The interview guide

A good interview should seem more like a natural conversation between two organizations and less like an interrogation. However, it is critical that you approach the discussion with a clear plan of the topics you are going to address and the feedback you wish to gather. A good interview guide provides the foundation for this process.

While it may seem counterintuitive, the absolute worst way to derive a customer's wants and needs during an interview is to simply ask them "What are your wants and needs?" or "What are your requirements?". When you do this, the customer will switch to solution mode and will start offering you suggestions for incremental changes to the current product based on things that are likely already available in the market.

If, for instance, you asked customers about their requirements for an automobile, they would talk about mileage, horse power, cup holders, integrated Bluetooth, Sirius, and other features, which would be great if you were just looking...