Valuable, Usable, Viable, Feasible

Michele Hansen 00:00

Welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by Oh Dear, the website monitoring app. As an Oh Dear customer myself, I particularly like how easy it is to make SLA reports with Oh Dear. They're professional and sleek, and they make it easier for us to service enterprise customers. And I actually requested this feature myself last year, and I'm so delighted with how open to suggestions they are. You can sign up for a free 10 day trial with no credit card required at OhDear.app.

Colleen Schnettler 00:32

So Michele, how has your week been?

Michele Hansen 00:34

It's good. It's good. You know, I was, I was doing some writing this morning, which is funny, I've realized it's, like, my reward work. Like, you know, when I get through all the other stuff, like it's like, oh, like, now I have some writing time. And,

Colleen Schnettler 00:47

That's amazing because I remember being in high school and, like, English, like whenever I had to write a paper, it was literally my least favorite thing to do. So I find that fascinating that, for you, writing is your reward work.

Michele Hansen 00:59

I, five paragraph essays are, I don't think anyone looks forward to writing those. Like, this is very different than, than that. Um, but so I was, I was writing and I started thinking about this framework that I know we've talked about, and it occurred to me that I have a very tangible example of that.

Colleen Schnettler 01:20

Which framework? StoryBrand, or something else?

Michele Hansen 01:22

No, so it's a Marty Cagan framework.

Colleen Schnettler 01:25

Okay.

Michele Hansen 01:26

So, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna back up first. So, there's this misconception, I think that people sometimes have or fear about customer research that if they start listening to their customers, then they have to do everything the customers ask them for. And they're basically, like, giving up control over the vision of the product to the customer.

Colleen Schnettler 01:47

Okay.

Michele Hansen 01:48

And that's not true, right? Like, you'll always have to weigh it against, um, what makes sense for you to do. And so, there's this one framework that I particularly like that was developed by Marty Cagan, who is kind of, like, the the product guru, like, he's the head of this consultancy called the Silicon Valley Product Group. Like, he is like the product guy, and in order for a product to be successful, he says how it needs to be valuable, viable, usable, and feasible.

Colleen Schnettler 02:26

Wow, valuable, viable, usable, feasible.

Michele Hansen 02:30

So let's, let's break it down a little bit. So first, it has to be valuable for the customer. Like, it has to be something that is, you know, accomplishes something for them and helps them do something, right. Because if it's something that doesn't help them do something that they would want to do, then they wouldn't use it. Like, the example I kind of think of for this is what was that startup that would, like, squeeze a bag of pureed fruit for you? Like Juicero, or, like, it was some, like, they raised like billions of dollars or whatever, for, like, a smoothie machine, and everyone is like, why? Like, not really very valuable to people.

Colleen Schnettler 03:04

Right. Okay.

Michele Hansen 03:05

I'm sure they had wonderful ideas, and they were great people. It has to be viable, which means it has to be, like, commercially viable, like people have to be willing to pay for it. So like, I could make something that's super awesome and useful, but if no one is willing to pay for it, then it's not a viable product, right? Like, if I'm solving a problem that no one experiences painfully enough to, to pay someone to solve it, then it's not going to work out.

Colleen Schnettler 03:30

Okay.

Michele Hansen 03:30

It has to be usable, which may be the easiest of all these words, to understand that, like, they have to be able to figure out how to use it. So,

Colleen Schnettler 03:39

Okay.

Michele Hansen 03:39

You may have heard this in the context of usability testing, which is basically, like, if I make a website that you can do something on, but you can't actually figure out how to do that, and it's confusing, then it doesn't matter if what the product does is something that's valuable to you. If you can't figure out how to do it, you're going to move on to something else.

Colleen Schnettler 03:57

Right.

Michele Hansen 03:57

And then the last one is it has to be feasible, like, it has to be possible for you to produce this product. So, So this would be the equivalent of being, me being like, Colleen, I really need a spaceship. And you being like, that's awesome. I can see that's valuable for you. Maybe you have the ability to pay for that. I don't, but you know, let's go with it. I can build it in a way that, that you can use it. You know, you're an engineer, right? Any kind of engineer can build any kind of thing, right?

Colleen Schnettler 04:05

Oh, okay. Sure.

Michele Hansen 04:25

Yeah. Like, you could build a bridge. No, I'm, I'm, for all the certified engineers out there, I'm aware that they're not all transferable. But it wouldn't be feasible for you to build that.

Colleen Schnettler 04:37

Right.

Michele Hansen 04:38

So, so this framework of valuable, viable, usable and feasible is something that I always keep in mind when we're getting feedback from people because you don't necessarily act on every single problem and every piece of advice that you hear, and, like, and that's okay.

Colleen Schnettler 04:55

Yeah, okay.

Michele Hansen 04:56

And so, a specific example of this that relates to the book and to something we have been talking about quite a bit is consulting and whether I should do consulting related to the book.

Colleen Schnettler 05:10

Right.

Michele Hansen 05:10

It's something we've talked about, and I've gotten quite a few requests from people about. And, you know, as I thought about it, okay, so clearly, this would be valuable for people. Like they, they feel like they need...