Demo Day – Using Show and Tell Techniques for MVP Success
For the last week, The Innovation Garage® has been focused on driving to demo day for a minimum viable product (MVP) client development
The two images shown above represent the tensions and scenario extremes to which a demo day can be presented to a customer audience. The comic strip panels from Dilbert and the classic demo photo above from the Boston Whaler Boat Company, show both extremes of what demo day can be.
Demo Day Approaches – Hand Waving or Bold and Impactful?
Scenario 1, as represented in the Dilbert strip above is mostly a lot of hand waving. Sometimes you need to do that. If you’re doing a lot of handwaving for your demo day, anxiety will be high as your present to your customers. Other times, scenario 2 is the move to make. You need to be a bit bolder, like the Boston Whaler Company.
The Boston Whaler Company’s tag line is “The Unsinkable Legend”. It’s a bold tag line for certain. Skeptics would say, “Unsinkable legend. Ok, prove it.” The Boston Whaler company photo above could also be captioned; “We are so confident in our product, we’ll take this chain saw and we will show you!” If you’ve ever seen it, it’s unforgettable for sure.
Given the two extremes we’ll advocate to our clients for a powerful and real demonstration using scenario 2 every time.
Why We Love Demo Day
We love demo day. Each one we have the opportunity to participate in is something truly special at The Innovation Garage®. The day has finally arrived where we get to show and tell. It’s the day where the full team has to be “on.” It’s time to make it real, with no excuses. Just like the Boston Whaler Team.
It means that we have reached a point in the MVP that decisions need to be made about doing something bigger and moving to the next step.
Following the demo, and its success or failure, one of two things can happen.
First, if there is a fail, we must stop where we are and reassess. Rapid feedback and root cause analysis is required here. Discovering what went wrong, chasing it to root cause and then, problem solving with the team for the necessary countermeasures to improve. The key psychological element to keep in your brain is that “problem discovery must be celebrated.”
Why is that? Very simply, if you discover problems in your demo, this means the team is already improving the customer experience. Finding problems early means there will be less customer problems at launch.
If the demo is successful and goes as planned, the natural energy in the team is higher. There is an immediate increase team confidence and we move to deeper development phases and learnings.
Demo day is a tremendous confidence booster. It takes what seems almost impossible at the start to something that is truly possible. A successful demo day is an organizational, team and cultural confidence boost like no other.
How Did Our Demo Day Go?
Our demo day involved the testing of an early stage connected device as part of a unique collaboration between two very different client teams. One team from the energy services sector. The other team from the hospital services sector. Both teams collaborated on a very unique product solution. Conceptualizing the initial concepts with The Innovation Garage team putting all the bits and atoms together. We used combinations of looks-like and works-like prototyping for the early stage pressure test of the full connected device system.
Direct Quote from the client – “That Demo went so well, we thought it was fake!”
Our hardware design team and app developer’s were absolutely thrilled with those comments. This means the developers quickly captured within the MVP what the client was looking for. In effect, the development team got the “Wow, that’s cool.” from the client that we are always looking to hear. Now, given this learning from our experiences, we want to pose a question to you.
Are You Working On Bold and Impactful Things?
Are you working on bold and impactful things, or just trying to make the prudent seem interesting? If you’re not sure, give a real demo day a shot, and see then what it means to your organization. Encourage a brave demo to discover problems that your end customer may experience. What ever the outcome of your demo day, remember that it is an opportunity to be brave, discover problems and fail forward towards an improved version of your organization’s next great product, process or service innovation.
Ready to Learn More and Explore Next Steps?
To gain a strategic advantage and explore the concepts of demo day, The Innovation Garage offers three levels of innovation training. Each level builds in a structured and sequential fashion. Scaling the foundational innovation skills and process deployment in the organization leading to innovation mastery over time. These sessions teach the demo day methodology and the foundation concepts of looks-like and works-like prototyping to build your standard work for demo day.
At The Innovation Garage®, we help organizations grow. Providing education, tools, technology, and expert consulting in change management for strategy, innovation, and supply chain. Guiding leaders from organizations across the world to intentionally self-disrupt their offerings and organizations. We deliver world-class education, tools, and technology on how to craft business operating systems focused on long-term profitable growth.
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