Good problems.

Almost every job description you will read, will have some degree of focus on problem-solving. Roll up your sleeves and tackle challenging scenarios to make the machine run more smoothly. As valuable (and by no means trivial) as that is, there seems to be not enough focus on problem-finding (or troubleshooting).

Problem-finding isn’t a skill that gets talked about too much because it is harder to make it feel practical or valuable (i.e. when people say “problem solved”, there is little cheer that can be expected when several steps before that someone says “problem found”). Unless you are a car mechanic or a systems support specialist of course. No one wants to be problematic.

With that said, the best experience designers are not the ones that have the shiniest portfolio images, the best product managers are not the ones that can get the most features out and the best executives are not the ones that just solve problems. All of the above are made far better when they FIND THE RIGHT PROBLEM and move towards a strategy built on the right foundation to tackle that problem.

A few business scenarios for problem finding:

• In innovation management, problem finding is the foundation for uncovering meaningful, data-driven new initiatives in the portfolio.

• In consultancy, problem finding is often the the component of value add that takes strategic advisory out of the realm of generic support into visionary support from a trusted advisor

• In product management, there is often a grey area for where the value is found, but it isn’t so grey at all if the intersection of data, design, engineering and commercial targets is used to find the right challenges to solve for

• In experience design, user research has long been the foundation of successful initiatives, particularly because when it is done well and without confirmation bias, it allows to uncover the real problem. Sometimes this could be as banal as users not understanding certain teminology - but it makes an impact and it focuses on the right problem.

A simple, practical example for problem finding can be pulled out of the current artificial intelligence frenzy. Whilst objectively integrating AI makes a meaningful impact on pace and cost (an assumption to be validated depending on the use case), without looking at the right problem there is zero guarantee that the solution will be more effective. For example, if a change initiative leads with “We need to integrate AI because the rest of the industry is doing it”, there is probably more digging to do based on customer and company insights, not just competitors or channels. Specifically, the question “Why?”, which needs to have significant purpose and substantiation behind it to create a “good problem”. A better premise to examine the situation would be “our contact centres are constantly overburdened, the self-service portal has 1 star reviews and the onboarding emails have a 5% open rate”. From here the thread can start to unravel, is AI-led automation really a valid solution? Or is the quality of the support function lacking overall? AI operates on a “crap in, crap out” basis, so jumping to a solution would actually be unlikely to help, it would just accelerate the problem, send users to another channel and ultimately back to the overburdened contact centre. Bad problem. Hasty conclusion. Solution infatuation.

Solving problems is reactionary, finding problems can also be reactionary but is also inherently pro-active. More importantly, it assumes that you are able to step back, put your assumptions or biases aside, assess the quality of the problem you are solving, create optionality and ultimately boost credibility because if you can’t sell the problem, the solution will likely not hold up either. With a focus on pace, optimisation and tooling; the focus on deliberating and analysing the right subject matter falls away, which is a dangerous way to end up running fast in the wrong direction.

Colleague experience = growth?

When it comes to stakeholder experience there are, broadly speaking, two core areas where companies have looked to invest; customer experience and people & culture; with some looking into developer experience, partner experience and similar.

But not all experience management programmes are created equal and there appears to be significant variance in their performance, specifically when it comes to colleagues. People & culture programmes are, by nature, business-centric, not necessarily people-centric when it comes to the HOW and WHY rather than the WHAT. Not least because experience managers are usually recruited into customer-oriented functions like CX and UX. There may be overlap in their objectives with experiential factors, but they are not always there by design. This means there is inherently less focus on engagement at the emotional level to unlock the benefits associated with that type of activation. So what are the benefits in terms of data points?

Here are a few:

• 21% increase in profitability for companies who effectively engage employees (Gallup study)

• 50% reduction in turnover costs (Kenexa High Performance Institute study)

• 1.4x increase in customer satisfaction for companies with a high quality employee experience (Temkin group study)

• 3 times more likely to be innovation leaders (IBM study)

Looking pretty good. So why aren’t more companies focusing on this as a key portfolio opportunity? Of course there is a good deal of software and organisational consultancy when it comes to unlocking some of the above benefits, but it seems the barrier isn’t operational or focused on function. Based on experience, I would argue unlocking these benefits needs to be a powerfully engaging strategic shift. A broadcast on the intranet, team re-shuffle and some mandated training are unlikely to receive many cheers from around the firm, when work feels a lot like work, it is just more work. But what if it wasn’t? American Express doesn’t need to have concierge services to run a credit card business, Wise doesn’t need to make their cards fluorescent green or transfer money in less than 3 seconds and The North Face could have continued to sell windproof jackets without creating high budget, powerful documentary content on YouTube. These things engage on a level that isn’t functional - and that’s where (in my view) growth that goes from good or even great to exceptional lies.

This is also where experience design makes its big play on ROI, turning processes into experiences makes them fundamentally more fun, which in turn sparks engagement and influences people to do things which they are unsure of or flat out unwilling to do. When it comes to colleagues this is fundamental and also frequently overlooked because unlike customers, they get paid to be where they are, but showing up doesn’t mean they will engage, which if studies and benchmarks are to be believed, is a solid secret sauce for new levels of growth.

Designing from ignorance.

The amount of design thinking frameworks (and LinkedIn content to accompany them) that have emerged since the early 00s is startling.

Understandably, each professional services organization might have their spin on things, but there should have always been a fundamental agreement that they are different coats on the same mannequin, not entirely different mannequins.

'Jobs-to-be-done' seems to be emerging as the framework of choice, and I agree. It is in my view the most accessible, least fluffy and widely usable form of getting in customers' boots (empathy in classic service design speak). The reason it works is that it makes it easy to succumb to a necessarily ignorant, i.e. an "I know only that I know nothing" approach to looking at customer or colleague challenges (or opportunities) and listening first without putting forward pre-cooked opinions on solutions that inevitably spring up.

• People don't need "QR code instant payments" they need to "pay that guy for that thing" without flapping around with an IBAN code that has 9 zeros in it.

• People don't need "fast charge scooters stations" they need to "go over there on time".

Things get particularly tricky in the B2B space because user groups are more complex and there's inherently less user choice. These users, like all of us, NEED to do their jobs so they can feed their families and go home on time, so often the experience of how they achieve that is brushed aside because they will do it anyway. Conversely, there's an inherent assumption that if a given workflow gets enhanced it will be a huge bonus for them, which is often not the case because the underlying jobs are simply not impacted enough and changing habits for something new is not worth it.

Most importantly, even if the user group is a "senior VP cohort for Mid-Western Europe that specialises in quality maintenance of turbocharged widget computing systems", in reality, they probably still just need to "pay that thing", "send that stuff" or "go over there". It is our job as designers to uncover that by boiling jobs down to a minimum without going pixel-crazy or overthinking the framework.

Unempathy.

2024 is a confusing time to be a customer. AI can think faster, robots can produce better, data quality is entirely unclear, privacy is dead and traditional sources of information are the least trusted sources of information. It would appear businesses finally have an opportunity to be empathetic with customers, to be on their side when every day anxieties (visible or not) continually bubble to the surface. But that's not what's happening. There has been a rise in the uncoupling of business objectives, social and tech progress and customer lives (which, if good service design fundamentals and corporate communications are to be believed should actually sit at the center not at the periphery of this equation).

On the one hand companies have the largest recorded amount of data about how customers interact with their businesses and should be able to translate this into strategic flexibility that is driven by customer behaviour.

On the other hand, there has been an emergence of terminology like 'enshittinfication', 'shrinkflation' and other less than flattering concepts that have emerged in a high interest rate environment that is inevitably putting the squeeze on vast amounts of people.

Businesses exist to make money, and so they should. But if you're going to ask for money, ask nicely and at the right time. Troubleshooting cannot be the end of customer care. Conversely, customer experience isn't limited to personalisation for an ad that pops up on Instagram. Research is just one component of the customer journey and typically NOT the one where the customer is most invested. CX leadership teams cannot behave like political parties with a 4-5 year tenure. Customer experiences are built on empathy over the long term, through thick and thin; satisfaction scores are transitory, true customer advocacy and recommendation is not.

Customer-to-business relationships will always be at a cross-section. One side wants to take the money out of the other side's pocket. But the most successful products and services have relied on alignment in that transfer and a deep understanding of current market dynamics. The market has shifted. Exponential, 'to the moon' growth has never been and cannot be a persistent reality. Customers understand this because they can feel it right away. The social contract adjusts. And businesses need to be wise enough to create win-win opportunities for them before during and after the sale, especially in trickier times.