Identify Pain
Pain, a technical or business shortage the client wants to overcome, stop or change, is one of two qualifiers that show whether you have an opportunity.
Together with the Champion, the pain is one of the two major qualifiers in the discovery phase that are required to understand whether you have an opportunity.
A strong pain can be a technical or business shortage that the client would like to overcome, stop or change.
It must impact the customer in terms of time, cost, risk or revenue if not solved within a certain time frame.
We call it “the consequence of doing nothing when the compelling event takes place.”
Example of a strong pain
- ABC Soft needs to deliver a solution by the end of the year. They have major delays caused by serious bugs, which may prevent an on-time delivery. (Pain)
- There is a penalty clause of $100K per week if the software is not up and running on January 1. (Implication/consequence: cost – strong, reputation – medium)
Example of a weak pain
ABC Soft needs regression testing due to buggy software.
What information is missing here?
Questions to ask
- Pain: What causes the delays?
- Implication: What does this mean to you and the company?
- Is it really compelling? What is the consequence of doing nothing? Does it impact your business?
Further reading
Go deeper on Identify Pain
The business or technical shortage the customer must overcome, stop or change.