Early Adopters And Method 5 WHY

Magical guide about?#productmanagement. Article #44

Early adopters are a group of people who have an interest in buying a product even when it has not yet entered the market or has come out with various flaws.

Who are the early adopters?

Early adopters are the first customers to try out a new technology or product. Early adopters are often interested in trying out or acquiring new technologies and products before others and are interested in finding new types of technologies. They are usually more risk tolerant than other buyers and can provide initial cash flow for the company as well as important product reviews. They also help establish social proof for a company’s new product or technology.

The term “early adopter” is most commonly used in the technology industry, although you can find early adopters in any industry. These people tend not to care about following the crowd. They are looking for innovation and can report any shortcomings of the product before it becomes mass. If the product works well, the first users often become loyal customers, and their opinion is usually highly appreciated by colleagues.

What to do with early adopters?

They can be used to collect feedback and initial promotion of your product or service, first sales, validation of hypotheses about the value of the product.

How to find early followers?

You can start with the immediate environment and those people who, in your opinion, are the target audience of your product or service. It may also be useful to communicate with these people and understand whether they are really interested in your value proposition.

Typology of people according to the criterion of readiness to accept new information

1) innovators (2.5% of the population) — people striving for novelty, prone to risk. Such people are always the first to buy new and fashionable things and are the “conductors” of innovation in society. However, there are relatively few such people, they are usually representatives of the elite;

2) early adopters (13.5%) are people who are inclined to accept innovations, but are more cautious than innovators; they start using novelties when they see that they are used by innovators or any famous people;

3) the early majority (34%) — people are quite conservative, they start using new products already when a fairly large number of people have mastered them. But when the early majority accepted the innovation, it can be considered that it is embedded in the minds of people;

4) later, the majority (34%) — attracting this part of the population actually means that the novelty has ceased to be such and has become a product of mass consumption. At this time, innovators are already starting to use newer products;

5) laggards (16%) are the most conservative part of the population, usually elderly people who persistently continue to use the products they are used to (for example, a grandmother who continues to wash with household soap and does not recognize washing powders).

Stages of acceptance of new information

1. The information is perceived by the overwhelming majority as strange and rejected. Accepted only by innovators;

2. When the “early adopters” join, an increasing number of people begin to believe that “it’s not so bad”; when a critical mass is reached, an “explosion” occurs — the novelty becomes fashionable, most people begin to use it;

3. The fascination with a novelty reaches a peak, after which it declines; the majority and laggards begin to use it later — at this moment the novelty actually becomes obsolete, goes out of fashion; innovators are already mastering something new at this time.

Disadvantages of early implementation

There are some disadvantages to selling products to early adopters:

Higher risk of defects

One of the biggest disadvantages of promoting and selling products to first-time users is that there is a higher risk of defects. Since early adopters are often very influential, this can affect the overall perception of the brand and its products, which can have a long-term impact.

Not what was expected

Another problem with selling to first-timers is that the product may simply not meet their expectations. Marketing messages can mislead consumers, and if the first users believe that the company has misled them or misrepresented the product, this will affect the ability of the product to be sold in the mainstream market in the future.

Compatibility issues

Some advances in technology also create compatibility issues for consumers. For example, the new technology may be incompatible with the electronics they already own, which may cause disappointment to consumers.

Method 5 WHY

Let’s talk today about a good tool for working with the search for the root causes of problems in the project, namely about 5 why? Sometimes this method is called the “five why rule”, “five why method” or “five why questions”, but the essence does not change from this.

In general, the 5 why technique came from Toyota’s lean manufacturing, and helps to quickly, on the knee, determine the root cause of the problem, inconsistency or deviation.

It is done simply on one-two-three:

1. We define and formulate the problem that we want to find a solution to.
2. We consistently ask the question “why”. The first 2–3 answers are usually very banal and you even want to quit this pointless activity, but then the interesting begins. And sometimes it’s so interesting that then you think maybe I didn’t need to know it?
3. We look at the last answer, scratch our heads and decide how to fix it (this is no longer part of the methodology, of course, but the meaning is lost without this point).

As always, the 5 why analysis makes sense to do together with the customer or with the team, then a reasonable discussion is possible, and an understanding of what is happening will be better.

And the “five whys” is a wonderful and simplest tool for introspection. With the accumulated practice, it is used almost automatically in any situation like “I can’t force myself to work, the mood is bad in the morning” or “why did I decide that I have no life without this food processor for 20,000 rubles, which will take half of my rather big kitchen.”

An example of the “five whys”

A very simple, but real example from my work practice and, in my opinion, very indicative, given the VERY low IT qualifications of the participants in the process. Anonymized, of course.

The problem?is that users spend too much time searching for the tender document they need.

Why??Because when searching, they have to choose from a large number of tender documents of the company.

Why??Because the system cannot filter out tender documents for a specific department.

Why??Because in our requirements for the contract management system there was no requirement for the possibility of linking the tender to the department. That’s where we should stop, right? Everything is clear, we will add a filter — and we will be happy. But still…

…why??Because we formulated the requirements for the system on the basis of the previously existing regulations for working with paper tender documents (when they were still carrying envelopes and autopsies), and not electronic ones, and there, of course, there could not be any search mechanism, and we did not think about it.

Why??Because when we formulated the requirements, we did not turn on the brain and did not think about how our work would change when switching from paper tenders to electronic ones.

Well, here is a useful insight for the future, and it became clear what to do. We add a filter, enter data about departments, and teach users how to apply this filter. This is tactically, but strategically — we do a repeated review of the requirements for the same forgotten things in order to immediately make all the necessary changes in a package, plus we include it in the checklist for the acceptance of final requirements for the future.

Errors when using 5 why

“Five whys” seems to be a simple and primitive thing, but it is quite possible to make mistakes when using it.

Here are the most popular:

1. Slide into the accusation of everyone and everything. After all, 5 why is a method of analyzing root causes, and not splashing out negativity on others (it’s better to go to a psychologist or to a bar for this). Therefore, at the third step, to determine that “the system does not work because users are stupid” and say “well, we can’t do anything about it” is a so–so idea, it will not lead to a constructive solution.
2. To resist with all my might, so that it would turn out exactly 5 why, no more and no less. 5 questions is an average number (well, it sounds nice, yes), in reality there may be 3 or 7 of them.
3. Do not record intermediate responses. The focus is lost, and the result turns out to be so-so, after all, it is difficult to overestimate the power of a written or printed word.
4. Well, that’s it, I guess. Like other project management tools — simple, fast, brilliant.

Conclusion

Today we have analyzed very important elements of the study - these are Early adopters and the 5 WHY method. We have analyzed cases and live examples of how these methods help in the research of their product and provide opportunities for finding growth points! Next, we will consider an equally useful method — this is the HADI cycle.

Thank you for your attention ??