Steering for customer value? 6 answers by Erik Bras

You want to look beyond your own team. You want to make a move within the organization. You want to gain more insight into the bigger picture. Nodding yes three times? Then your ambitions look a lot like those of a young Erik Bras about 12 years ago. As an Agile professional, he lived up to those 3 ambitions, which is why he now shares his most valuable lessons in the Driving Customer Value training. We ask Erik 6 valuable questions about “Driving Customer Value.

Erik, Steering for customer value, that goes without saying, right?

That is indeed how it sounds. Yet in reality, it is often different. You see that in many organizations everything is linked to financial results. Projects and project teams are then attached to these, to which budgets are allocated. MTs or management often steer towards the solutions they think the customer is waiting for. But what is that actually based on? Exactly. With a Driving Customer Value training or program you tackle things structurally differently from the bigger picture. Then you start precisely with questions like: how can I identify and approach my different customer groups? What customer values do we want to deliver? How can we link those to specific customer groups? How do we put together the right multidisciplinary teams for that? How do we translate vision into realization? By answering those questions in a certain cadence, you are really driving customer value. Especially if you continue to validate that with your customer groups. That sounds complex, and it is. That’s why we also developed Driving Customer Value program.

Indeed, that sounds complex. Let’s make an attempt to make it simple anyway: how would you explain Driving Customer Value to a child?

I think I would put it this way, “We help groups of people work well together making everyone happier.” Although I must say that right now I do feel the temptation to go much deeper into this. Anyway, let me put it this way: at least for us as trainers, it is nice that participants of the training or program usually already have the necessary experience with Agile working.

And suppose you had taken this training yourself ten years ago, what would you have gained from it?

Gosh, at the time, as a Scrum Master, I would have had a better idea of what I was actually contributing to. At the time, I too was part of a larger organization and in my role responsible for a small piece of the puzzle. With this training I would have had more insight into the bigger picture of the organization, which would also have allowed me to learn and grow faster. Once you know what you are contributing to in “the Big Picture” and how you can improve it together, your work also becomes more enjoyable. I think that is very recognizable to many people.

In one review, someone who recognized this wrote the following: “value-driven without a solution as a starting point. Can you explain that one?

Certainly. So in many organizations, budgets are often allocated to projects from the top down. In that sense, they steer by solutions and not by value. The result can be that project teams spend a lot of time and energy on a solution that ultimately delivers no real value to the customer. Waste, in other words. And another consequence: you don’t make enough use of the expertise of team members, which can also reduce job satisfaction. If you steer for customer value, you invite multidisciplinary teams to make optimal use of their expertise and thus come up with valuable solutions themselves.

Can you finish this sentence? Especially don’t come to this training if you …

..don’t want to be mentally challenged or aren’t open to really learning new things again. Because with the theory and tools we tackle in Driving Customer Value, we shake things up quite a bit. We also get feedback from participants with a lot of Agile experience that they experience an overload of new insights on a first training day. The great thing is that if you are open to it, we can immediately translate it to your own practice from day two. Then you will also immediately start working with topics such as OKR, Obeya and communication techniques. In short, do come to the Driving Customer Value Training if you have experience with Agile working and the desire to get much more out of it.

So validating customer value is essential. When would you validate the customer value of this training as successful?

Of course, we always ask for feedback during and after training. Practice what you preach. This also applies to the preparation; we have defined our customer groups and linked customer values to them. But I like it best when participants say that they can really put it into practice the very next day. It gives me satisfaction when, during a training or in-company program, I see the pennies drop for experienced Product Owners or the lights go on for team leads. When, as a result, they can immediately put it into practice themselves or ask us for coaching, then we as trainers have delivered customer value. And that customer value in turn contributes to steering on customer value of organizations and to the job satisfaction of team members. The same applies here: High Impact. Happy Teams. That completes the circle, as far as I’m concerned.

I’m missing one more question

Of course you can. Maybe you’re already interested in this Driving Customer Value training or you’re considering the in-company Driving Customer Value Program for your entire team, but want to ask Erik an in-depth question of your own? Feel free to contact us and we will discuss all your questions one on one.