This was a workshop conducted by Vijoy Caro, Carolyn Spencer and Aliza Carpio at Total Customer Experience Conference

1. Designing Great Products
The Skinny on MVPs

5. What We’ll Cover
• The Basics on MVP – why we love being
skinny 
• The importance of the why when we create
experiences…Mission and Vision
• The tools to deliver awesome MVP
experiences…including the experiment loop
• A bit of practice and role playing
• A case study to demonstrate the process
• The challenge at networking

7. The basics of creating MVPs using
D4D and Lean Start Up principles
AND
The Importance of Why…the
Mission

8. We need to drive
innovation…this next
breakthrough will bring at least
$5M

9. Source: Fastcompany.com

10. The Minimum Viable Product, MVP

11. The Minimum Viable Product, MVP
The minimum viable product
is that version of a new
product which allows a team
to collect the maximum
amount of validated learning
about customers with the
least effort.

12. Build it and they will come…

13. The Myth
Build it and they will come…

14. Source: The Lean StartUp

15. Learning through Experiments

16. A moment on measuring…Behavior
• No surveys allowed…
• You need currency – a way to measure
whether someone will use your
product/service/experience
4:10 pm

18. Trigger…Starting Point
• Problem
• Vision

19. Design for Delight
Evoking positive emotion
by going beyond customer
expectations in delivering
ease and benefit
...so people buy more and tell others
about their experience

21. 21
Sample Problem Statement
I am an undergrad and I
want to gain muscle but I
haven’t been able to even
to gain muscle even
though I work out which
makes me feel insecure.
“Jacob”

22. Customer Empathy: Engaging Techniques
22

23. Why do we care?
We need to gain empathy and a deeper understanding of our target
customer so that we can build products and services that reflect our
customer’s needs and go beyond their expectations!
23

24. Steps to a Great Interview
1. Think about what questions you want to ask
– Questions should be open-ended and non-leading
• What do you think of this?vs. Do you like this?
• What would you do next? vs. Would you go here?
• What do you like or dislike? vs. Do you like this feature?
Important questions: “why?”, “tell me about…”, or “tell me more”
2. Put Customer at ease
– Introduce yourself and try to make the customer feel comfortable
– Build rapport – ask what they do, where they live, kids etc.
3. Ask your questions and listen actively
– Remember to focus on the details and probe for more info
– Minimize how much you are talking – if you’re talking, you’re not learning
– Don’t assume you know the answer -- Test your discoveries, “let me make sure I
understand…”

25. Steps to a Great Interview
4. Thank the customer!
– Tell them that you learned a lot from them (even if you didn’t!)
25

26. Let’s role play (Handouts)

27. Observations
• Jacob works out 5xs a week with low
weights
• Jacob gets about (4) hours of sleep…he
doesn’t really sleep
• He hasn’t changed his diet – follows
mostly a vegetarian diet

28. Insights
• Low protein in Jacob’s diet: Key to bulking
up
• Sleep deprivation: Jacob’s lack of sleep
leads to low body mass

29. Inspire
Align
A product vision is more
than a statement. It is
a belief in how your
product will impact
the lives of those
you serve.
It aligns the team’s
passion and obsession
to deliver nothing less
than awesome.
Intuit Confidential

30. MISSION/PURPOSE
Why we exist
Change people’s financial lives so profoundly they can’t
imagine going back to their old way
PRODUCT VISION
What we’re going to achieve
Start-to-finish tax prep in 10 minutes for simple filers
STRATEGY
How we’re going to get there
Deliver awesome product experiences.

31. 31
Vision
10% increase in
campus talk
about Jacob
because he
gained 10 lbs of
muscle mass
Let’s be honest...it’s all about the chicks 
Source: Getrippedathome.com

32. “A thousand songs in your pocket”
Intuit Confidential

33. A Moment on Going “Cheap”…
Cheap Experiments

34. 34
Types of Cheap Experiments
– Concierge
– Mechanical Turk
– Mocked up prototypes
– Story boards
– Concept sheets

35. 4:32ish

37. Assumptions
• Most people who will take the test would
know about the blog…( TT has 26M
customers and that 70% of the blog
readers were returning TT customers)
• We assumed that people would find the
articles helpful
• We assumed that we just had to organize
things better

38. Insights
• Almost no awareness that blog existed
• Everyone loved the content –all said it was
helpful
• Everyone wanted to share articles or
bookmark but no easy way to do this
• We also were surprised by the articles that
were most popular – those that helped
people understand key deductions for side
businesses

39. The Vision
Empower you with knowledge and confidence to
take control of your finances, starting with taxes,
so that you can keep 20% more of your hard-
earned money

40. Cheap Experiments

41. 41
Key Insights
•“Get me where I want to go” (less steps)
•People prefer visual icons over descriptive
text
•Lead the way; help me find useful articles

42. Before and After Home Page
42

43. Before and After Menu
43

44. Before and After Interaction with Blog
44

45. The E2E View…Build, Measure, Learn
Vision
Release
MVP
Release
MVP
Cheap
experiment
Cheap
experiment
LOF – Leap of faith
assumption LOF – Leap of faith
assumption
Observations, Insights, what’s the next Leap of Faith to test?

46. Happy Hour…the challenge

47. Your Brainstorm Challenge (Handouts)
Goal: Create a problem statement that
answers the following… "what problems
does someone have that we can solve when
they travel alone to conferences”
Aliza, Joy and Carolyn will monitor and help
people along
(4) Teams: 2 using stickies, 2 bumpercar
teams

48. Problem Statement Template
I am a ___________(description)
and I want __________ (what are
they trying to achieve) but I have
been ___________(state the
barrier), which makes me feel
_________(emotion)

49. Resources
• The Lean StartUp by Eric Ries
• The Lean Entrepreneur by Brant Cooper
• Innovation Catalyst (HBR):
http://hbr.org/2011/06/the-innovation-
catalysts/ar/1
• Design for Delight:
http://vimeo.com/user7289841 ;
http://www.slideshare.net/stephengay/inno
vation-d4d-v2

51. Vijoy_caro@intuit.com
@heyjoyjoy
Linkedin
Carolyn_Spencer@intuit.com
@carolynnspencer
www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn
nspencer
Aliza_Carpio@intuit.com
@socialac
www.linkedin.com/in/alizacarp
o/