and you ask them to help you with like a nice written handwritten invitation.

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_01]: and with that you see like what's needed and then you probably also so now a party is a pretty analog piece and there are not a lot of ways around it but when we talk about digital product.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_01]: we usually can do way less to have part of the goal filled or even the whole goal filled so I look often into then what are the critical steps and what are the first critical steps.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_01]: so maybe you have to concentrate first on the invitation before thinking a lot about a space you have to you have to get because you don't even know how many people are coming.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I love how you start with the end in mind and maybe what's implicit to it is even who is in mind right in this case it's my friends and family to invite to this party and then what kind of outcome do we want to have from their perspective that's a really solid question that I think we forget.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_00]: whether we're hosting parties or we're building products and then the customer journey I think.

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_00]: is something that I see used fairly often from the customer's perspective if if I was Christoph who was one of my friends that's getting invited.

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_00]: you get the invitation it's got the necessary information to get you excited and also shows you when to show up on time.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_00]: and then when you come and ring the doorbell what does it look like from there you're going to have food available a party game like you said and so forth and that part.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_00]: thankfully a lot of folks are doing.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: the part that the service blueprint I think does is the stuff that's maybe a little bit more behind the scenes or the actions that need to get taken in order to facilitate that experience.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_00]: for the customer journey right like who's writing the invitation what are the decisions that need to go into writing that.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Is there a theme or not do you bring anything or not.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I think we sometimes whether it's throwing a party or building a product we assume that that will get figured out later and it's a huge miss I think for a couple of reasons one.

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_00]: the obvious one of you end up with surprises closer to testing a launch where.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_00]: you realize that there might be something bigger small I was missed I think the other one is.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_00]: similar to your be scrappy from earlier you missed the opportunity of.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_00]: sharing with the folks who are helping you build this or throw this party.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_00]: with the overall picture in the goal and what part they play in it and I've definitely worked on and help coach and lead teams that are part of really big organization similar to that example you gave before.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_00]: the level of engagement and excitement from your team can change dramatically when they understand what piece of the overall puzzle.

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_00]: that they're playing and especially if they know that that puzzle is a very exciting puzzle if we were able to solve it and I'm curious to know how you think about that or anything you push back on.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a really key insight so.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_01]: we often like coming from like an experience point from a fragment management point we often don't utilize enough the knowledge of our engineering partners and our design partners.

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_01]: so we sometimes figure out or think we figured out.

[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_01]: the solution without consulting anybody and by writing down and getting this picture out of our heads we can invite others to find a better solution for tricky problems together.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_01]: and really engaging them in what's right now important where should we focus and why are we even doing this so I see as use said I see people overly focused just on the experience and neglecting what's maybe possible at the moment but maybe.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_01]: the real next step and at the same time as you also teams who just focus on the technical sites of things they just focus on okay we have to build this big system to enable all these features and we have so many ideas and get really into this planning just then.

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_01]: often times really going into this analysis paralysis so we have more ideas we have to analyze more we have to investigate more.

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_01]: and they completely lose like okay why are we even doing this and what are the key steps for our customers which we have to help them to enable for doing this.

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_01]: so and with exactly visualizing we can bring the folks together we can have a major discussion about what's now important.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_00]: that's a wealth of information and you've been in the throws of this and you developed a method I think you call it the map or method.

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_01]: so tell us a little bit about the method yeah so the method developed out of the situation I told you before when I was working with a lot of teams at the education company and was getting lost and found.

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_01]: the first a hard moment with presenting visually working visually with multiple teams and.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_01]: the method is pretty simple because it doesn't describe like exactly what visual tools you're using or.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_01]: how you visualize it just guides you through a usual.

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_01]: product development cycle so I encourage people to first map for themselves to get like first draft out and then connect with your team so to acknowledge the perspective of everybody.

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_01]: and go really into listening and discussion mode and then to make it actually start to point out assumptions and risks so you have then your overview.

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_01]: ruffle review of things and you probably have already things where you're not sure if you have enough information.

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_01]: and was this bit you then plan your next an next actions and act on it that can be.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_01]: some validation piece where you just a landing page or something like that can be a little bit of a bigger prototype can also in other situations being a be test work just a conversation with a customer.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_01]: and with that you then evaluate for your insights to you went out you did something and get back some valuable information and then reflect on it to improve it and go back into your visual piece so it's guiding you through the usual.

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_01]: product development cycle but it anchors you on the visual piece and you can then combine it mix and match multiple methods which I usually do.

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_01]: and I know we talk a lot about the like the visual stuff so I also created a small map of guide so for the message a small example and for every listeners of yours.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_01]: who is interested to see that please just reach out on it to me on LinkedIn or via mail and I'm sending you this piece for free we got a lot deeper into service blueprint and at the same time.

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I think this method can be applied to various forms of visualization and various tools that have different benefits.

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I think wordly maps is one and I've wrestled with a fair amount more on the situation awareness and business environment which is a little bit more external so what are some other areas that you think this can kind of come into play.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So I use it in also individual product management coaching to really get into the weeds of their business model go into their weeds of test ready cheese so often visualized from different perspectives one perspective is service blueprint for example another perspective might be at KPI tree where you see.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_01]: how is your indicator which you can influence as a team connected to your bigger revenue goals or.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_01]: or recurring users or other KPI switch are on a way higher level and with like this there are a lot of different methods and often time to help to combine this method to get this multiple perspective stone and find out what your next actions are.

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_00]: 100% and I think KPI's or maybe even okay ours fall under this.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Potential confusion where teams are at the risk of.

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Being locally optimized and losing the plot of why they exist in the first place and how how they contribute to the overall goal and I strongly agree with you that visualizing this initially in terms of planning but over time.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_00]: visualizing the analytics dashboards as a tree like that also helps where folks may.

[00:31:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Push back on what's being measured today and maybe doesn't make sense anymore to measure this metric versus another when we consider what they overall goal is and also with the maturity of the product and how far progress we've made.

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the way we're doing things change and I fully agree that using this method and.

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Making it clear to folks gives them the ammunition to.

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I'd be creative within the realm or to also push back and be the agents of change around that and I'm curious if you've seen this in the field.

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that you will be surprised how often we start to visualize a business model how they inputs are driving their business and then people are starting to share this and how many people disagree.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's no clear understanding exactly how different KPIs are connected how they're interacting with each other and then starting a conversation around this more.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_01]: model really can change.

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_01]: How you make decisions because maybe you're optimizing for the complete wrong thing because you haven't had the full picture.

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Awesome, I love it and we will make sure to have ways that the audience can get in touch with you so that they can get access to the map or method as well.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So I, I feel like I really want to ideally at least encourage and inspire one person out there to try doing a service blueprint and take a chance at visualizing stuff.

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Similar to yourself, even just for themselves and not necessarily at this stage for sharing with the team right so if you will hear me let's come up with maybe three pieces of advice each.

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_00]: With respect to some best practices around visualization and specifically service blueprints and for the audience I'm going to set a two minute timer for Christoph and I and give us a chance to take our favorite top three.

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty easy.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_01]: The first thing is get started put something down visualize just sort your own thoughts oftentimes this is all really a huge game changer.

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And then really build out the story you want to tell what are the steps your customer should feel.

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And then write down what are you knowing already about this so you most of your listeners have already a product most people are not working in a green field so.

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Gather the first data and put together your understanding is like the first step to just like understand what you're understanding.

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Before going out before trying to use this as a team because it's all about training it's like a musical instrument you can't go out and play an amazing piano concert without.

[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Having a few reps and.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I love those three I think mine as I think back are.

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Doing the end to end for the customer especially if you're working on a sub team or sub component of a bigger program and from the customers perspective.

[00:35:15] [SPEAKER_00]: You are like in the automotive world if you're working on the financing application but the customers in there hitting your OEM dot com and all the way through to creating the purchase.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_00]: When you do your your user journey and your service blueprint think about the entire journey.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_00]: You may not have access to the entire journey and I'd say take a stab at it first and see which parts about that guess you feel comfortable in which part as you don't especially outside.

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And secondly, I think it's when you get a service blueprint what it's usually in stilling is that visualization causes an emotional reaction.

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes that can be excitement on behalf of the customer and the team you're working on in your company sometimes it can also be fears and concerns right where you identify the bottlenecks of there's no way.

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be able to service this many on the output if we're going to have to expect this many on the input and that goes on a separate list of risks or assumptions.

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Which then become your priority of things to go solve first before you solve the things that you know how to solve and you know are going to work.

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the third one is it's super important to have the service blueprint and the customer journey really aligned even visually it's nice to have them in the same verticals.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_00]: So that the folks on the team and your self can feel really engaged with the experience the customers having and the emotions you want to instill on them.

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is also an opportunity to instill just little pieces of delight that come in from the broader strategy of the broader brand.

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Someone told me recently about purchasing a car from Carvana and when they were on the phone with the Carvana rep.

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_00]: They had to interrupt the phone call because their child needed something and the rep asked some questions about the kid and so forth.

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And what their name was and when the car was delivered there was a little stuffed animal seat belted buckle then to the back with the seat belt and everything with a note to the child.

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Right and those are a little things that required very little software.

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And nevertheless everyone involved with the various operations technical and non-technical where had an opportunity to align themselves back to the overall customer journey.

[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's other opportunities that I think you can really instill upon your team with giving them ideas on how to really meet the mission and delight the customers there.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I love your last point because like every team who produces software is not the goal is not to produce software.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_01]: The goal is to have some customer experience and enable a customer to solve a problem, to get somewhere to do something.

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And oftentimes like heavy software is not the perfect approach that can be easy approaches and I think starting to think from a customer perspective and then adding what's really needed.

[00:38:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Can give you a really different perspective to solve for this problems.

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I totally agree and I mean from from a business perspective, writing no software is the most optimal hypothetical solution right if you have.

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_00]: If you need no human manual intervention when no software and you can still get the customer what you're promising them that's ideal.

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_00]: That seems unlikely so it's not a balance of how much can you get done with your your human team and how much can you get done with the software and a good interplay between the two.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_00]: So Chris stuff one of the questions that I like to ask all my guests is a little bit more call it on the personal experience side where we are experiencing products all the time.

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_00]: As products people I think we are we scrutinized things differently than our our family and other people in my head we noticed things that they find mundane but we find that really delight us or really irritates us.

[00:39:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'd love to know you know something that you experienced the product or service recently that just delighted you blew your socks off and this can be at work or at home.

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah so for me a long term product I really like use every day and I think it's like amazing is to do with it's as simple to do up at first glance but it's really powerful and.

[00:39:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I have two things that especially love about the thing first thing it's pretty agnostic how you work with it.

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_01]: You can mold it however you own to do approaches and the other thing is that it's really constantly evolving your see there's a team behind that who is really engaged in like what their customers are doing with it and providing different solutions for enabling them even better.

[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I love it and for you if we were to compare to maybe the notes up on an iPhone what does to do is do that the notes up doesn't.

[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just like the notes up ordered that the nature frame mind doesn't really connect the calendar and to do and gets me really organized in okay if an inbox and a contract from that and then plan out my week and plan out my days.

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a way more powerful tool and so I think if you if you're professionally need to get organized and you'll like to work like this it's for me it's working well.

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Awesome and we mentioned that you have the map or method available to our listeners if they get a hold of you where can folks find you.

[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So the easiest way is to find me on LinkedIn trust reach out there.

[00:41:17] [SPEAKER_01]: If you want to go deeper into the visualization stuff I also write a sub-stack at map a club so there you can read about different techniques different approaches and my thinking and I'm always happy to like hear the personal experiences there and if people have stories to tell.

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Which inspire me further.

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Awesome we will make sure to have links to all of those in the shoutouts too.

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for making the time today and educating us on the power of visualization and the importance of doing service blueprint stagnant your customer journey.

[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be out of go one.

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you Ashok. It was really fun talking with you. Hope to continue this conversation as an another point.

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I trust you found that episode with Christoph useful.

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought his advice on leaving in the question marks and creating really rough sketches to share with your team.

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_00]: To solicit more engagement and higher quality feedback to be super profound and maybe even a little counter intuitive.

[00:42:31] [SPEAKER_00]: My main reason until now for sharing rough feedback was to really create a feedback loop that was early and more often.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't think about how it maybe generates higher quality feedback and higher engagement from the team.

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_00]: It also reminded me of something that our guest from June 11th, 2024.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Deepakayera Guantas said where she cited a story about how politicians earned trust by asking for favors versus doing favors.

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And this conflict is you can imagine send me down a rabbit hole trying to figure out why.

[00:43:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And I found three different psychological phenomena that come into play here and I think all three can be extremely powerful in soliciting perspective and context from your team,

[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_00]: what also driving engagement and getting them excited about your mission.

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_00]: The first one is the zygarnic effect where people tend to remember incomplete tasks better than completed ones

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and this leads to a desired to finish or improve them and often drives engagement with unfinished products or ideas, prompting people to invest more energy in making them better.

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And that came to play at Christoph's.

[00:43:40] [SPEAKER_00]: The second one that may also come into play here is the IKEA effect that suggests that people place a higher value on things that they've had a hand in creating or improving, particularly when that task is incomplete.

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_00]: It's why I think we tend to like our IKEA furniture more than finish furniture, maybe why we like to Betty Crocker cakes better than ones made by chefs.

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And why that uncle or aunt of yours prominently places that artwork that they created in their house when we don't necessarily see the same value in it then they do.

[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_00]: The third is called the Bren Franklin effect and it refers to where people likely feel more positively towards someone after they're doing them a favor,

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_00]: rather than the other way around and apparently it's been Franklin one over a political opponent by asking him to lend a rare book and that resulted in that opponent liking Ben Franklin a lot more.

[00:44:35] [SPEAKER_00]: So thanks always for listening folks, hope you found this useful and if you did please help us out by helping other folks find the valuable content by giving us a five star rating as well as liking the other ones.

[00:44:50] [SPEAKER_00]: We will be back on Tuesday with the next episode and make sure to hit subscribe and like so you're notified about that.

[00:44:58] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll see you then.

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for joining me on the convergence podcast today.

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