The Value of the Customer’s Customer with Wes Higbee – 051

Wes Higbee was a guest on a previous episode of the Art of Value Show. His latest book is about value and software, Commitment to Value: How to Make Technical Projects Worthwhile. He is also the owner and chief consultant at Full City Technology. Wes focuses on helping teams learn to develop from a value perspective.

Podcast: Download

Subscribe: RSS | More

The Path to Value

• What is the most important thing you can share about pricing?
  • Be deliberate about the type of customer relationship you want to have.
  • Do not assume the type of relationship you want will happen by default.
  • Use pricing to make it happen.

• What is the “path” and why is it important? (Chapter 1)
  • This chapter was an explanation of the Wes' journey.
  • Most people are path “takers”–walking a path that someone else has asked us to walk, not even sure of the destination.
  • The metaphor explains the difference between effort (path) and results (destination).
  • Understanding the destination is the most important part of the path.
  • If you want long-term relationships, you have to focus on what is a sustainable relationship.
  • You need to do what is net win-win for everyone.
  • Figuring out what you want to do every two weeks (agile development) is dangerous.
  • You need to have a guiding purpose.
  • It is not second nature for developers to take the time to determine the purpose and then ensure that it has value.

• What is “impact” and why is it more important? (Chapter 2)
  • Walk the path in the direction of having an impact.
  • Have the skill to achieve the impact rather than just running down the path quickly.
  • Run toward the impact but crawl down the path.
  • You must first be deliberate about how you want to live your life and the type of work you want to do.

Gatekeeping Is Not Effective

• Why is not always saying “yes” a better approach?
  • You need to find incentives to ask why and say no.
  • You can price in a way that it is not in your interest to say yes to everything.
  • Think about asking why, rather than asking how.
  • The Answer to How is Yes, by Peter Block, is a whole different take on how you evaluate something.
  • If you do not step back and take on more responsibilities and risk, you cannot leverage your intuition.
  • It challenges the maxim that the customer is always right.
  • Your customer has to explain what they need to help you help them.
  • Courage is what you need because the customer probably wants help more than they care about being right.
  • You can sometimes help your customers, even when it is their fault, by not assessing blame.
  • The customer should be happy, not necessarily right.

• What is the problem with “mediation” in communication? (Chapter 4)
  • Think of a game of telephone to see what message comes out the other end.
  • When communication passes between people, things change.
  • Even in deep conversations, it can be easy to jump to the conclusion that what you wanted to say was conveyed.
  • There are filters on both ends, even in direct communication.
  • Indirect communication can be even more biased, filtered and distorted.
  • Important conversations should not rely on an intermediary to get the point across.
  • It is neither effective nor efficient to exclude decision makers in purchasing decisions and discussions.
  • If something is important enough to reach out to another organization to help you, a long-term relationship with trust is essential.
  • Trust is necessary for long-run sustainability.
  • Efficiency is doing it right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.
  • Do not assume that because it is efficient, it is effective.
  • Spend more time thinking about the things that you want to be second nature.

• Why is letting go of a specific path the best way to reach the destination? (Chapter 5)
  • If you figure out the destination, you can determine out the path as you go.
  • You can get anxious if you have only the destination, because of uncertainty in the path.
  • If you decide that the destination is most important, you can assess alternative paths more easily.
  • When facing a new challenge, look for the small successes.
  • You need to build a habit of creating success.
  • If you have uncertainty in a new endeavor, build up your confidence.

The Customer's Customer

• Why is it important to ask your customer about their customers? (Chapter 6)
  • Long-run sustainable relationships with customers are reciprocal.
  • To make your customer successful, you have to help make their customers successful.
  • If you want to help people in life, you cannot just handle your domain.
  • You have to look outward and be deliberate about how you can help.
  • The opportunity to understand your customer's customer can make them more successful.
  • Exploit the opportunities for everyone's gain.
  • If you can provide value to the third-degree customer, you will also benefit.

• What do you mean by iteratively creating value? (Chapter 7)
  • There is not enough acknowledgment that value is subjective in agile processes.
  • If you are only focusing on the software, you will always focus on the effort.
  • If you focus on value, you will incrementally have an impact.
  • The only way to guarantee you are doing the right thing is to deliver value regularly.
  • Set value targets incrementally over the 2-4 week period.
  • Percentage done is not a good way to measure the value.
  • There is no wrong way to do the right thing.
  • You have to let the people doing the work figure out how to do it.

• Why is self-diagnosing a risk for the customer? (Chapter 8)
  • If your mechanic expected you to tell him how to fix your car, would you be comfortable driving it after the repair?
  • Software developers tend to let the customer tell them how they want things fixed, rather than figuring out what they need.
  • When you have a hammer, everything is not a nail.
  • Developers should be excited about a different way of doing the same thing.
  • Do not learn a tool just because you perceive a benefit.
  • Figure out the benefit per the things you are doing.
  • Most technical people are good at what they do, but they need to focus on doing the right things.

• What is one of your best stories about creating value for a customer?
  • When you bring your perspective, you can find new ways to help people.
  • Providing knowledge, guidance and accessibility can give you the opportunity to have your customer's back.
  • When you are in the world where you think about effort and efficiency, you have a tendency to think that people will take advantage if you open yourself up to unlimited access.
  • There are so many ways you can help people. Give them unlimited access, without considering effort at all.
  • When you focus on the outcome, your customer will too.

About Wes Higbee

• Website: FullCityTechnology.com
• Blog: WesHigbee.com
• Twitter: @g0t4