Product Requirement Elicitation
Don’t Gather Requirements, Elicit Them
It’s been some time since we last talked to our good friends John and Mary. As usual, they are busy crafting their next product milestone. Both took on new challenges and are working hard to deliver on expectations.
John is working more closely with ProductNation’s leadership. The product metrics show a healthy customer adoption rate, customer satisfaction score, and net promoter score. Monthly recurring revenue has been steady, churn rate has remained low, and there haven’t been critical defects.
John’s stakeholders are interested in exploring growth possibilities. The current metrics justify their request and opens the door for business innovation. Customers are engaging more with the product and are also providing some interesting feedback.
One user wrote: “I like how easily I can find my stuff, but you know what would make this even better? If I could talk my way through. You should add some voice recognition or at least integrate it with other voice assistants”.
Another user wrote: “Ok, this has been a good experience, but I can’t stop feeling a little disappointed. You have a single theme, and it’s not the same theme I have on my phone! Like, what happened to customize your view? If I had a magic wand, I would use it to add colors, fonts, change sizes and move the menu to the other side”.
The board asks John to focus on these requests and begin capturing requirements. The customer is always right. If we develop the most requested features, we can surely expect our numbers to go up!
John’s reaction was not that of excitement. He has experience working with several users and knows that sometimes, users don’t know what they want. He also has experience talking with business people. He learned that listening is crucial for understanding. Sympathy is needed to uncover the needs and expectations of your audience.
John replies with the following questions:
- What do we want to accomplish by growing our product?
- What is our target growth goal?
- What do we expect as our immediate benefit?
