Building a Culture of Continuous Discovery (with Cindy Alvarez, Author "Lean Customer Development" & Director Customer Research @ GitHub)
Feb 19, 2021
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Cindy Alvarez, Director of Customer Research at GitHub, talks about customer research with software engineers, testing interview questions, importance of empathy, writing a book on Lean Customer Development, objections to customer interviews, and optimizing for continuous discovery.
Understanding user needs is essential in product development, focusing on asking the right questions to solve underlying problems.
Creating a culture of continuous customer feedback and integration into everyday business activities promotes a strong customer-centered approach in organizations.
Deep dives
Importance of Customer Feedback in Product Development
In this podcast episode, the speaker emphasizes the significance of keeping users at the heart of product development. Rather than focusing on asking users what they want, the discussion revolves around understanding their needs. The podcast explores how to create a company culture that values customer feedback and emphasizes the importance of maintaining a continuous feedback loop. It also highlights the insights shared by Cindy Alvarez, the director of customer research at GitHub, who discusses the value of talking to developers and incorporating their opinions into product development.
Overcoming Challenges in Gathering User Feedback
The podcast addresses the challenge of gathering user feedback, particularly from technical and opinionated users like developers and engineers. It highlights how these users have a bias towards action and often find traditional survey methods ineffective. The speaker emphasizes the need for product teams to go beyond superficial questions and dig deeper to uncover the underlying problems. The concept of test and learn is discussed, highlighting the importance of testing ideas and gathering feedback from users to iterate and improve products.
The Value of Practice and Adapting Interviewing Techniques
The podcast delves into the importance of practicing and refining interviewing skills, especially when conducting customer research. The speaker shares insights into the practice interviews held at GitHub to improve questioning techniques and gain a better understanding of what users truly need. The conversation also touches upon the role of simulating challenging interview scenarios and how it can help researchers prepare for different types of participants and efficiently handle different situations.
Building a Culture of Continuous Discovery
The podcast explores the concept of continuous discovery within organizations. It discusses the importance of integrating customer interviews and feedback into everyday business activities. While specific initiatives may require focused customer research efforts, the discussion emphasizes the value of promoting a culture where all team members, including sales and customer success teams, are encouraged to engage with customers and gather insights. It highlights the significance of executive buy-in, peer modeling, and implementing feedback loops within regular meetings and team interactions.
An interview with Cindy Alvarez. Cindy is Director of Customer Research at GitHub, the world's leading software development platform. Cindy has long experience in customer research with GitHub, Yammer, Microsoft and Kissmetrics. She also wrote the leading book on customer research, 2014's Lean Customer Development which aims to guide teams to build products their customers need.
We speak about a lot, including:
What it's like doing customer research with the world's largest community of software engineers
The importance of testing your customer interview questions and working out what does and doesn't work
The importance of empathy, keeping down-to-earth and being someone customers feel comfortable talking to
Whether a Bachelor's in Psychology helps her to play mind games with her subjects (mwahahaha)
Why she wrote the book, how she did it, and whether she's going to write another one
How to answer some of the common objections to customer interviews, and how ensure you can build a culture of speaking with customers directly
How to optimise for Continuous Discovery and ensure you get a flow of customer feedback and learning
And much more!
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