How can you co-create products with customers or users?

Co-Creation must be existing and being practiced in different measures. After initial ideation, it would be highly beneficial to have joint Product Definition in co-creation mode to bring forth harmony in understanding the end use. This understanding will remove nearly 60% of problems normally encountered during product development. Another important area of co- creation is the formulation acceptance standards and acceptance test plans. If clarity is there on final acceptance requirements, the course of development will get guided smoothly.

Co-creation has been applied in various industries, from consumer goods and technology to healthcare and urban planning. It has the potential to generate new ideas, improve products and services, and strengthen relationships between organizations and their stakeholders. Successful co-creation efforts require effective communication, trust-building, and a willingness to embrace diverse viewpoints and ideas.

Gone are those days where u build products from your ideas or creativity! Now we need to have custom built products catering to user segments against their pain points! Spending time with your customer and understanding their user journey and designing specific strategies is what industry focused product requirement need! Collaborate and co create the product for the end user

Co-Creation is an amazing innovation model as it provides realtime pre-validation to your product before even finalizing the development and it allows you to get REAL TIME feedback on your decisions regarding the development process in terms of Design, Experience, Features, Usability, Technical aspects as well. It will make things much easier also when doing the final validation with focus groups and consumer research that you already have included that voice of the customer into your product and conducted real time ethnography research. Point of Caution though you need to ensure that the customer base you are using is covering 80% of the main driver traits for your targeted segment,

Co-creation in product development involves collaborating with customers, users, or stakeholders to actively involve them in the design and innovation process. It goes beyond traditional feedback gathering and aims to harness collective intelligence to create products that better meet the needs and preferences of the target audience. Engage a diverse group of users in workshops and ideation sessions. These users provide input on features, user interface design, and overall user experience. Through this collaborative effort, the company gains valuable insights, discovers pain points, and co-designs solutions with its user community.

Co-creation is very much important for consumer durables. Often great insights in the form of innovative ideas can come from consumers. How to do it? Well, one approach used these days is ideathon or hackathon where the whole process can be well structured right until awards to the implementable and impactful ideas. A point of caution in this process: the information gets transparently available also to the competition, unless a very thoughtful process is followed. Although, I believe in democratising the technology and innovation - for any great idea, multiple brands and suppliers are must in order to create scale and expand market.

Co-creating products is a strategy that empowers businesses to develop customer-centric, innovative, and high-quality offerings while reducing risk and building stronger relationships with their customer base. It can ultimately lead to improved competitiveness, profitability, and long-term success in the marketplace.

There are several massive advantages 1) You save time needed in several validation cycles and reloops on design and technical specs if consumer is not involved in development 2) You get realtime insights into usability aspects which would save you massive time and money especially in physical goods 3) You uncover additional pain points which can be tackled in this product or next version or an upgrade to delight more. 4) You can build an amazing brand story around, Design by You for YOU forexample 5) You build confidence with the entire team and management when taking decisions to proceed with the project with less risk

There are plenty of benefits to co-creation, but I'll give you one that usually catches executives attention. By establishing a co-creative environment you are nurturing brand evangelists. Users that are invested and have helped you bring a product to life are going to do some work on the referral front. All executives love when you can tie programs into revenue :)

It harnesses the collective creativity and insights of both sides to ensure the resulting product truly meets users' needs and expectations. It's a powerful approach that fosters innovation and customer-centric solutions. ?? #CoCreation #Innovation

Have a beta program? You could be that much closer to co-creating products. Those beta testers who sign up for testing your newest releases are prime for being involved sooner in development. The first step in co-creation will be establishing your community of users.

Have a Board of Power Users for your product that are your ICP. Consult these people when you're road mapping, doing usability tests, and finally sending them early access. Don't forget to reward these users when they give you their time :) This will drive your product in the right direction.

The best way to establish a continuous co-creation process is to invest in a community building from the early days of company existence. Community is the place where you build and keep your relations with your customers. It can be organized in different tools like Slack, Discord, Disco or Circle.

Before diving into co-creation, it's vital to understand why you're doing it. Is it to gain a deeper market understanding? To innovate faster? Or to foster user loyalty? In my roles, aligning the entire team around these objectives has been the first step to ensure that our co-creation efforts are directed and meaningful. Co-creation goes beyond traditional feedback sessions. It's about marrying user feedback with hard data. In my tenure, combining qualitative feedback with quantitative data analytics has often revealed insights that neither could have provided in isolation.

Co-creating products involves collaboration between businesses and customers to develop or improve products together. Here’s steps on how to co-create products: 1) Start by identifying the need for co-creation. 2) Engage with your customers. 3) Clearly define what you want to achieve through co-creation. 4) Collaborate with customers to generate ideas. 5) Create prototypes or early versions of the product based on the collected ideas and feedback. 6) Establish a continuous feedback loop where customers can provide feedback on prototypes, features, and usability. 7) Involve customers in testing the product in real-world scenarios. 8) Recognize and reward customers who actively contribute to the co-creation process. 9) launch.

A pretty big hurdle for most companies taking on a co-creation initiative is maintaining an activity community to co-create with. Users get fatigued, and they drop off over time. This happens even faster when you aren't as invested in the program as they are. So, take it serious and be consistent, and they will too. :)

In addition to the challenges mentioned in the article, another common challenge when #co-creating #product with customers is managing expectations. #Customers may have varying levels of influence and involvement in the #productdevelopment process, and it's essential to set clear expectations from the beginning. Some #customers might expect their ideas to be implemented exactly as they suggest, while others may understand that their input will be considered but not guaranteed. Managing these expectations through transparent communication and clearly defined roles can help mitigate this challenge.

There are several challenges with co-creation including:- 1) The customer base you are using is not coverying enough (around 80%) of the common driver trait of your targetted segment 2) You arrive at junction point where 50-50 or 60-40 % of your consumers disagree on something and you need to take a decision to move ahead. 3) The process becomes very tedious and lengthy and more emotional base than insights based. 4) If you don't have strong Checklist and process to manage this, you may end up spending more money than doing the validation after design

With co-creation, you're opening the doors to a wide array of feedback. Balancing contrasting opinions and filtering through the noise to discern actionable insights is both an art and a challenge. In large organizations, multiple stakeholders have varied interests. While the marketing team might prioritize user acquisition features, the product team might lean towards user retention. Navigating these internal dynamics while co-creating can be complex. There's a risk of becoming overly reliant on co-creation, leading to potential biases. It's essential to remember that while users can provide valuable insights, they might not always have the broader market perspective or technical feasibility in mind.

Firstly, finding out the right set of early adopters that aligns with your vision. Second, blindly don't start implementing whatever the customer says. Listen, review carefully, and decide. Third, Maintaining a healthy relationship with your customers, they can get fatigue, if you ask for too much feedback, and if you don't stay in constant touch, they may lose out interest. Maintaining a healthy balance on how to communicate with your customers is very important.

Great Examples 1) Lego with the intiatives on Lego Designs 2) Clothes Retailers on Best Design Ideas that gets implemented It is a great practice but it needs strong process and strong consumer base to support this

Spotify's user-curated playlists are a testament to the power of community-driven content. But delving deeper, their 'Discover Weekly' feature, which offers personalized song recommendations based on listening habits, showcases how user data can be transformed into value-added features. In my personal experience with multisided marketplaces, co-creation plays a crucial role. These platforms often rely on both providers and consumers to shape the service offerings, refine platform features, and drive overall value.

Metaverse or virtual worlds could be a great way to achieve co-created products. Examples could be fashion or travel industries.

A few years back, I observed a compelling case of co-creation involving a large Retail product vendor and a significant retailer. The goal was to modernize the retailer's existing point-of-sale system. The retailer only paid for the bespoke features that were developed specifically for their needs, essentially getting the base functionalities for free. But let's not forget, it was a win-win! While the retailer got a tailored solution, the product vendor gained a treasure trove of real-world data and insights. This information was invaluable in developing a state-of-the-art product that was not just an upgrade for the retailer but also a leap forward in the market. Co-creation can not only reduce costs but also lead to innovations.

Co-created products are becoming more prevalent in various industries. Here are some examples of co-created products: 1) Customized Cars: Some automakers, like Rolls Royce allow customers to customize their vehicles, choosing features, colors, and more during the ordering process. This enables customers to co-design their cars to a certain extent. 2) Open Source Software: Open-source projects like WordPress, and Mozilla Firefox are prime examples of co-created products. Communities of developers and users collaborate to build, improve, and maintain these software products.

To overcome challenges in co-creating #products with #customers, we must emphasize a few critical aspects. Conflict resolution plays a crucial role in maintaining a positive and collaborative atmosphere. Efficient #feedback handling ensures that ideas are carefully evaluated and that decisions are communicated transparently. Lastly, closing the #feedbackloop by implementing valuable input not only builds trust but also drives #continuousimprovement. All of these elements are pivotal in making customer-involved #productdevelopment successful and beneficial for everyone involved.

1) Strong process with specific deliverables at each stage and gate 2) Strong Consumer Pool to get consumers representative of your target customer 3) Alignment and flexibility of team members to feedback from consumers 4) Setting the expectation from the start on the jobs to be done and iterating if something new comes up that requires shifting