Voice of the Customer ISR Danbury, CT

Objectives At the end of this discussion, you should be able to: Use VoC to identify true Customer intent Identify conflicts between written and unwritten requirements and processes And be able to introduce this concept to your employees Purpose: Provide objectives for the module. Details: Summarize the module objectives. Time: 1-3 minutes 2 2009 Goodrich Corporation Internal Voice of the Customer - ISR v1

Exercise 1: What is a customer? A customer, also called client, buyer, or purchaser, is usually used to refer to a current or potential buyer or user of your products. How do you currently identify Customer Requirements? Details: Use the first 5 bullets/questions to engage the group It is a myth that all projects rely on stable, non-changing requirements from the customer. More traditional life cycles did focus on getting requirements right, with the assumption that design and development would be successful. This was nice in theory, but impractical. Often customers or end users do not know what they need until they actually see a sample or prototype. This is especially true for IT or other high-tech projects. Requirements naturally evolve and change, and the project manager must plan for change. Note that requirements can be identified in many ways: - Technical or physical, such as size, weight, color, and quantity - Functional or performance, often used in acceptance criteria by the customer Use focus groups or interview in teams of two or more to probe for understanding of requirements. The project team might speak with end users to get a better knowledge of their needs. Methods in addition to Voice of the Customer (NGT, JAD, Rapid Prototyping) can be used to firmly establish requirements. Nominal Group Technique: Gather requirements: Each team member develops a list of requirements without discussion, Requirements are listed on a flipchart or board, Each requirement is then discussed among the group and clarified; assumptions are stated. Prioritize requirements: Each team member then ranks the requirements—most important first, Team ranking becomes the consensus. JAD: A process that particularly helps information systems staff work effectively with users to speed up the requirements-gathering process Avoids the pitfalls of the traditional project life cycle that results in: Building to specifications, Little or no customer involvement during development, Customers saying they want something different at the end. Rapid Prototyping - A methodology to assist in customer requirements development. Includes the following: Frequently used in software development, a known number of iterations of prototypes are made, continual involvement by the customer, reduces risk of a non-working solution, used to respond to abstract requirements. Time: 3-5 minutes

VoC Illustration

What is Voice of the Customer? Voice of the Customer (VoC) is the name used to describe a process of communication where there is give and take to ensure that requirements and expectations are clearly defined, documented, and understood by all parties involved. Purpose: Introduce the Goodrich VOC process. Details: This is recognized Goodrich best practice collecting and analyzing the Voice of the Customer. Use this training module as the standard work for Voice of the Customer and Impact Matrix. Time: 1-2 minutes

Traditional VoC Process Flow 1-2 days 3rd day Step 1: Pre-Work Step 2: VoC Question and Answer Session Step 3: Output Conduct Document Review Prepare Probing Questions VoC Sessions (1 day) Capture the Customer’s Voice with Questions: Customer’s true intent is established Send pre-determined questions to customer before VoC Session Non Leading Clarifying Probing Establish Initial Non-Leading Question

Everyday VoC Process Flow 1day event Step 1: Pre-Work Step 2: VoC Question and Answer Session Step 3: Output Review documents provided by customer i.e. Purchase Orders, Drawings, Emails, RFQ, RFP, Statement of Work, Emails, Tech Specifications, etc Ask customer predetermined questions resulting from pre-work. Establish the Customer’s Intent Listen actively and capture customer response. Confirm response with Customer Customer agrees to captured response Generate questions to ask Customer during VoC question & answer session. (Send to customer in advance)

Doing your Pre-Work Before you approach your customer do your homework to ensure you are asking the right questions. Prepping may include reviewing documents such as: Statement of work (SOW) Drawing Purchase Orders Request for Quotes Request for Pricing Request for Information Technical specifications Contractual requirements / ITARS Memos, e-mails Any communication provided by your customer Send the questions to your customer prior to your scheduled meeting to ensure that they are prepared to answers all your questions adequately. Purpose: To remind students to review their new requirements against existing documentation Details: The key point here is that even though this extra activity seems as though it elongates the process, it is time well spent. Much of the value obtained from VoC sessions is the collaboration of the different functions on a project to clarify documented requirements. In any case, its almost standard that this information is reviewed in the course of proposal/award – what’s better about this process is that the entire IPT looks it all over – more eyes may catch more issues; and the team walks away regardless with a clearer understanding of the project. Time: 1 minutes

Question and answer session with your customer Supplier Customer Recommendation: Set the tone of the meeting with a positive greeting to engage customer in VoC. Ask question Customer Responds Actively listen and capture customer response Verify response with customer Purpose: Ensure initial responses are clarified Details: This part of the VoC process is designed to ensure that the Goodrich team has clarification on the information being provided by the customer. Continue until inputs or questions are exhausted. (note clarifying questions are in blue (or blue dotted) and probing questions are in red (or red dotted). Time: 1-2 minutes Does Customer agree with captured response No Yes Document for your use! And repeat for each question Make sure the customer’s intent is clearly understood

What Can Voice of the Customer Do? Understanding the customer’s needs helps you work with customers resulting in the following: Improved Quality Reduce errors Reduce/ Eliminate ambiguity Eliminate the unknown Improve data integrity Improved Delivery Identify true delivery dates/lead times Shorten total turn around time Improved Communication Increase your knowledge base Build teamwork, respect, and cooperation Help set priorities and organize tasks in order of importance 10 2009 Goodrich Corporation Internal Voice of the Customer - ISR v1

When is the Process Complete? Supplier When you are satisfied that all issues or gray areas are completely removed and you have the confirmation from your customer that what you are providing them is what they intended. Customer For ISR Danbury, it’s when we are confident that our suppliers have a true understanding of our intent/need and all areas of concern are resolved. Purpose: Identify when the meeting is finished Details: This process is critical for both ensuring customer understanding, agreement and commitment to the key items that need to exist on this product. You will be reviewing and confirming the result with the customer to ensure agreement with statement and ranking. If the customer does not agree with the final results, adjust appropriately based upon customer feedback. Note- a concern here may be that there are competing entities within the client organization and they do not agree with each other about the final prioritization or assessment. Use the facilitator to arrive at a final determination. You must work to achieve commitment to ensure a solution that satisfies the clients specifications. Ensure the output is posted for review by the team during the next steps or a document is created with the results so that the Goodrich team members can refer to the information during the creation of the Impact Matrix and associated FAIR items. Time: 1-2 minutes 11 2009 Goodrich Corporation Internal Voice of the Customer - ISR v1

VoC Questions