Co-founder at Sense & Respond Learning. Teaching executives and teams to simplify prioritization and decision-making by putting the customer first.
Want better outcomes? Start with a better story. We tend to jump straight into metrics: - Adoption - Conversion - Engagement But here’s the thing: Most teams skip asking, “What do our customers actually do?” A simple exercise we use in our books is this: Picture your ideal customer. Someone who grabs a donut and coffee on the way to work. They take the subway, swing by your shop, head to the office, and eat at their desk. From that story, you suddenly get real metrics: - Foot traffic past your shop - % buying both donut + coffee - Takeaway vs dine-in Simple story → Clear behavior → Better outcomes. You don’t need fancy tools. You just need to ask: What are our customers doing now and what do we want them to do differently?
Wait, you're advocating for optimizing on customers realizing wins over a left-handed, X32 space modulator that is now AI enhanced?
An oldie but a goodie. Behaviour studies = leading indicators. Metrics/KPIs (and yes even OKRs) = lagging indicators. If you anticipate behaviour changes then the story is where you start by defining the assumptions you hope to prove via demonstrable action.
Facts !!!
“doing now” an “doing differently” from the systems engineering perspective are about methods/way of working. Very useful abstraction to model customers’ behaviour. Customers achieve a goal and they do it by a method. You define the method they use and replace it
Love that simple, powerful shift!
You omit the what do they want to do differently since that is where their pains are. Puzzle setting and puzzel solving helps :)
Jorge Bonett O.
You're spot on. This is such a simple truth, but so many product teams don't follow it. I think it's often a function of company culture. When execs are requesting deliverables 'yesterday' to look good at management meetings, teams are pressured to skip the 'story' and jump right to metrics. It's a shame, because this idea should be the very core of how products are built.
But do they ask for a receipt for that donut on this customer journey that's the important detail:) https://youtu.be/xPq0-8dyl8I?si=teKOOYC6CQ2OSzYw
Co-founder at Sense & Respond Learning. Teaching executives and teams to simplify prioritization and decision-making by putting the customer first.
2d📚 This one’s from the book Who Does What by How Much? — still one of the clearest explanations of how to tie goals to actual behavior: https://www.amazon.com/Who-Does-What-Much-Customer-Centric-ebook/dp/B0CYDH8R71