How do you tell your product development team what customers want?

1 Understand your customers

The first step to telling your product development team what customers want is to understand your customers yourself. You need to conduct customer research, such as interviews, surveys, observations, or experiments, to gather data and feedback about their problems, goals, preferences, and behaviors. You also need to analyze and synthesize the data to identify patterns, segments, personas, and jobs to be done. These methods will help you create a clear and empathetic picture of who your customers are and what they value.

3 Communicate your requirements

Once you have your value proposition, you need to communicate it to your product development team in a way that they can understand and act on. You need to translate your customer insights and value proposition into product requirements, which are the features, functions, and attributes that your product must have to deliver value to your customers. You can use tools like user stories, acceptance criteria, or user scenarios to describe your requirements in a clear and actionable way. You also need to prioritize your requirements based on their importance, urgency, and feasibility.

4 Collaborate with your team

Another key aspect of telling your product development team what customers want is to collaborate with them throughout the product development process. You need to involve your team in your customer research, value proposition, and requirements definition, and get their feedback and input. You also need to share your vision, goals, and assumptions with your team, and explain the rationale behind your decisions. You can use tools like roadmaps, prototypes, or mockups to illustrate your ideas and expectations. You also need to establish regular communication channels and feedback loops with your team, and be open to changes and adaptations based on new information or customer feedback.

5 Validate your assumptions

Finally, you need to validate your assumptions and test your product with real customers. You need to measure and evaluate how well your product meets the customer needs and delivers the value proposition that you defined. You can use tools like MVPs, usability tests, or beta tests to collect data and feedback from your customers. You also need to share your findings and learnings with your product development team, and celebrate your successes or identify your failures. You need to use the validation process as an opportunity to improve your product and refine your customer understanding.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?