Do we need a Change in how we build technology & software for the future...
Why Change is vital and how innovation can shape our customer-client relationship ? [It takes 6 minutes to read this article]
"Change is the only thing that never Changes" - Yes, Just look at the World around you. Then you could realize. From being ruled by 'Kings' and now to be ruled by 'Things' Change has come a long way.
So whats makes this change inevitable?
Change == Need + Growth + Innovate; (Let me introduce ‘== ‘ that is widely used in java script)
Take for example the growth of our mankind.We started our habitat near the shores of running rivers. But now we are nearing the shades of Mars.
One important factor that determines this change is the need to live a better life. And that needs crafts into creativity and newer innovations.
And as a software professional, let us discuss how we can evolve and innovate oureself in the approach of building software products life cycle.
When it comes to digital transformation 'creativity is the king'. But seems only around 35% of organisations are using innovative and creative techniques such as design re-thinking that would enhance both customer experience and business process design.
Also the need to deliver excellent user experience is well understood across the globe. But to create great user experience , you need to identify your customer's needs.
If we, as a company understand our clients needs, business, desires, objectives, their way of problem solving methodology & thoughts then we could possibly increase their business outcome and create a meaningful impact.
But the bigger question is how to understand them?
Just for a minute, please travel with me to this Playschool in a tiny village in the outskirts of Norway, where a group of Software Engineers, Designers, Analyst come to this school daily to play,create and develop their software product.
If you wonder What ??? Then the answer is Yes,and it's for real.
And that's the innovation we are going to talk and take now.
These group of Software developers have a cut-off date for their school software product that would be launching in a couple of months. Their innovative mind have brought them all to this school, where they experiment their ideas directly with these school children. They play, talk and gather the data, analyse those data, throw useless ideas and feed them as a rough sketch or wire frame them and then start designing and development of their product.
And in their voyage , they have been successful in creating a platform where they collaborate directly with these children, their teachers, their parents and expose them directly into their production ideas and experiment.
They were also able to figure out various factors like
1) Children always like bright colors. That's why you could see most pre-school have piles of bright colors to attract young children.
2) They were brilliant in connecting the little things they see and feel.
3) The children were able to be molded easily as they had fresh blood flowing to their brain and when stimulated they were brilliant in memorizing things.
4)The team were able to study the children's pattern of learning, their methodology and the science behind those.
These are very few and solid points that came as outcome after the software teams research.
By using various methods and research, the software team not only got the real time data for the product, but also allowed them to test immediately directly with those children, and getting the real-time feedback. So were able to correct them immediately.So even before getting their hands of prototypes, they had huge chunk of positive information and data that could help them to shape and nurture their School Product.
So how this innovation can help us in software development?
Take for example , we are having plans for developing a Real-estate product or adding more features to their existing services. A typical old approach would be,talk to their technical team about their requirements, create a wire frame and define the technology stack based on the information
To go to some extent we can also research online about other existing real estate products and solutions and include them. Then allow the designers to start wire frames with adding relevant colors based on their business and cultural fit.
Then pitch in the development team to develop. With a little research create the stand out feature in the product/service and re-brand it to take it to a killer point for our clients to like it.
Finally wrap it as the final product and close the deal with a happy note.
But why can’t we take a rather innovative approach here instead of the above method prescribed in the example ?
First let a team of our designers, developers and analysts along with the clients business team meet in a very common platform. The agenda should be to study them fully and give them the possible requirements for their business flow instead of them giving us the requirements. Let us involve our self in their daily business for a couple of days in their own environment. This will give us a fair idea in understanding their business model along with their pain points in the current system.
So we can get a clear picture of how they run and what are the needs in the current system to be improved We can come to a strategic conclusion and also a thought process in how we are going to move forward. In fact a couple of weeks can give us their entire business and logical structure and also will give us the exact pin-points to focus. With that data, we can re-frame their entire business solution with real clarity of thoughts,
So even before we start our wire frames, we will have their total requirements, what tech stack would work in their current environment and how to modify our software solution that would enhance their business.With the complete digital and physical analysis of their system and their environment studies we will be able to give the best possible solution that should work in all circumstances.
With this method, we can also bring in the customer/client interaction to the next level , and also build mutual understanding and trust. This will give us a chance to digitally record all touch-points to create a 360-degree view of our customers so that we can give them the personalized customer experience.
According to a tech giant study, 75% of customers admit being more likely to buy a product or service from a company that:
Recognizes them by their name and DNA,
Knows their history,
Recommends products and services based on their past experience or giving the remedies by analyzing the future of their business.
To fall into the above said category, we have to consider this innovative process.
And the good news is that most customers/clients are happy for organizations to use their data to improve their experience.
But, in order to take advantage of this opportunity, we need to invest in customer centric analysis process of bringing their entire business model into our scope.
Without having this scope we cannot treat our customers as customized individuals, And also without storing the history of how our business interacts with them, it’s impossible to provide a unique experience. So it's necessary to record and take note of all the business interactions as a digital feed.
For a case study, let’s take that our client is from France, who wants a logistical software to cover his/her entire business units spanning across France. So if we start the process with our innovative approach, we would have an analysis check of what and how their current system looks, what are their daily activities and how they respond.. We would then talk to their business heads, transportation system engineers, local unit heads along with their local drivers and other people involved in the business and get their analysis and feedback about the current software and system.
We can have a close study on their governments rules and other international software rules in abiding their law,
We can track how the end user uses the software, and how to cater the needs of them. We would by then have a common point to engage both transportation systems engineer as well as a local driver.
We might also be able to study their knowledge base about how are they using the current systems and how would they like to use it for future. These points might be a few to start. But our ultimate aim is to create a complete data structure for the future use.
But the real and practical tough question is Will the companies allow us into their business boundary? Let's hope so, as in the case of Amazon.
The future of Amazon might look like this.
An e-commerce employee will come into our houses with the surveillance camera and the instructions along with the grocery items that we have ordered online.
He/She will fill our fridge with these items and leave. Isn't it quite interesting and also time saving .
Another e-commerce giant is having plans to involve robots for delivering goods. We have already started testing Cars that are run by robots. In the future there might be a book titled “How to communicate effectively with Robots?” - written and published by All India Technical Robot Association (Trade association for Robots ? Who knows ! ). To add to my predictions, AI will play a huge part in framing sentences and writing articles in blogs, newspapers.etc.and also might participate in Spelling Bee competition.
Coming to the subject again are we going to trust these methodologies is a different story.
In realistic this approach may or may not happen, but the truth is we are willing to experiment.
The core concept is to fully understand our customers business needs and pains and then create a digital road map that would bring in the solutions that is suitable even for years to follow.
So let's hope that in the future, we take those innovative measures in how we shape our software products, so that we succeed in achieving a motto - ‘better software's build by better Humans’
To Summarize, where there is a need, there will be a change, and if the change is an innovative one, then it results in success. Let that need and change start from us…..
And once again
"Change is the only thing that never Changes" .
"Change is the only thing that never Changes" - Yes, Just look at the World around you. Then you could realize. From being ruled by 'Kings' and now to be ruled by 'Things' Change has come a long way.
So whats makes this change inevitable?
Change == Need + Growth + Innovate; (Let me introduce ‘== ‘ that is widely used in java script)
Take for example the growth of our mankind.We started our habitat near the shores of running rivers. But now we are nearing the shades of Mars.
One important factor that determines this change is the need to live a better life. And that needs crafts into creativity and newer innovations.
And as a software professional, let us discuss how we can evolve and innovate oureself in the approach of building software products life cycle.
When it comes to digital transformation 'creativity is the king'. But seems only around 35% of organisations are using innovative and creative techniques such as design re-thinking that would enhance both customer experience and business process design.
Also the need to deliver excellent user experience is well understood across the globe. But to create great user experience , you need to identify your customer's needs.
If we, as a company understand our clients needs, business, desires, objectives, their way of problem solving methodology & thoughts then we could possibly increase their business outcome and create a meaningful impact.
But the bigger question is how to understand them?
Just for a minute, please travel with me to this Playschool in a tiny village in the outskirts of Norway, where a group of Software Engineers, Designers, Analyst come to this school daily to play,create and develop their software product.
If you wonder What ??? Then the answer is Yes,and it's for real.
And that's the innovation we are going to talk and take now.
These group of Software developers have a cut-off date for their school software product that would be launching in a couple of months. Their innovative mind have brought them all to this school, where they experiment their ideas directly with these school children. They play, talk and gather the data, analyse those data, throw useless ideas and feed them as a rough sketch or wire frame them and then start designing and development of their product.
And in their voyage , they have been successful in creating a platform where they collaborate directly with these children, their teachers, their parents and expose them directly into their production ideas and experiment.
They were also able to figure out various factors like
1) Children always like bright colors. That's why you could see most pre-school have piles of bright colors to attract young children.
2) They were brilliant in connecting the little things they see and feel.
3) The children were able to be molded easily as they had fresh blood flowing to their brain and when stimulated they were brilliant in memorizing things.
4)The team were able to study the children's pattern of learning, their methodology and the science behind those.
These are very few and solid points that came as outcome after the software teams research.
By using various methods and research, the software team not only got the real time data for the product, but also allowed them to test immediately directly with those children, and getting the real-time feedback. So were able to correct them immediately.So even before getting their hands of prototypes, they had huge chunk of positive information and data that could help them to shape and nurture their School Product.
So how this innovation can help us in software development?
Take for example , we are having plans for developing a Real-estate product or adding more features to their existing services. A typical old approach would be,talk to their technical team about their requirements, create a wire frame and define the technology stack based on the information
To go to some extent we can also research online about other existing real estate products and solutions and include them. Then allow the designers to start wire frames with adding relevant colors based on their business and cultural fit.
Then pitch in the development team to develop. With a little research create the stand out feature in the product/service and re-brand it to take it to a killer point for our clients to like it.
Finally wrap it as the final product and close the deal with a happy note.
But why can’t we take a rather innovative approach here instead of the above method prescribed in the example ?
First let a team of our designers, developers and analysts along with the clients business team meet in a very common platform. The agenda should be to study them fully and give them the possible requirements for their business flow instead of them giving us the requirements. Let us involve our self in their daily business for a couple of days in their own environment. This will give us a fair idea in understanding their business model along with their pain points in the current system.
So we can get a clear picture of how they run and what are the needs in the current system to be improved We can come to a strategic conclusion and also a thought process in how we are going to move forward. In fact a couple of weeks can give us their entire business and logical structure and also will give us the exact pin-points to focus. With that data, we can re-frame their entire business solution with real clarity of thoughts,
So even before we start our wire frames, we will have their total requirements, what tech stack would work in their current environment and how to modify our software solution that would enhance their business.With the complete digital and physical analysis of their system and their environment studies we will be able to give the best possible solution that should work in all circumstances.
With this method, we can also bring in the customer/client interaction to the next level , and also build mutual understanding and trust. This will give us a chance to digitally record all touch-points to create a 360-degree view of our customers so that we can give them the personalized customer experience.
According to a tech giant study, 75% of customers admit being more likely to buy a product or service from a company that:
Recognizes them by their name and DNA,
Knows their history,
Recommends products and services based on their past experience or giving the remedies by analyzing the future of their business.
To fall into the above said category, we have to consider this innovative process.
And the good news is that most customers/clients are happy for organizations to use their data to improve their experience.
But, in order to take advantage of this opportunity, we need to invest in customer centric analysis process of bringing their entire business model into our scope.
Without having this scope we cannot treat our customers as customized individuals, And also without storing the history of how our business interacts with them, it’s impossible to provide a unique experience. So it's necessary to record and take note of all the business interactions as a digital feed.
For a case study, let’s take that our client is from France, who wants a logistical software to cover his/her entire business units spanning across France. So if we start the process with our innovative approach, we would have an analysis check of what and how their current system looks, what are their daily activities and how they respond.. We would then talk to their business heads, transportation system engineers, local unit heads along with their local drivers and other people involved in the business and get their analysis and feedback about the current software and system.
We can have a close study on their governments rules and other international software rules in abiding their law,
We can track how the end user uses the software, and how to cater the needs of them. We would by then have a common point to engage both transportation systems engineer as well as a local driver.
We might also be able to study their knowledge base about how are they using the current systems and how would they like to use it for future. These points might be a few to start. But our ultimate aim is to create a complete data structure for the future use.
But the real and practical tough question is Will the companies allow us into their business boundary? Let's hope so, as in the case of Amazon.
The future of Amazon might look like this.
An e-commerce employee will come into our houses with the surveillance camera and the instructions along with the grocery items that we have ordered online.
He/She will fill our fridge with these items and leave. Isn't it quite interesting and also time saving .
Another e-commerce giant is having plans to involve robots for delivering goods. We have already started testing Cars that are run by robots. In the future there might be a book titled “How to communicate effectively with Robots?” - written and published by All India Technical Robot Association (Trade association for Robots ? Who knows ! ). To add to my predictions, AI will play a huge part in framing sentences and writing articles in blogs, newspapers.etc.and also might participate in Spelling Bee competition.
Coming to the subject again are we going to trust these methodologies is a different story.
In realistic this approach may or may not happen, but the truth is we are willing to experiment.
The core concept is to fully understand our customers business needs and pains and then create a digital road map that would bring in the solutions that is suitable even for years to follow.
So let's hope that in the future, we take those innovative measures in how we shape our software products, so that we succeed in achieving a motto - ‘better software's build by better Humans’
To Summarize, where there is a need, there will be a change, and if the change is an innovative one, then it results in success. Let that need and change start from us…..
And once again
"Change is the only thing that never Changes" .
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