Kano Model
The Kano Model* is a way to classify customer preferences by exploring how customers react to certain product capabilities or features. It can help Scrum Teams priortize experiments and features based on how likely they are to satisfy customers.
The Kano Model uses a questionnaire to analyze how customers feel about the inclusion or exclusion of a certain feature. The results are then used to categorize features into groups that range from those that could disappoint customers to those that are likely to satisfy or delight them.
Features are categorized as:
- Basic - those that customers just simply expect to be there
- Performance - those that lead to greater satisfaction the better the solution that is provided
- Delighters - those that are unexpected and delight if they are present
- Indifferent - those where their presence or absence makes little difference
- Undesired - those that are detrimental to the customer's experience
For example, a Scrum Team building a new product carries out a questionnaire with some potential customers and users. The team limits the list of features and it asks questions that come in pairs: how does the customer/ user feel if they have the feature, and how they feel if they did not have the feature. When recording the results, the team can use the Kano evaluation table to determine each feature’s categorization.
After that, the team visualizes the results on a graph, with the y-axis representing the emotional response and the x-axis representing the feature's sophistication level. This helps to create a clear shared understanding and can be used to prioritize what the team should focus on next.
*The Kano model is a theory for product development and customer satisfaction developed in the 1980s by Noriaki Kano
Resources:
Here are full details on how to use the Kano Model.