Michele Hansen on Customer Interviews and Deploying Empathy

CaSE: Conversations about Software Engineering

Joy Heron talks with Michele Hansen about customer interviews

• Deploy Empathy
• Practical Empathy by Indi Young
• Service Design by Andy Polaine, Ben Reason, and Lavrans Løvlie
• The User Experience Team of One by Leah Buley
• Inspired by Marty Cagan
• The Voice of the Customer, 1993 research paper by Abbie Griffin and John R. Hauser
• Clayton Christensen books
• Lean Customer Development by Cindy Alvarez
• Brené Brown
• Deploy Empathy Newsletter
• Software Social Podcast

Chapters

1. Michele’s Journey in the Software Industry (00:00:00)

2. Getting interested in talking to customers (00:04:45)

3. Becoming an expert on customer interviews (00:11:13)

4. Can developers also do customer interviews? (00:13:58)

5. The value of doing customer interviews (00:14:43)

6. How to get permission to talk to customers (00:19:12)

7. Why is the book called “Deploy Empathy”? (00:21:49)

8. Rubber Duck? (00:24:06)

9. A new definition of empathy (00:25:03)

10. How to better understand someone’s perspective? (00:32:19)

11. How to talk so people will talk (00:35:56)

12. Acting empathetic vs being empathetic (00:38:26)

13. Improving listening skills (00:42:45)

14. Final thoughts & Closing (00:46:14)