Sunday Rewind: Sense & Respond: The farm awakens by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden

In this closing keynote from #mtpcon San Francisco 2017, Josh Seiden and Jeff Gothelf, the authors of Sense & Respond and Lean UX, present a story about wheat farming as a parable for understanding our customers and how to respond to their needs and technological change.

They start with a hypothesis for what they can do to set a business up for success: We believe that meeting this user need with these features will create this business outcome. We’ll know we’re right when we see this evidence.

In their example, the user is an American wheat farmer and the economics of wheat farming are brutal. They explain why the user needs lower costs, higher efficiency, and to stick to Mother Nature’s strict schedule.

John Deere is the biggest player in farming equipment and technology. Despite its success, and the immense brand loyalty it commands, John Deere is also a victim of the brutal economics of wheat. Wheat farming needs to operate on a huge scale to be profitable, so this leads to fewer farms and farmers, and lower farm equipment and technology sales. It means John Deere has to rethink its business model.

So John Deere machines come with a licence agreement saying that the farmer can’t service this equipment anymore and needs to use a John Deere service technician. So John Deere has delivered more efficiency and capability for its customers, and increased services revenue through the licence agreement.

The problem though is that farmers now have to call in a John Deere technician when something breaks, rather than fix it themselves or get it fixed locally. The presenters comment: “As a product manager you have to ask yourself here – are you solving user needs by building these complicated, integrated hardware and software systems – or are you exploiting user needs?”

It’s meant that a cottage industry of tractor hacking has sprung up. Farmers can buy devices and download software that lets them work around the licence agreement and fix their tractors themselves. “The point here is it’s not just about listening to your customer – but truly understanding your customer, their culture, and then making decisions based on that information,” the presenters say. 

They say that ultimately it’s down to product managers to find the right balance between business models, customer needs, customer experience, and the law. “The legal structures will never keep pace with technology, which puts us in a challenging position – will we use those gaps to serve our customers? or exploit them?”

Watch the original talk: Sense & Respond: The Farm Awakens by Jeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden