Once your key personnel see the process and the power of developing customers and product in parallel, they adopt this discipline as their own.

This process is successful for new products as well as existing products being introduced into markets that are new to the company.  It is effective for start-up companies and established companies.

How do you know whether your company can benefit from this approach?

Think about your most recent efforts to develop a new product and/or a new market and ask yourself...

1. Are your engineering and marketing managers teaming together to "sell" to your target market prospects while the product is being developed?
   
   BEST PRACTICE: Your key R & D product owners and business product owners team up for 3 to 5 successive waves of prospective customer "sales" meetings.
   
   KEY CONCEPT: A prospective customer facing a purchase decision is the single most important guide for developing a product and for understanding the opportunity and how to develop it.
   
   DECISIVE PATH'S ROLE: We help you identify who needs to be on this core, cross-functional "sales" team; we prepare the team by first getting tentative agreement on the product, its functionality, the problems it solves, its benefits, and its target market.  Then the team tests its beliefs by meeting with the right prospective customers.
   
   
2. How early did your design and business team begin meeting with your likely target customers?
   
   BEST PRACTICE: Meetings with prospective customers begin right after due diligence, commensurate with the initial project funding decision.
   
   KEY CONCEPT: Surprises will happen -- it's far better to get them early during design and development than to wait for your sales people to return with surprises from the field while everyone else is expecting revenues to be ramping up.
   
   DECISIVE PATH'S ROLE: We work with your team to set up the right meetings with the right attendees, and show them how to make the product tangible while it is still being developed.
   
   
3. What is your source and your confirmation of the gotta-have features for v1.0 versus the nice-to-have features and functionality for subsequent versions?
   
   BEST PRACTICE: Feature and functionality priorities and trade-offs are based on discussions your team conducts with the user and procurement teams of prospective customers.  These meetings are in the field, typically last two plus hours for each prospective customer, and are backed by extensive notes and detailed customer quotes.
   
   KEY CONCEPT: The shortest time-to-revenue comes from designing the smallest, saleable product with the right channels, pricing, alliances, etc.  Shortest time-to-revenue is the right objective; emphasis on shortest time-to-market often obscures the lack of market understanding.
   
   DECISIVE PATH'S ROLE: We teach your team how to listen, how to ask questions, and what questions to ask.  We drive the team toward conclusions and consensus based on rigorous analytics of what customers said, their description of their problems and desired solutions, and who said what.
   
   
4. How many companies in your refined target market did you close before the product was finished?
   
   BEST PRACTICE: Meet with 20-30 prospects in an ever narrowing target market.  "Completion" occurs when four out of the last five are A-grade or high B-grade prospects (i.e., likely to buy the first quarter after product introduction).
   
   KEY CONCEPT: You know the market when you achieve a 70%-80% hit rate on qualified prospects.  Do not be fooled by the math that makes a small percentage of a large market attractive.  Small market share is always difficult to sustain.
   
   DECISIVE PATH'S ROLE: We keep the team on task so that early false positives do not derail critical thinking or adequate customer interaction.

Decisive Path's methods show you the avenue to consistent, successful product development.  We teach your key managers the standards for performance and the techniques to achieve them.  We know how to consistently reach the right prospects and create the right relationships. There is a standard.  It's a discipline and it's hard work. Best of all, your key personnel can learn it and change the way your company grows.

Books and lecturers abound that emphasize staying "close to customers" and listening to the voice of the customer, but few describe the techniques, skills, or standards of performance for getting it done.  We do.

Rigorous interaction with future customers identifies the gotta-have features and the nice-to-have features; product evolution becomes clear.  Performance targets for sales and development are based on facts and analysis, not internal argument and guesswork.

If the business opportunity is not worth pursuing, it becomes clear to everyone very early so that resources and time can be redirected.

We can reduce your time to revenue no matter where you are in the development cycle - from initial funding to sales re-start.  Most of the answers are out there ... Don't Settle for Guess^SM!