Announcement Date: January 1, 2012

instrument types

 

Business Challenge

My product line (a test and measurement instrument manufacturer) had identified a class of problems which no existing instrument on the market could solve.
Curiously, one of its own products could be re-purposed to address the problem. It would mean creating an entirely new class of electronic instrumentation.
Because no such instrument existed, the product manager couldn’t rely on his usual market research to determine the product’s features, price point and feature set.

 

 

Result

The product development team proposed to the business proposed an entirely new class of measurement instrument. 
Based on the team’s research data, executive staff was convinced and approved moving the program to the next stage.

 

 

Process

circuitA tiger team was put together to do primary research with 20 customers to determine the answers to several important business questions

The team crafted an unusual research protocol comprising three activities:
  • Requesting the user to inventory the “buses” they had recently instrumented for circuit they had designed
  • Participating in a feature/cost trade-off exercise to design a new instrument
  • Participating in a pricing exercise around their designed instrument

rawcircuit

featuretradeoff

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Contributionnewinstrument

I was responsible for the research design, including:
  • The circuit inventory exercise
  • The feature/cost trade-off exercise
I helped forge strategy for both the research effort and subsequent product definition.
I designed product concepts and worked with closely with engineering teams to incorporate user experience from the outset.