Lessons Learned - Week 4
Week four´s work was all about preparing for testing the formulated hypotheses. We learned about different testing formats – interviews and surveys among others – started developing the optimal format for testing our hypotheses and conducted first interviews.
At first, we described clear measures for testing our hypotheses and defined validation criteria that had to be true for the hypotheses to be valid (for instance 50% positive response of interviewees). Check out these criteria in the following:
To prepare for the interviews we developed an interview guideline. In the interviews we presented people with different problems they could choose to be true or not for them personally. Then we presented them with workable solutions that again had to be ranked. This way we hoped to validate our hypotheses about potential pain points of customers and about the desire for our product. In a next step we asked for data protection issues, checked demographic data and asked without clear guidelines for feedback on our product idea. Please check the specifics of the interview guidelines we defined in the following.
While preparing for the interviews and conducting them we discovered further learnings, you can check out in the following:
PREPARE THOROUGHLY FOR TESTING THE HYPOTHESES TO EASE INTERPRETATION!
Conducting an interview is easy, however, to derive meaningful information from it is difficult. The questions asked significantly to influence the answers given. Leading questions might result in favorable results; however, these might not reflect actual attitudes of interviewees. This becomes dramatic when interviews are not well prepared and different persons conduct the interviews asking significantly different questions or asking in differing manners. In this case potential results loose meaning and should be disregarded. To prevent this from happening the material provided in class to analyze each hypothesis should be used. Following, the right format for testing should be chosen, and testing metrics should be defined. Moreover, an interview guideline should be used when conducting interviews and a systematical way to note answers should be defined prior to conducting the interview.
USE DIFFERENT FORMATS FOR TESTING HYPOTHESES! IF NECESSARY FOLLOW A TWO-STEP APPROACH OF TESTING!
When planning how to test hypotheses it might be beneficial to use different formats of testing for a single hypothesis. To give a concrete example: we want to find out if people have problems storing and keeping track of their administrative documents. To test if this is the case we believe a two-step approach including interviews and a survey is the most suitable solution. The interviews will be best to get a first idea about potential pain points of people when it comes to storage and organization of administrative documents – maybe even pain points we did not think of before. Through a survey we can then validate how many people are affected by the pain points that surfaced throughout the interviews. A two-step approach of testing can be the best way to validate qualitative findings through quantitative data analysis.
USE PROJECT ORGANIZATION SOFTWARE – FOR INSTANCE TRELLO OR SLACK – TO STREAMLINE WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT WITHIN THE PROJECT!
When the project becomes more complex in later stages of its development project organization and workflow management become critical. We had to learn this the hard way. In prior weeks of project work we struggled with communication problems so that some tasks were done by two project members simultaneously while others were missed out. Further problems emerged throughout project work. By using project organization software – Trello and Slack for instance – we effectively tackled the described communication problems and made project work easier and more efficient. We recommend using pertinent software right away to catch a strong start with project work.
DO NOT FEAR TO REBRAND THE PROJECT IF THE PROJECT IDEA CHANGES!
Starting off as a more sophisticated mailbox our project idea quickly turned into a hub for all administrative documents that provides add-on solutions like instant invoice payments. Reflecting this change of our initial project idea, we also changed our project brand name from Mailey – a name clearly focused on the mailbox – to fload – a more abstract term representing the eased workflow when organizing administrative documents our application provides. Even though we had worked quite some time on our initial brand and brand name – the rebranding was inevitable to clearly communicate the project´s changed value proposition. We would encourage other LEP groups and entrepreneurs to take similar actions if required and to not stay too attached to prior project work and ideas.
Thank you very much for staying tuned! Your fload team!
