Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

by Jenny Blake

Investigative Pivot Listening 1. Identify your ideal audience: the people or companies that you would like to learn more about. 2. Formulate a few key questions to ask this population: Examples that work well across the board are: What are your current challenges? Where are you heading? What do you want to create or do next? What does success look like? How will you know when you get there? 3. Deploy your listening tool or research method: It may be casting a wide net by creating a survey that you send to friends, coworkers, or your community, or it may be starting in a more intimate way by setting up conversations, or a combination of both. In the design-thinking community, these conversations are called empathy interviews, and refer to finding out as much as possible about potential customers’ experiences with a given topic or environment, even if you do not ask directly about your product or services. 4. Gather data and parse key themes: Whether you send a survey or meet with people face-to-face, collect all your notes in one place. What are the common threads among the responses? What are the biggest challenges for the people you care about? How might these tie in with the strengths and interests you identified in the Plant stage? 5. Identify small next steps: Based on your active listening, what next steps could you take? Are you ready to start prototyping, or piloting, a potential solution, or do you want to conduct another round of research? You might do both simult...