Focus on Value: Know Your Customer

Focusing on value means beginning every improvement and service decision with a clear view of who actually receives value and what outcome matters to them. As a guiding principle, it works best as a habit applied alongside others rather than a slogan, helping teams make coherent decisions when a situation is new.

• Identify the real consumer, and make the result visible to everyone who depends on it.
• Describe value in the consumer's language. Using provider language is one of the pitfalls the article names.
• Trace work to the outcome. In the article's example, a team discovers that faster technical resolution creates little value if users receive no workaround during a critical business window.
• Stop activity with no credible value link. Assuming internal activity is valuable, and optimising cost while increasing consumer effort, are both named pitfalls.
• Track consumer value evidence, non-value activity removed and outcome achievement as a set, each with an agreed baseline, data source and owner. Use consumer value evidence as the starting signal, compare it with non-value activity removed before judging success, start with one priority service, and review results with delivery teams and consumers, because operational success and experienced value can diverge.