Product managers need special methods and techniques for determining priorities and getting great business results. There are dozens of popular methodologies from gaming to the most complicated, quantitative and qualitative, for internal and external purposes.
Here’s one of the popular methods - Kano methodology
Kano methodology
The Japanese researcher Noriaki Kano published an article in 1984 where he describes/shares many ideas for determining customer satisfaction with product features.
These ideas are usually called the Kano method or “Theory of attractive qualities”.
This theory makes it possible to clearly describe the satisfaction of what needs leaves the consumer indifferent, dissatisfied, or makes him/her happy.
The model is based on the following premises:
Satisfaction. Customer satisfaction with product features depends on the level of functionality provided (how well they were implemented).
Customer reaction. Features can be categorized, depending on how customers react to the level of functionality provided.
Customer feelings. You can determine how customers feel about a feature through questionnaires.
Kano identifies 3 main components of the quality profile:
Basic, which corresponds to the mandatory characteristics of the product.
Expected, which should correspond to the “quantitative” characteristics of the product.
Attractive, which corresponds to the characteristics of the product that are admirable. This is a kind of surprise.
Quality requirements are specifications of the quality of products, services, processes or environments.
Kano model is really useful because it helps to determine relationships between the product update, the level of customer satisfaction and market dynamics.