Align Get Your Team on the Same Page, Discover Clients' Needs, Develop Better Products

by Reese, Laura Marie

• ISBN13: 9780486816456
• ISBN10: 0486816451
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780486837611
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2019-02-13
• Publisher: Ixia Press
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

Understanding what customers want is neither easy nor obvious — but it is essential for all companies. In this guide, expert Laura Reese walks you through the pitfalls and possibilities of customer interactions. Focusing on business-to-business fields, she demonstrates how to run face-to-face meetings that solicit valuable feedback and shares simple techniques for unlocking meaningful insights into a client's needs.
You will learn how to cultivate an aligning mind-set within your company and among your own team by defining clear roles for each member. In addition to step-by-step guides for running customer alignment meetings, the book outlines specific skills for improving engagement with customers. Based on concepts of proven effectiveness, these tools will help transform a disparate group into a unified team of professionals working toward the same goal of discovering valuable customer insights.
"In the world of product development, be it semiconductors or anything else for that matter, big bets are placed on building the product the customer really needs. At Altera, Laura Reese energetically engaged on a mission to master the art of understanding what the customer really truly wants, digging through the layers of what to get to the far more valuable understanding of why. In this journey she developed a strategy for customer engagement to overcome the challenges of confirmation bias and other aspects of human nature-driven obstacles to the truth. In doing so, she created intellectual honesty in Altera's understanding of customers' needs, leading to some of the best products Altera has ever produced. The techniques she describes are applicable to any kind of uncovering exercise required to achieve an understanding of what is really required. I am delighted that she has been able to share her insights through this book." — Richard Cliff, CTO, Altera Corporation

Author Biography

Laura Reese was a Project Planning Mangager at Altera Corporation from 1996 to 2004. In that capacity she developed the protocol for the Altera Customer Advisory Board, whose meetings were used to align roadmaps between the firm's business development and their clients. Currently, she is retired and lives in Italy with her husband and son.

Table of Contents

Contents
 
Preface
 
Acknowledgments
 
Chapter One: The Power of Preparation
 
Chapter Two: Roles and Responsibilities
 
Chapter Three: Customer Alignment Meetings
 
Chapter Four: Goals
 
Chapter Five: Mind-Set
 
Chapter Six: How Not to Align
 
Chapter Seven: Aligning Skills: Questioning
 
Chapter Eight: The Art of Questioning, Continued
 
Chapter Nine: Aligning Skills: Listening
 
Chapter Ten: Aligning Skills: Making a Record
 
Chapter Eleven: Aligning Skills: Beyond the Basics
 
Chapter Twelve: People
 
Chapter Thirteen: Planning a Customer Alignment Meeting
 
Chapter Fourteen: Reviewing a Customer Alignment Meeting
 
Chapter Fifteen: The Day after a Customer Alignment Meeting
 
Chapter Sixteen: Bringing It All Together
 
Chapter Seventeen: Common Meeting Traps and How to Avoid Them
 
Chapter Eighteen: Final Thoughts
 
Appendix
 
Bibliography

About the Author