Main Takeaways: - Honing the Problem - Experimentation, Speedy Hypothesis - MVP & Seamless Collaboration - Be a Customer

1. Customer Centric & Hypothesis
Driven Innovation by Cruise VP of
Product Engineering
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6. Confidential
Customer Centric &
Hypothesis Driven Innovation
Bhavini Soneji
VP of Product Eng at Cruise
ProductCon, 2022

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Agenda
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1. Honing the Problem
2. Experimentation, Speedy Hypothesis
3. MVP & Seamless Collaboration
4. Be a Customer

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Honing the PROBLEM
“Understanding the purpose and why, enables setting the northstar vision.”

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The Golden Circle
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WHAT
Every organization on the planet knows WHAT
they do. These are products they sell or
services they offer.
HOW
Some organizations know HOW they do it.
These are the things that make them special or
set them apart from their competitors.
WHY
Very few organizations know WHY they do
what they do. WHY is not about making
money. That's a result. WHY is a purpose,
cause or belief. It is the very reason your
organization exists. Start with WHY - Simon Sinek

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Identify Riskiest Hypothesis
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PIVOT PERSEVERE KILL
Hypothesis
Hypothesis

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Impact
● Drives a sense of purpose and
inspires people
● Builds strong foundation &
alignment
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Experimentation:
Speedy Hypothesis
“Doing big investments without having the conviction leads
to self-fulfilling prophecy”

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Why Experiment?
● Doing big investments without
having the conviction leads to
self-fulfilling prophecy bias.
Why Go Broad to Go
Narrow?
● The best ideas come from
generating many, many ideas. When
we push beyond conventional
thinking, we discover unique
solutions that delight our customers.
● Narrowing gives us focus and
purpose. When we only work on
ideas that maximize the customer
benefit, we can do less, better.

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GO BROAD TO GO NARROW
Start with many ideas
Get uncomfortably narrow
DEEP CUSTOMER
EMPATHY
● Observe Members
● Savor the Surprise
● Learn Why
RAPID EXPERIMENTS
WITH CUSTOMERS
● Leap of Faith
Assumptions
● Small Teams
● Scrappy & Fast
● Learn & Decide
Experimentation:
Customer Centric and Hypothesis Driven
Ideal State
Deliver the awesome member
benefit that members will
choose above any alternative

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A Well Designed
Experiment
● Tests one leap of faith assumption
● Has a clearly defined hypothesis
● Measures real customer behavior
● Captures data (quant) AND “why” (qual)
● Can be run quickly and cheaply...days
not weeks

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Types of
Experiments/Prototypes
Fast Cycle Sketch Test
Test a solution collaboratively, in real-time
Visual Walkthrough Test
Blueprints to surface hierarchy and user journeys
Hack To Market Test
Ship at speed with no process oversight
Demand Test
Are they buying what you’re selling?

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Impact is INNOVATION
● Makes your idea concrete & validates demand
● Builds experimentation & risk taking culture
● Avoids groupthink bias & empowers the team

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MVP & Seamless Collaboration
“As the product matures, its vital to get end to end perspective
by honing product instincts in every role. “

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WHY
● Perfection can be
your enemy
● Roles, titles and
boundaries can
constrain you or
result in gaps

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Dogfooding &
Learning with MVP
● Don’t let your customers be
your first testers—Regularly
“dogfood” and do bug bashes
together
● Validation is every cross-
function’s responsibility
● Everyone puts on Product Hat I
● Quantitative metrics to drive
decision
Customer driven & Data driven decision making

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Impact
● Better E2E perspective &
cross-group ownership
● Enables scaling MVP
● Data driven decision making

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“Be a Customer”
“Put yourself in your customer’s shoes to understand
their needs and desires & create solutions that best
serve them”

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WHY
- Build the right product with the least
investment
- Catch our bias and have a shared
understanding & alignment
- Celebrate and motivate our team to
see the impact of their work
Empathy is
- Seeing through their eyes
- Hearing through their ears
- Feeling through their heart
- Taking off your shoes to walk
in theirs

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Gemba walk
- Make customer shadow repeatable
- Make it easy and simple for
everyone to participate
- Make a connection with the
customer
- Regularly integrate user research
into early stages

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Impact
- Deeper relationships &
Empathy with customers
- Achieving continuous
improvement much faster
- Better products that cater to
customer
- Makes it a DNA

26. “If you want to build a ship,
don’t drum up the people to
gather wood and give orders.
Instead, teach the people to
yearn for the vast and endless
sea.”
- Antoine

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