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Darrell Norton's Blog [MVP] » Clarke Ching and the HBR article on Lean Consumption
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Clarke Ching and the HBR article on Lean Consumption

Clarke Ching has a post on lean consumption where he talks about how difficult it is to have a good user experience with various products and services. In it he references an article on Lean Consumption by Daniel Jones and James Womack in the Harvard Business Review. The article's conclusion is six principles for lean consumption:

  1. Solve the customer's problem completely by insuring that all the goods and services work, and work together.
  2. Don't waste the customer's time.
  3. Provide exactly what the customer wants.
  4. Provide what's wanted exactly where it's wanted.
  5. Provide what's wanted where it's wanted exactly when it's wanted.
  6. Continually aggregate solutions to reduce the customer's time and hassle.

Last time I checked, this was marketing 101. Maybe it gets lost in the daily running of a business, but it really is the fundamental identification and fulfillment of a customer desire. I don't understand why this is so difficult.

Posted Tue, Apr 5 2005 9:15 AM by Darrell Norton
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Comments

Jennifer wrote re: Clarke Ching and the HBR article on Lean Consumption
on Wed, Apr 6 2005 2:13 PM
Sometimes HBR posts some articles that make frequent readers go "Duh." This is a "Duh" article.
Darrell Norton wrote re: Clarke Ching and the HBR article on Lean Consumption
on Thu, Apr 7 2005 6:59 AM
Jennifer - very true, of course I knew you'd see it that way being the business pro that you are.
Scott Bellware wrote re: Clarke Ching and the HBR article on Lean Consumption
on Fri, Apr 8 2005 5:52 PM
> Provide exactly what the customer wants

Hmm... I don't buy this one. It's a solid goal, but the realities of miscommunication and assumption around estimates and story writing can make it necessary to steer the customer in another direction.
Darrell Norton wrote re: Clarke Ching and the HBR article on Lean Consumption
on Mon, Apr 11 2005 5:59 AM
Scott - I'd rebut with "give the customer exactly what they want even if they don't know they want it!" :) Innovator's Dilemma and all that.
Brian wrote re: Clarke Ching and the HBR article on Lean Consumption
on Thu, May 12 2005 9:22 AM
Unfortunately most businesses don't do the above and end up doing whatever the employees feel is most convenient to them. A great example that the author gives is calling a help desk...most of the time, they are no help and the performance measured is how fast they pick up the call, and get you off the phone and not if they solved your problem.

Businesses are too focused on transactions and costs and not how they can build a better process for the customers. Easy to say, but not many businesses really do this.
Darrell Norton wrote re: Clarke Ching and the HBR article on Lean Consumption
on Thu, May 12 2005 12:37 PM
Brian - yeah, activity-based costing has cost industry a lot more than they ever saved. :)
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