The Innkeeper II - Meet the Concierge

After my attempt at a Better analogy for the Tech Product Manager Role , I had a few opportunities to discuss and decipher, how the popular "Business Analyst" role fits into this analogy, and how it is different, if at all, from the role of our Innkeeper, i.e. our Tech Product Manager. Thus comes along a new role in my Innkeeper analogy - a Business Analyst, as The Concierge.

The Roles

Now, at the outset, the job of the Concierge doesn't seem to be very different from that of our hapless Innkeeper, because fundamentally, it isn't. Even the textbook definition of an Agile methodology does not differentiate between these two poor souls, because as far as the customer is concerned, either of them can be the voice of the inn, and either of them can be responsible for meeting the needs of the guest. Both of these roles should be capable of justifying why the product should continue to exist.

However, in practice, these two people oft end up with the exact opposite approach to each others'.

The Tussle

Our concierge and innkeeper come from different backgrounds and with different areas of expertise - the former understands the guests when they speak, and knows how to fake a smile for 8 hours straight, while the latter knows which leaky pipe might flood the floors. This can explain why their approaches seem to be polar opposites:

The Concierge defends the Guest in front of the Crew.

The Innkeeper defends the Inn in front of the Guests.

The primary responsibility of a Concierge is to keep the guest happy. He would rather not lose an opportunity to make the customer feel like royalty, even if that leads to cumbersome, or even unreasonable work for the Crew at times. Not knowing a wrench from a broomstick, the concierge might assume that the crew can "work their magic" on anything, and can even bring the moon if the guests pay for it. Naturally, the crew wouldn't be very happy about being told to fetch a moon by next week, but the Concierge has to keep the guests coming back, one way or another.

On the other hand, the Innkeeper is responsible for keeping the Inn up and running, above all else. He knows the importance of his crew, and he knows what a broomstick is, but he knows that he can't use one correctly without them. The Concierge may well forget the previous "request" while making the next one, but it's the Innkeeper who has to plan the changes in the Inn, and face the complaints from the crew. Therefore, to save himself(and his crew) the bother, his knee-jerk response to a guest may be on the lines of "take it or leave it". Sure, that will keep his Inn up, but he can't keep it running with leaving guests, can he?

Herein lies the rub - between the Innkeeper trying to keep the guests accountable, and the Concierge trying to keep the guests' accounts. Both are needed, but not in isolation, so is there a sweet-spot?

The Example

Along comes an unhappy, sleepless guest in the middle of the night, shouting at the front desk, that the wallpapers are too bright.

The Concierge, clearly unaware that light-emitting wallpapers even existed, is very keen to not have this particular guest awaken all the others to the problem of illuminated wallpapers, that too at this absurd hour. Thus, he frantically awakens the already exhausted crew, begging them to change the entire wallpaper in that room, within one hour. There is no time for questions or explanations - it has to be done right away.

The crew, bewildered at this strange request, instructs the innkeeper to justify this absurdity.

The innkeeper, unconvinced by the urgency of this huge ask, braves the shouting from the guest. He asks the guest why they didn't simply turn off the lights, but what self-respecting guest would settle for such a workaround after having come this far? The concierge is already panicked at the sight of a guest being challenged so brazenly.

After much discussion, the innkeeper finally asks the weary crew to simply replace the night-lamps in that room with the dimmest ones on the shelf, and call it a night.

(As always, the analogous insensitivity of the stakeholders mentioned here is purely fictitious. Any resemblance to stakeholders of any Product, active or demised, is purely coincidental.)

Concierge relieved. Guest asleep. Wallpapers intact. Crew unmoved. Problem...solved?

I'll leave it for you, the Reader, to decide whether this counts as an "...and they all lived crappily, er, happily ever after" ending or not. However, there are still a few takeaways from this story:

• The problem was not that the wallpapers were too shiny, or that the night-lamps were too bright. The actual problem was that the guest couldn't sleep. Their feedback was the symptom, not the solution.
• Both, changing the wallpapers or changing the bulbs, would be equally good at addressing the symptom. However, one is substantially more practical than the other, and it's worthwhile to bring the guest to the same conclusion.
• The desperate concierge never exercised his right to question the guest, nor did he create an environment wherein the crew could do so. To arrive at the actual problem at hand, and the best solution for it, every member should have had the right to seek an answer as to why they're doing what they're doing.
• Any crew member could've easily come up with the same solution, but they have their own challenges as it is; they don't need the added fuss of facing the wrath of the guests, because they'll be the ones who will finally work towards pacifying it anyway.

The Conclusion

In most cases, the tag of "Business Analyst" or "Product Manager" is more driven by past experience, or at least the hesitation to emerge outside of it, than it is by the desired perspective. There is nothing in the rule-book that says that our concierge and our innkeeper cannot be the same person. Therefore, there is nothing to stop the concierge from learning the ropes from the crew, or to stop the innkeeper from empathizing with the guest.

Customer-centicity isn't always the same the Customer-obedience; and a performant design isn't always the relevant design either. Irrespective of what is asked for, the customer's need lies somewhere in the middle.

Therefore, even if the Concierge and the Innkeeper are not distinct roles in the team, these should definitely be distinct perspectives - a team-member can lie anywhere on the spectrum between a Yes-person Concierge, and a stubborn Innkeeper.

While both of them may have different philosophies, they share the same purpose - Identifying the guest's (actual) needs, and ensuring that those can be met without tearing apart the inn.

I hope that this Concierge vs Innkeeper analogy helps managers identify where lie on the spectrum.

As always, I look forward to your thoughts and experiences in the comments...and your suggestions on how to take this analogy forward.