{"id":713,"date":"2011-08-28T02:58:37","date_gmt":"2011-08-28T02:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/the-think-outside-of-the-box-market-research-design\/"},"modified":"2011-08-28T02:58:37","modified_gmt":"2011-08-28T02:58:37","slug":"the-think-outside-of-the-box-market-research-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/the-think-outside-of-the-box-market-research-design\/","title":{"rendered":"The Think-Outside-Of-The-Box Market Research Design"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I recently enrolled in  OpenView Senior Adviser&nbsp;Luke Hohmann&#8217;s Innovation Games &reg; class, where I discovered  a totally new  kind of primary market research.<\/p>\n<p>Innovation  Games are carefully designed exercises that use collaboration,&nbsp;visuals,  physical&nbsp;props, and facilitation to produce feedback and resourceful  insights from participants not generally obtained by other market  research. The feedback and insights can assist in driving  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.openviewpartners.com\" target=\"_blank\">competitive  positioning<\/a>, product road map, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.openviewpartners.com\/blog\/openview-venture-partners\" target=\"_blank\">market segmentation<\/a>, packaging, and  messaging.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Having beheld the games in action (at three <a href=\"http:\/\/www.openviewpartners.com\" target=\"_blank\"> expansion stage<\/a> software corporations in the OpenView Venture Partners  investment portfolio), seen some of the results,&nbsp;and joined in  them myself, here are my important take-aways for product teams:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>While  a few conventional market research tools are accessible (surveys,  telephone interviews, on-site visits, focus groups, user conferences), some   of them are too expensive for smaller organizations and they are all restricted  in terms of what beneficial&nbsp;information they can acquire  from their  targets.<\/li>\n<li>The customer mind is complex and provides various  data on the same topic  depending  on how it is retrieved. For example,  ask a buyer the very same  question five  different times about his pain  points, and he might give five  entirely different answers, and not one   may possibly point toward  the important insights you require! This poses a predicament for  product managers aiming to be client-centric and progressive all at once.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Rather than  restraining  themselves to the usual  market research, product managers&nbsp;will need to open their eyes to new&nbsp;means of acquiring  the data they require from buyers and potential clients.&nbsp; Inventiveness needs to  start out with the research approach.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Product managers will need to take into account research methods that:\n<ul>\n<li>Participants will wish to enter into  and will delight in!<\/li>\n<li>Occupies  the participant&#8217;s thoughts by way of senses and angles that&nbsp;conventional research does not!<\/li>\n<li>Doesn&#8217;t  have to be quite pricey!<\/li>\n<li>Will create actionable data.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Innovation  Games has shown the following elements are beneficial in attaining  insightful, actionable market research data: physical props (actual card  board boxes, large poster paper, magazines, photographs, stickers, and many others), a  safe, open, fun atmosphere for collaboration with other individuals, and scenarios  asking people to imagine, prioritize, acquire, draw, and sell while providing  them tools to express themselves.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So the next time you&#8217;re  organizing a user conference and are getting ready  to host another hour-long  panel about your consumer pain points or feedback on your product, consider having them design the ideal product for themselves on an  actual box, operate a mock auction of product features, and get creative!<\/p>\n<p>Igor Altman is a Senior Associate at OpenView Venture Partners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently enrolled in OpenView Senior Adviser&nbsp;Luke Hohmann&#8217;s Innovation Games &reg; class, where I discovered a totally new kind of primary market research. Innovation Games are carefully designed exercises that use collaboration,&nbsp;visuals, physical&nbsp;props, and facilitation to produce feedback and resourceful insights from participants not generally obtained by other market research. The feedback and insights can<a href=\"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/the-think-outside-of-the-box-market-research-design\/\">&nbsp;&nbsp;[ Read More ]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[900,237,902],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-competitive-positioning","tag-expansion-stage","tag-market-segmentation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/indiandemands.com\/demands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}