End Customer
Viewpoint
The End Customer is the reason that this business exists. At the point of sale, the Customer has a problem and we offer a solution that can address that problem in such a way as to release sufficient value to make it viable to maintain that solution for the lifetime of the product.
Customers may have a very different appetite for new solutions. Those towards the Early-adopter end of the distribution will be excited by the opportunity to collaborate iteratively using the benefits of Continuous Delivery to discover brand new solutions to their problems. Those towards the opposite end of the distribution will only be comfortable purchasing mature solutions that many other customers are already using successfully and will benefit only marginally from the use of Continuous Delivery.
Customers are always very busy, focusing on the demands of servicing their business, despite the pressures of the pain points that they experience. As such, they have a limited attention span and will need to see positive outcomes that have a direct effect upon their bottom line as rapidly as possible or they will lose interest in the product discovery process.
View
As a customer, I have a problem that I need to be solved for me, at a price that is less than the cost it is currently causing me. I may not initially be aware of the true nature of this problem, but I almost certainly know the pain it is causing me. I may not be able to describe the solution I need and will probably ask for things that are familiar, but which don’t effectively address my real problem.
Your potential solution sounds interesting, but I need something that I can use in my business today to help create additional value for my customers. I’m not really interested in a demo about pet stores, I need to be able to apply your solution to my data in the real world before I can say if it really solves my problem.
I have people coming in here every week, offering me ‘silver bullet’ solutions but my real problem isn’t werewolves and I frankly don’t trust anything you say. Prove that you can solve this in a month any you have my attention.
Value Add from Continuous Delivery
- Run small, focused experiments in live production environments
- Iterate rapidly to discover features that add real value
- Ability to experiment safely in production
- Ability to react quickly to unexpected issues
- Ability to fail fast and move on if no real value identified