Most new products & services fail. The #1 reason is that their developers failed to do the necessary customer research. What are customers' top unmet needs? What ideas are most appealing to customers? What is the optimal product design? This course teaches four tools that ALL innovators can use: the product innovation charter, ethnography, concept testing and conjoint analysis. These tools get used during the critical early phases of innovation.

COURSE FORMAT

This course consists of 46 minutes of videos, broken into thirteen 1-6 minute lectures. There are four downloadable .pdf's with templates students can use on their own projects. Four quizzes test comprehension. The primary method of teaching is case studies illustrating the use of the four tools.

INSTRUCTOR

Instructor Brian Ottum has a Ph.D. in market research, focused on the innovation process. After starting his career as a chemical engineer at Procter & Gamble, Brian has supervised hundreds of customer insight projects for clients in many industries.

COURSE OUTLINE

This course begins with the instructors bio, then shows how early innovation fits in with the entire innovation process. Actual research data is cited to justify spending the time and money on customer research. Then a simple 4-step early innovation process is described. The best tool to use at step is covered. Case studies and a quiz complete each of the four steps. At the end, students are given suggestions on where to go for deeper learning.

WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS COURSE?

This course is for product developers, product managers, marketers, engineers, scientists, designers, market researchers, customer insights managers, market analysts, and business leaders who need to know what tool to use when.

Questions? Email Brian at ottum@comcast.net or call him on his cell: 1-734-260-0597 (9am-9pm US Eastern Time)