How can you involve customers in backlog prioritization?

Customer input adds value in finding that magical intersection between business needs and user needs. This value becomes relevant beyond validating (or revalidating, depending on the stage or cycle of product development you are in) the customer's vision and/or needs. Remember that customer behaviors and habits are ever-changing in today's era, so it's important to do this continuously to avoid unpleasant surprises.

Customers know why they use a product, why they switch to a new solution and where your solutions stands in their hierarchy of needs. When you involve customers in some way to prioritize, you’re actively stating “my customer needs drives decision making”. This is a counter measure to having a business centric process to decide what goes first and what goes last.

Bei uns im Unternehmen entwickeln wir neue Produkte erst nach einer Marktforschung. Wir sagen immer ?das Produkt vom Kunden aus denken“. Entwickeln wir ein Produkt, was durch vorige Marktforschung und Prototyp-Testing validiert ist, hat es bei der Markteinführung gr??ere Erdolgschancen. Zudem k?nnen die Personen aus der Marktforschung auch wertvolle Kontakte sein. Bspw. für eine sp?tere Weiterentwicklung oder Empfehlungen/Rezensionen.

I always involve customers. Perhaps not physically but certainly represented through qual/quant data. Every time you leave out the the customer you risk moving further away from meeting their needs. This dilutes your products focus and creates a gap for others to disrupt your market. It doesn't matter how you prioritise, always represent the customer in the process of knowing where and how to add value. By doing so you'll ensure your product is not only market-fit for purpose but a delight to use.

I agree that we must first assess if it's worth involving customers, as it may lead to longer decision-making processes, potential conflicts in prioritisation, and an increase in costs. Face-to-face offers "in between the lines" insights, indeed. To remove possible barriers, we should consider remote tools. I also recommend using a mix of methods to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Some tools even allow voting for backlog prioritisation, providing valuable insights for the product & business direction. If after assessing the need we decide to involve customers, I believe the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, leading to a customer-centric approach that better aligns with expectations, satisfaction, and loyalty.

The process of involving customers should first have an assessment if it’s necessary to involve them. Not every feature requires deep involve as some are low hanging fruit or high conviction. If you decide it’s worthy, it’s important to get diverse data points (quant and qualitative). The best research comes from face to face, to get the “in between the lines” comments. Survey or remote data points also matter though at a lower multiple.

Regardless of what stage of the product development lifecycle your product is at, you're going to want to involve customers. How you do that certainly differs. If you're a startup, you want to stay close to your customers. Intimately understand their needs and obsess about learnings over anything else, with each iteration. Qual is best here, deep insightful conversations to uncover bigger problems and better opportunities. As you grow, find ways to collect feedback from the wider customer base. Employ qual and quant techniques. Interviews + surveys. As you grow bigger, formalise channels to collect feedback. Encourage the learning mindset across the your organisation and put in the necessary tools and processes to capture and process.

Hier gibt es unterschiedliche M?glichkeiten, welche ich in quantitative und qualitative unterteilen und in jedem Fall miteinander verbinden würde. Hier einige Beispiele: - Online-Umfragen (quantitativ) - Telefonische Befragung (quantitativ) - 1:1 Gespr?che (qualitativ) - Fokus Gruppen (qualitativ)

I've achieved positive results by establishing user feedback panels to gather insights on critical features during product development. These panels typically comprise a wide range of customers, including those from enterprise, mid-market, and small segments, each with their distinct needs. Therefore, it's essential to determine whether our aim is to address the needs of all customer segments or a specific group. Our choice in utilizing the feedback should align with this determination.

It’s important to know customers will tell you both problems in their own view and solutions they believe matter but both require filtering. You care about success of problem solved, and their solutions and ideas lack true understanding of technological possibilities. Gather their insights, add it to a repository of data points, and mix with other data sources to get an accurate view of the problem space and what would truly drive value and conversion.

I often collect and combine data through a AARRR/HEART + qual insights and apply through a framework like RICE and/or KANO. Regardless of what you use, consistency as well as a standardised scoring/weighting approach is key. RICE prioritisation is great. Impact as one of its key attributes. I like to split this up to form an aggregate score that represents Impact on the Business AND impact on the customer. Kano is a fantastic method for understanding the function and delight each part of your product delivers.

A well documented project charter and roadmap can be a great way to distill a program's objectives. Taking the extra effort to establish a shared understanding of different scopes involved can help ensure the customer's input is cognizant of the overall vision.

Depending on the product's lifecycle stage, the Discovery phase of engaging with your customers may take more or less time. Remember that qualitative and quantitative data should complement each other and not solely rely on one for backlog prioritization. It's essential to gather this information because, as the voice of the customer (or user), your duty is to use this data to align with the business's request

Gerne kommt es vor, dass man in einer Zielgruppe und durch die Erkenntnisse tolle Produkte entwickelt. Bitte vernachl?ssigt jedoch niemals daran zu denken, wie ihr damit Geld verdient! Es ist immer ?rgerlich, wenn man viel Zeit und Geld investiert habt, ein tolles Produkt steht und am Ende die Zahlungsbereitschaft nicht vorhanden ist oder diese nicht hoch genug ist, um euer Produkt rentabel zu betreiben und zu vermarkten. Dann sind Neuprodukte auch leider mal genauso schnell wieder weg.