The Snippet is a Weekly Product Management Newsletter for aspiring Product Leaders.
Until I landed my first PM job, I had never really interviewed anyone.
The first time I interviewed someone was alongside a User Experience researcher (who did it for a living). I was a new PM trying to validate a product idea that we thought was exciting and solved a big pain point for people. Our target market was small business owners, so we cold-called a bunch of small business owners and set up meetings.
In sum, we wanted to interview small business owners to validate our assumptions about the burning problems they had. The goal was also to figure out whether or not the burning problem was bad enough that people would pay to have it solved.
So there I was. My first interview ever. We were interviewing this small business owner who after every few minutes of answering our questions, drifted sideways, talked about things that werenât directly relevant to what we were looking to learn. But my colleague (the UX researcher) never interrupted him. At the time, I wondered why.
As I did more interviews, alongside experts and then all by myselfâI slowly gained experience in the art of interviewing users and customers. Today, I have hundreds of hours in customer interviews under my beltâand over the past 7 years building products, Iâve learned that interviewing people, especially as you are trying to figure out what to build is both an art and a science.
The Art of Interviewing Customers
You see, most people are not great at answering questions to the point. People naturally need to build up the context to get to the part that answers your question. So while it might appear that the interviewee keeps going off-topicâ theyâre really just telling you everything they think is relevant or in some way connected to the answer to your question.
As I did more interviews, I realized why my seasoned UX colleague didnât interrupt the small business owner when they were apparently rambling on and on. He was simply getting into his subjectâs shoes, into their situation. The small business owner wasnât rambling, it was their reality.
I learnt that to interview effectively, one must be an empathetic listener - but a focused questioner.
This means that when the interviewee is talking or answering a question youâve posed, itâs best to not interrupt them while they are answering. Instead, listen to every word they sayâand create markers to dig deeper. Remember at that moment, you are trying to understand howâs it like to be in your customerâs shoes.
Then, use follow-up questions to navigate the conversation.
When the interviewee has finished telling you what they think, use the markers you created to prod deeper. Ask follow-up questions that you are most interested in learning about.
The second key to interviewing effectively is that You have to be fully engagedâŚ.but identify the biases involved in the discussion
When you are interviewing a customer or a target customer, you have to really empathize with them and their situation. How do they see the world? what biases do they have? But then, you must also try to isolate these biases arising due to their unique vantage points and separate them from the pure insights. That way the insights will generalize much better.
You donât learn this stuff in school and keeping track of all this seems hard to do in the beginning. But the more you practice, the better you get at it.
The Science of Interviewing Customers
Good interviewing is also about good science. And it starts with documenting everything thatâs going on during the interview.
Generally, I always recommend having at least 1 other person with you when interviewing a customer. I also highly recommend you ârecordâ the conversation, where possible. Typically audio-only recordings work better than video recordings, as people tend to be a lot more conscious facing a camera.
This practice allows you to focus on the person you are talking to instead of worrying about taking notes. This also enables you and your team to re-listen to the conversation when necessary. Obviously, always seek the personâs approval before recording them.
Next, repeat the interviews (similar questions, formats, etc.) on a broader sample size before arriving at conclusions. Donât jump to conclusions based on just one personâs context.
Often PMs ask how many interviews are enough? There are different answers to that question depending upon who you ask. Marty Cagan says focused interviews with 6-10 people will give you a good idea and a general sense of whether or not a feature makes sense.
I agree, but the focus should always be on the quality of interviews rather than quantity. Too many interviews and youâll quickly start seeing diminishing returns. Too few and youâll run the risk of missing out on insights that generalize well.
If you start seeing the same insights repeat over and over again, itâs probably a good time to stop interviewing and work on inferences.
Finally, while you are looking for customer problems that generalize well and you can build a product around âdon't let go of customer idiosyncrasies â thatâs where under-served but highly valuable niches often lurk.
Jobs To Be Done Framework for Interviewing
The secret to finding your next great product lies in finding out what causes customers to make choices that help them achieve progress or solve a problem they have. As (Late) Clayton Christensen said â âTo get to the right answers you should be asking: What job would consumers want to hire a product to do?â
The Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework is a simple and elegant tool for Product Managers and is super helpful during the Product Discovery phase. Iâve used this framework several times as a reference to interview customers and can vouch for its effectiveness.
The basic premise of the JTBD framework is deceptively simple â understand what Jobs your customers are trying to get done, and then give them a product that helps them do that job better. The more pressing/ important the job and the easier your product makes it for your customer to do that jobâthe better the chances of your product to be successful.
The Customer doesnât care about your product
We need to constantly remind ourselves that customers donât care about your product (or any product for that matter). They care about themselves, and they care about figuring out how to do the things they need to do â better, faster, easier. Thatâs all.
The goal of interviewing your customer is
To learn about what is it that they are trying to get done?
Understand the pains and challenges they experience when doing these jobs?
Understand what would help them do their job faster, easier better?
Once youâve uncovered these insights, you can then plot this on the value proposition canvas to see how your product can help get your customerâs jobs done more effectively. How it can relieve them of the pain, and how it can maximize the gains.
Hereâs an example of a value proposition canvas for parents (customers) that want to ensure all-round development of their children (the Job to be Done) - and a Product that helps keep parents informed about what their kids are doing and learning in school.
Tips for your next Customer Interview
Go into the interview with an open mind â donât interview somebody to simply validate something that you already think is a great product idea. Youâll just confirm your biases.
If you ask customers questions like âdo you want a new feature?â or âdo you worry about HVAC efficiency?â theyâll always say âYesâ. Thatâs a heavily loaded as well as a leading question. Avoid these questions.
Let the witness/interviewee do most of the talking and lead the discussion.
Record the interview or have somebody take notes as the customer is speaking. Your full attention must be on the interviewee the whole time.
Allow the witness to tell what their jobs related to the topic are and list each job. e.g. If you are interviewing a facility manager, you can ask -âhow do go about managing your premises?â and let them talk through their jobs.
When you need to understand which jobs are more important to them âask them to force rank jobs relative to each other.
Ask what pains are associated with each job they mention âwhat gets in the way of getting their jobs done in an effective manner? How often do they experience this pain? Constantly, once in a while?
Learn what kind of hacks or workaround or an existing product they are currently using to solve their pain and get the job done. This will give you a great understanding of the current state and what your product is up against.
Question them on how satisfied or happy they are with the current alternatives?
Customers will often suggest âsolutionsâ and âfeaturesâ for your product - look beyond the suggestionsâinstead figure out whatâs driving their suggestions and how such a feature would help their jobs to be done?
Once you know about the customer's Jobs, pains & gains â present a hypothetical concept/ solution and ask them to comment on it. As customers/interviewees comment on your concept âyouâll often see them articulating the problem more succinctly. This is also when youâll learn about boundary conditions, edge cases & user idiosyncrasies. Write them down.
Finally, Donât just write down what you hear, write down what you see, write down why theyâre saying what theyâre saying.
So there you go! I hope these tips help you interview better â and build a great product!
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The Snippet is a Weekly Product Management Newsletter for aspiring Product Leaders.