Understanding of Pain Point is a guide for generating improvement pathways. Solution builders should consider pain points as building blocks for better organisational outputs/outcomes.

1. Pain Points
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Uncomfortable, Annoying , Frustrating things or situations
Urgent or difficult to solve needs
Underlying reason(s) for seeking a solution
May not always be verbalized by customer
Are cries for help
Are indicator of constraints towards realization of an organizational
goal
o Have impact on productivity at individual, departmental and
organisational levels
o Higher willingness to pay and More Value realised by quickly solving
of the higher order needs
o Solving one need creates new Pain Points and business
opportunities e.g docking stations and speakers for ipod

2. Examples of Pain Points
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Constantly out of supplies
High cycle time compared to competition
Not able to get enough customers
Difficulty getting repeat business
Finding challenge in meeting customers demand for variety in less time
Our products don’t occupy the same mindspace
High attrition rate
Low productivity
No idea of the capacity
Increase in returns
Low margins
Projects getting delayed
Don’t know which products make good money or lose money
Don’t know how much I get from existing infrastructure
Can I take a big order and deliver in time

3. Why Focus on Pain Points
 Money is spent on either reducing pain or increasing benefits/outcomes
 Not able to realize the desired benefits/outcomes is a Pain
 Organizational performance and growth are constrained by the availability
of resources , markets and competition
 Developing appropriate product and/or service and/or technology and/or
solution and/or processes aid in solving or reducing pain point(s)
 Misplaced efforts and resources can be very expensive not only for growth
but sustenance of an organization
 Acceptance of a solution is in line with its potential to reduce the perceived
severity of a Pain Point
 Solving one Pain Point creates Trust for solving others
 Solution can change entire technological , business and social landscape
e.g . itunes in ipod for cheap and legal music Vs Napster , Google Docs Vs
MSOffice, WeChat Vs Messengers
Formalisation of the Pain Points Review Process under the ongoing
organisational learning systems can improve competitiveness as well as
create new business opportunities

4. Solving Pain Points
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Ask open ended questions
Get users to talk about their issues/concerns in detail
Don’t just tell and sell your solution
Don’t just ask and collect list of problems
Engage users and guide the discussion for clarity and consensus
Demonstrate your understanding and expertise by sharing relevant
case studies
 Summarize the discussed Pain Points and identified/possible
outcome indicators in the proposed solution
 Build your proposed solution over the solving of the agreed Pain
Points
 Adapt and Get Buy-in of your proposed approach to solving user
needs

5. Some Questions
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What pain do you intend to solve?
How severely is the Pain perceived ?
When is the Pain perceived to be more severe ?
Who sees the most value in solving the Pain?
Why would anyone care for your solution to the Pain ?
Has it been solved by anyone , anywhere earlier?
Why the customer/user should buy the solution from you?
How quickly can you solve it?
Who is/are going to buy the solution?
How do you measure the impact of solution?
How much of the impact is tangible and intangible?
Is your solution to an intermediate business or to the end user ?