Innovating with Customers
creating something new and useful. I’m also a firm believer that the
opportunities to do so are often right in front of you. Many folks jump on the opportunity to innovate when starting a project from scratch, but readily miss on-going opportunities.
Consider client feature requests for your system. Typically these are put on a long list of possible enhancements, later prioritized, then perhaps implemented and released. While I applaud the focus on your customer, I can’t help but think that perhaps you missed an opportunity to discover something innovative. Given this situation, a basic approach for discovering a better solution requires that you ask why the feature is needed and what they’ll do with it. Don’t fall into the trap of giving up the questioning too soon.
To illustrate my point, I’ll walk you through an example. A client of your trading system requests that you provide the ability to sort the PNL column by the absolute value in descending order. A really clever developer takes this requirement and overloads the grids sorting function so that any column can be sorted this way. Job done? Technically, yes. Brilliant? maybe. Innovative? Nope!To my point, you should follow up with some questions. Below is a simplified version of a hypothetical conversation you might have with your client.you: how would you use it?
client: first thing in the morning after my coffee, I fire up the trading system and sort by PNL.
you: do you change it?
client: rarely. it’s the most important value for me.
You could stop here, and simply sort that column by default, but there could be more.
you: what are you looking for in the PNL column?
client: basically, any PNL exceeding 20% of the total value of my portfolio.
You could stop here, and highlight those rows that match the criteria… but why stop there
you: is it always 20%?
client: sometimes I set it lower or higher depending on what the risk management guys tell me.
you: what do you do with the rest of the portfolio? those positions that do not exceed 20%.
client: nothing really. there are too many of them. in fact the ones scrolled off the screen never get my attention.
Now we’re getting somewhere… maybe you remove the clutter and only
display those rows. BTW… I rarely see this done in trading systems.
you: Now that you’ve identified the 20% movers, what do you do next?
client: I look for another security that’s highly correlated but hasn’t experienced the same movement.
you: How do you do that?
client: I use this nifty Bloomberg screen, type the sector and some other criteria and bam I have a few stocks.
This is a possible Integration point. You’re client might not ask for this, but you might suggest a way to automate this bit by integrating the two systems.
you: do you then buy or short the stock?
client: exactly. I expect it to move so I try to pounce on the opportunity.
Perhaps you can automate the trading or alert the client of an opportunity and have her simply click once to trade.
you: cool. This is great information. I’m going to get back you tomorrow with a few possible solutions. Then we’ll talk about prioritizing it and when it could get done. What do you think?
client: sure… but I’m dying here without the ability to sort that column.
next day…
you: here are the ideas I promised… I also have a general idea of how difficult they are to implement. It could help us determine which solution to take.
You propose a few solutions ranging from simply hacking in the sorting functionality to the more innovative solution of automating this process. Automating the process might change the game… Innovation!
client: let’s work in the sort function first so I can start making some money. However, automating the process seems like the way to go. Damn you’re brilliant. Flush out a proposal that we can show to management.
To sum it up, here’s what you should do.
- Assume that the feature or isolated need is part of some bigger need.
- Ask why they need the feature or enhancement
- Ask how they plan to use it
- Drill into their process to discover the underlying motivation
- Each step of the way, think of ways to solve the problem
- Ask yourself if you can do more… you know you can.
- Finally, share your ideas with your team, colleagues and most importantly, your client
Now go back to that list of small client requests and start a dialogue with them.
(photo via iLoveButter)
