Need more real, breakthrough market insights for your business? Here you can try the DPV methodology of Becoming the Customer

First, select a business on which to focus - the same business you used in the above Assessment or a different one. You can then conduct this exercise alone, but, if feasible, you likely will get richer, more interesting results by working with a small multi-functional team of 3-5 managers involved in the business.

You can then use the templates on the following pages to try Becoming the Customer. This starts with describing one typical Value Delivery Chain the market of the business you selected, then deciding where in that chain you think the likely primary entities are. Then select one such end-user/primary-entity to analyze. You will identify a few potentially interesting 'scenes' from their experiences, and then construct 'Video One' for at least one of those scenes - what you/your Team believes typically happens today in that scene. Then you create a 'Video Two' - an improved scenario for that same scene.

In a real application of this methodology, as a first step in developing a value delivery strategy, the Team, with involvement and ownership by the business' leaders, would conduct this exercise at a series of such customer entities. This is done by actually directly interviewing entities in the chain, usually in a visit to their location. Repeating this analysis, the Team would build the basis for some serious hypotheses about possible superior, breakthrough Value Propositions and value-delivery strategies. Conducting this exercise on a very limited practice basis, without actually visiting and interviewing customers, can still give you a feel for how the methodology is meant to work.

When finished with this Becoming the Customer exercise, you can move on to the next piece, writing a Value Proposition.

Select some particular customer-entity that you think is likely a primary entity for your business. Thus, this entity should, as an organization or a consumer, be the real end-users of the current/potential products/services of your business:

Below, sketch a diagram of the Value Delivery Chain relevant for this customer-entity:

	At the left, show suppliers to your business, as relevant to understanding the above entity; then to the right of the suppliers show your organization/business unit; then further to the right show the immediate customer, then their customer, etc., ending with the last relevant entity worth understanding to at least some degree, in this Chain
	Add any "Off-Line Entities" (companies or other organizations which do not actually buy or sell the relevant products/services, but may influence relevant decisions in the chain)
	Looking at this Chain, is it clear where the Primary Entities are? If you change your view on this, select a new customer entity to analyze in the balance of this exercise

Select some "scenes" from Video One, probably interesting to analyze

For the end-user/primary entity you have chosen to analyze, briefly describe several scenes (a few words for each) that would be interesting to understand about this entity. A scene is a related set of activities, an incident, or a process. It may take place over a few moments or several months. The point is to explore what actually happens in this entity today, as possibly relevant to you.

VIRTUAL VIDEO ONE SCENE A:

VIRTUAL VIDEO ONE SCENE B:

VIRTUAL VIDEO ONE SCENE C:

Describe and analyze several of the identified scenes: Select, describe and analyze what you suspect would be the most rich scenes to explore

Scene ____ (i.e., A, or B, etc., from list on previous worksheet).

Where does/did this scene occur, when and who is there:

What happens/happened in this scene:

What were the apparent objectives and goals in this scene, of the most important individual(s) and, if a business, of that whole organization:

What aspects of this Scene were in some way suboptimal, in your opinion, relative to the customers' objectives (whether or not the customer is actually aware of these suboptimal aspects).

For each suboptimal aspect of this scene, how frequently do you think it happens?

REPEAT THIS ANALYSIS FOR TWO OR THREE VIDEO ONE SCENES

Realistically Improve Video One - Invent A Virtual Video Two

Select a time frame in the future for which to create your Video Two: _______________

Now invent a greatly improved version of the Scene(s) described in Video One. Improve them as much as you think possible for this entity, where these improvements could conceivably be at least partly caused by your business (perhaps in cooperation with supporting entities in your chain). This Video Two might not be one that your business could profitably make happen today; and it might not play to your current strengths. But it should be one that you think could potentially be clearly superior for the customer, and profitably delivered by your business.

Describe what happens in this Video Two, as it contrasts with Video One:

Summarize the improved resulting experiences for the customer, identified by this Video Two: