Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Todd Berzer at Keeval Product Management. This is the three-minute product manager and our discussion on ethnographic research. Ethnographic research was an approach developed by anthropologists to understand the culture of a group, and this is done through observations and interviews in the field. And it's a very useful and very common technique for product managers. Culture of a group, in our case, means the culture of a market segment. And we do this through interviews and observations of your customers, where they are using their products, so at home, at work. And the goal is a deep understanding of the articulated and unarticulated needs of our customers. So what problem are they trying to solve? Why is it important to them? How are they solving this today? What works? What doesn't work today? What would they like to see? And the goal really is this deep understanding, this kind of an analytical and intuitive understanding of our customers and their needs. And that's really a foundational element of excellent product management. So to do ethnographic research, you want to start with your research objectives. Then you move to screening and recruiting your customers. You want to look for customers in your target market segment or segments. You want to develop screening criteria to find these customers, but not too strict. Market research firms can help you set up and recruit these visits. And sales reps and channel partners can also help you, but I'm going to add a caution on that one in a minute. And then during the interviews, you want to have a questionnaire that you've developed in advance. You ask very open-ended questions. You listen and observe more than talk. And you interview, remember, you're there to hear their perspective, get their view of the world. So put the focus on listening and observing. Interview them where they do, where they interact with your product. This might be at their home, in their kitchen. It might be at their office. Depends on your product. It might be right at their desk. Take pictures and video if you have permission. Catalog the variety of data. Look for key themes, surprises, and insights, and then communicate broadly to your team. And then use those findings to guide your team's approach. So some tips on how to manage ethnographic research successfully. First of all, one of the key best practices is to work in a cross-functional pair. For example, you as a product manager together with your research and development counterpart. You want to talk to as many customers as possible. Cast a broad net of customer types. And this might be nationally, internationally, as appropriate for your product or service. You want to keep all the bias out of your voice, your questions, and your body language. So you never judge during the interview. You're there to listen and observe and understand their perspective on the world. And related to this number three, be careful with sales reps. Remember, sales reps have a different agenda than you. You're there to get unbiased information. They're there to make a sale. So the best way to manage sales reps is to keep them out of the room for this ethnographic research. But if you can't do that, then the way to manage them is to ask them to hold their questions and comments until the end of the interview so that you can make sure you have an unrestricted block of time that you can get good, unbiased information. If you want to capture your notes as quickly as possible, you're going to get a lot of data. It's easy to forget this the next day or the day after. So that very evening, see if you can get your notes down. That's ethnographic research. I think it's an exceptionally useful tool for product managers to kind of develop that analytical and intuitive grasp of your customer needs. So good luck with this. I hope it goes well for you. If you need some help, let us know. We are Keeval Product Management. We've got our contact information, email, and website here. We do training for product managers. We do workshops. We do consulting and coaching. So I hope it goes well for you. Let us know if you need some help.