Don’t Do What Your Customers Tell You To!


The Agile Compass

Matthias Orgler

Hello Reader,

Does your product manager do what the customers tell them to do? They need to stop!

For years I've heard corporations talk about listening to their customers. And while that's not wrong per se, I've seen too many totally misunderstanding this simple concept.

That's what we'll look into today.

Before we start, here are a few recent articles you might have missed:

Don’t Do What Your Customers Tell You To!

In the world of business and innovation, there’s a common misconception that listening to your customers means asking them what they want or analyzing the data you have on them. While these practices can lead to sustaining innovation at best, they can also paint you into a corner, stifling true creativity and breakthroughs.

The Role of a Business

The job of a business is not merely to produce what the customer wants. If it were that simple, every company would be a trailblazer. The reality is that customers have no obligation to know what they want or even need. It’s our responsibility as innovators to understand their underlying needs and desires, often before they do.

Understanding Jobs to Be Done

To create products and services that truly resonate, we need to delve deeper into the “jobs to be done” by our customers. This concept, popularized by Clayton Christensen, focuses on understanding the progress that a customer is trying to make in a particular circumstance. It’s about identifying the problems they face and the outcomes they seek.

Innovation Beyond Customer Feedback

Customers can provide valuable insights, but they can’t be expected to envision innovative solutions. That’s our job. Take Apple, for example. They didn’t create the iPhone by asking people what they wanted; people didn’t know they needed a smartphone until it existed. Apple identified the jobs people were trying to accomplish—communication, entertainment, productivity—and created a device that helped them do these jobs more effectively.

The Path to Real Innovation

Real innovation comes from understanding the context and the jobs to be done by your customers. It’s about empathizing with their struggles and aspirations, and then doing the hard work of creating solutions that exceed their expectations. This is where true value is created, and it’s what sets industry leaders apart.

Embrace the Challenge

So, stop doing what your customers tell you to do. Instead, start understanding their context and their jobs to be done. Then, roll up your sleeves and do the hard work you’re paid for—come up with better solutions that help them get their jobs done. This is how you create products and services that customers will rave about.

Learn More

If you’re eager to dive deeper into this approach and understand how to apply it to your business, I invite you to hop on a free call with me. Let’s discuss how you can shift from merely listening to your customers to truly understanding and innovating for them.


Stay tuned for more insights on leadership, agility, and innovation. Together, let’s redefine what it means to create value for our customers.

Thank you for reading The Agile Compass. I'm Matthias, an agile pioneer and Silicon Valley veteran. Work with me at matthiasorgler.com

Get more

€60.00 / year

Agile Games Collection

Agile and leadership games for coaches and trainers
Games work. Teams and participants learn concepts faster with games.... Read more

The Agile Compass is a newsletter for agile practitioners. You're receiving this email, because you subscribed on matthiasorgler.com. To unsubscribe or change your preferences, use the links below or just write me by replying to this email.

Kohlbrandstr. 20, Frankfurt, He 60385
Unsubscribe · Preferences · Manage Subscriptions

The Agile Compass

How to create high-performing teams, innovative products and lead thriving businesses? The Agile Compass shares hands-on knowledge from 20+ years of experience in industries worldwide. Matthias is a Silicon Valley veteran and has been awarded the Agile Thought Leader award in 2022. His unique approach focuses on the human side of creating thriving organizations.

Read more from The Agile Compass

The Agile Compass Matthias Orgler Hello Reader, most of us have heard this: "Our work doesn't fit a fixed sprint!". Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches get this objection regularly from engineering teams. This week's article is about how to reply. And if you want to learn how to slice requirements so they fit any sprint length, check out my new workshop: $99.00 How to Slice Requirements for Agile Teams After this workshop you can: Make any requirement fit even a 1 week sprint Apply 10 splitting...

The Agile Compass Matthias Orgler Hello Reader, this is a premium article only for paying subscribers. It goes into depth on the topic of intrinsic motivation: what it is, why it's important, and how to achieve it. Enjoy! Thanks for supporting my work by being a paying subscriber of The Agile Compass! 🙏 Fostering Intrinsic Motivation in Agile Teams: A Path to Authentic Engagement and Success In our agile profession, where adaptability and speed are often hailed as the keystones of success,...

The Agile Compass Matthias Orgler Hello Reader, social media is full of demands for longer work hours. Sergey Brin demanding 60 hour work weeks, other billionaires pushing for even more, and politicians across the globe chiming in demanding to work more. Do they have a point? Let's check several studies today – and see what really boost productivity.But before we dive in, here are a few recent Agile Compass articles you don't want to miss: Why Laughter Is a Better Indicator than Velocity...