I’m excited to speak at the Southwestern Ohio Business Analysis Regional Conference (SOBARC) 2017 this week in Cincinnati, Ohio. While there, I’ll examine the product owner role, and talk about socratic questioning.
If you’re going to be at SOBARC, stop by and say hi. If not, I’ll be at IBADD May 19 and Agile2017 in August so catch up with me there.
Last week while I was traveling I did some research on Jobs to Be Done, so for this week’s blog post I thought I’d share some of the ideas about conducting interviews inspired by Jobs to Be Done thinking. Somewhat timely considering one of my talks at SOBARC. I also shared some more general resources about interviews and Jobs to Be Done.
Enjoy!
Kent J. McDonald
KBP.media
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Interviews to Be Done
4 considerations when conducting interviews about an internal product. Inspired by Alan Klement’s book about Jobs to be Done, When Coffee and Kale Compete.
A Template for JTBD Interviews
If you’d like to try out some of the interview techniques described in Alan’s book, you may find this template helpful. This reference and many others are on a Jobs To Be Done Resource that Alan curates, jtbd.info.
Turn Issues into Opportunities
The folks at HowFactory found a way to use some of the interview techniques from Jobs to Be Done, combine them with one of today’s trendiest buzzwords (canvas) and create the Impact Canvas, a tool to help groups decide whether to proceed with a project.
Other Good Interview Resources
In addition to all the material about Jobs to Be Done out there, a couple of other great resources about conducting interviews include The Mom Test (affiliate link) from Rob Fitzpatrick and Steve Portigal’s Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights
The Best Advice Rich Mironov (sometimes) Follows
The Clever PM recently asked Rich Mironov 10 questions about product management. I find the Clever PM a great place to get reasoned common sense product management advice, and Rich has been very helpful to me over the years. To tie the post into this issue of KBP Update, Rich references Jobs to Be Done in his response to the best advice he’s ever received.
Please Share
If you have questions or want to share your experiences with interviews, please share in the comments below.
If you know someone who may gain some value from a weekly rundown of resources for product people, let them know they can subscribe to the KBPUpdate.
I’m also putting the finishing touches on my ebook Product Ownership in the Wild, so watch the KBPUpdate for an announcement of when it’s available.