Tell me something I don’t know
I’m just diving into a major rebranding project for a new client. We’re in the first phase—a “situation analysis,” which is typical for our process on large-scale projects. Some call it an audit. Some call it discovery. Some call it immersion. Whatever you call it, this phase always makes me nervous.
Why?
I’m always afraid we’ll just end up telling our clients what they already know. I mean, they hired us because they have a “situation” on their hands. They know full well what the problem is, and they’re not looking for us to restate it in a glossy presentation. I believe a situation analysis is an ingredient of thoughtful strategy, but we always run the risk of stating the obvious. Along these lines, I’ve been thinking about how to extract extra value for our clients (and ourselves) from a situation analysis. Here are a few thoughts. I’m interested in yours.
Have a perspective
When we start a project, we have an appetite to dig in and discover. It’s a good instinct: we don’t want to be presumptuous. We want to be guided by research and listening. But still, a client isn’t interested in sponsoring our understanding. At some point in a situation analysis, we have to start shifting gears and get a perspective. For example, don’t just summarize industry trends in a report. Put a stake in the ground. Have an opinion. Is this trend a threat or an opportunity for your client? How does this trend influence the direction they should take?
Dig for the insights
Don’t stop until you’ve reached the insights. Sometimes those insights live in the nuances of research—follow those little sparks of thought until they turn into full-fledged insight. Sometimes insights live in connecting the dots between all the different avenues of your immersion and rolling your research up into a few major themes. The insights might offer a new look into the mindset of your client’s target audience. Or it might be an insight about where your client needs to be five years from now.
Do it differently
Look for new ways to conduct an audit. This often opens the door to insights. For example, don’t just look at the standard direct competitors. Look at indirect competitors your client might not have considered before. In a situation analysis for a major health insurer, our team not only looked at other insurers, but we also looked at companies that compete to provide health information, like WebMD, RevolutionHealth and HealthVault.
Start solving
Most of the time, we’re afraid to get ahead of ourselves. Our UXDs might shoot me for saying this (sorry guys!): Yes, research and discovery is invaluable, but we don’t have to save all our ideas and thinking for later phases. On one of my projects, we just realized that part of our client’s communication challenge stems from major internal silos. As part of our situation analysis, we can do more than make them aware that this is an issue. We can provide initial thinking about internal communications strategies that will help the project succeed in Phases Two and Three.
Comments
You knew a UX would chime in at some time, no? I agree with your points above, especially about moving toward a perspective and opinion. That's where the value lies. There should be synthesis and direction in the product.
The reason there is trepidation around suggesting features too early and willy nilly is simple. It's to ensure that we don't push features before we've evaluated a breadth of possibilities and ripped out those that are off-strategy, too far-sighted, or simply faddish.
We are concerned about casually recommending a solution that isn't backed up by at least:
1. Thought to its feasibility and implementation
2. Thought about the associated opportunity cost.
The first is obvious. We use the additional time to be certain that the recommendation is within budget, is technically feasible, and fits the business. We don't want to present a half-baked idea that can't be delivered. That sets bad expectations and makes people unhappy.
The second is more interesting. Opportunity cost is the implicit cost you pay for picking one choice and denying others. If you pick Feature A, then you pay a cost that denies you from getting Feature B.
Now, if we recommend A too early on--before we know B exists--then we have a problem. We have to backpedal and say why A isn't as good as B, which changes expectations and causes churn. Alternatively, we have to ask for more budget to support A and B. Neither situation makes people happy.
There is always a finite amount of resources that must be balanced to produce a project. These are always time, money and quality. As stewards of our client's resources, we seem to forestall solutions, but it's really to hedge against recommending something attractive but dumb.
One of my early mentors in the business, Janice Hunter, was of the opinion that research confirmed most of what you already knew. Even with that attitude she never made a recommendation that wasn't backed up by research -- mostly quantitative research. If you ever worked with Janice you know she could come up with some creative ways to crunch numbers.
I was lucky to get to crunch thousands of those numbers for her.
I think one of the things that we can do for clients to tell them something they don't know is to do a better job of quantifying what they think. Usually when we start a new project there are many anecdotes and points-of-view. One of the things we can do is quantify those anecdotes. Determine which have merit and which don't.
Great article, Anna.
Even though I think an outside perspective on the "situation" is almost always valuable to our clients, I've also sometimes been afraid we're just restating what they already know.
Todd's point about getting solutions out there too soon is a good one... offering premature project solutions is really dangerous, no doubt. Your last point, though, is a great insight. Even in the analysis phase, we shouldn't confuse project solutions with opportunities to lower barriers and eliminate tired/wrong/bad assumptions that create hurdles for the project itself - we ought to seize those opportunities when we find them.
Leave a Comment