Tag Archives: design

Designing of Products and Services

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Last week I posted a piece on using a form, fit and function analysis in reverse engineering. This type of analysis can also be used in product or service design. The starting point is different, but the analysis works the same way. In reverse engineering, the form, fit and function analysis starts with a product or service and works backward to determine how something works. In the design of products and services the process starts with a customer need and works toward a solution.

The questions that need to be answered in design work are similar to the reverse engineering questions. The need to repeat the steps of the analysis is also similar.  The main difference is that in reverse engineering, the product or service is the focus, but in design, the customer is the focus.

There are areas of overlap in a form, fit and function analysis. This is the natural result of moving through the form, fit and function steps in the analysis process. Additionally, the steps are cyclic in that the analysis is repeated with increasing levels of detail. This “drilling down” to more granular knowledge of how something works, or should work, allows for a more robust design of a new, or refined, product or service.

As in the previous post, the questions in each category are framed around the interrogative, “What”. To repeat the analysis cycle to gain better detail, the “why” must also be discovered.  Also, a mind map tool is useful in documenting progress.

Form:

  • What customer need is the product or service addressing?
  • What does a solution look like to the customer?
  • What is the assumed skill level of the user of the product or service?
  • What tools and knowledge are typically, easily, at hand for the customer to use with the product or service?
  • What is the history of the customer need?
  • What other solutions are already available to meet the customer’s need?

Fit:

  • In what specific situation(s) is the product or service intended to be used?
  • What are the specific features of the product or service that the customer will consider critical to quality?
  • Who will use this product or service? (Who is the customer?)

Function:

  • Looking at the product or service’s internal processes, what will it do?
  • Looking that product or service’s internal processes, how does it do it?

The above questions are a starting point and will get more specific as more knowledge is gained. It is simply a matter repeating the analysis cycle until it makes sense to move forward on a prescribed course of action.

There is a lot more detail to the form, fit and function method of designing products and services than this post can cover. To learn more, check out my Lean Six Sigma book titled, “Lean and Mean Process Improvement”.

Organizational Re-design

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In organizational re-design, there are changes to process, infrastructure and procedure. These are impersonal and structural in nature. They are also, by the way, the easiest things to modify when re-engineering an organization.

Just as important, but much more difficult to deal with, are behavioral changes. The best business process that has ever been designed will not work if the underlying user behaviors are not also changed.

The same is true in transactional processes such as sales. For example, you can design and build a totally green house, but can you change consumer behavior enough to get people to choose to live in it?

What this means is that we must value human behavior expertise as highly as we do technical expertise. The philosophy of “If we build it, they will come” only applies if you build something that the consumer or employee see as valuable.

The point is that you must listen to the “voice of the customer”. The customer can be an employee or someone who pays you for a product or service. It also represents a strategy of change management and innovation. That is, address human behavior issues before technology issues. The truth is that if you build it, they may not come.

Sometimes when we change human behavior first, the users themselves change the process in the direction you were trying to achieve. You may even find that change was not necessary or that your ideas for change were faulty.  This applies to all aspects of a capitalistic culture. Consumer demand drives technological innovation and cultural values drive cultural change.