The amount of data we collect on competitors can be overwhelming. Even if you are extremely organized, it can be hard to keep the facts of Company A separate from those of Company B.
This is doubly true for your stakeholders and team. They are a step further away from the insights that you’ve gathered. While it is easy for you to get lost in the data, it’s just as easy for our peers to bounce off of the data and fail to really connect with the work you’ve been doing.
That’s why it remains important to perform analysis on your work at strategic intervals that allow you enough time to perform discovery-based tasks while being responsible for reporting what you are learning along the way.
Resources for review
Please use the following items to guide your exercise attempt:
| Article | Source/Author |
|---|---|
| Finding the story in the data | New Pragmatic |
| How not to present your findings | Danae Paparis |
Exercise
Length: Two-to-four hours to complete.
Competitive analysis is focused on the distillation of information gathered through your competitor research and testing. The goal here is straighforward — take your collection of data and mold it into a consumable form that could be presented to your team or stakeholders.
The major components that should be present include:
- Competitor overview
- SWOT Analysis on your company
- An outline of the Known Unknowns that documents areas where you would do further research if time permitted.
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Once complete, update your Program Journal with links to any assets produced in this exercise. Post your Journal in the #Feedback-Loop channel for review.
Up next Fresh Market: User Interviews