Our stakeholder demos feel like status reports
Pick a cadence, hold the agenda shape, and track reactions across sessions instead of steering off the loudest one.
A status report tells people what you have been doing. A demo puts the real thing in front of them and waits to see how they react, and that reaction is data you cannot get any other way. It is also the discovery practice teams skip most often.
Two audiences need different things from it. Customers finish the job the interviews started, because watching someone use the thing, or fail to, tells you whether to keep building or change course. The people who fund the work stay bought in only if they can see it, and showing them the real state does something a slide deck never will.
A demo is a practice rather than an event, so it needs a rhythm. Too little contact and the people funding you start to worry, and worried funders micromanage, reorganize, or cut the budget. Too much and you train them to expect a show every week.
What you get
- A cadence selector framed by both failure modes
- A five-item agenda skeleton, including the one item that separates a demo from theater
- A reaction log for finding the trend rather than reacting to the loudest voice
- Two things to decide before the first session
Where should we send it?
One email with the worksheet. You can unsubscribe from anything else in one click.
On its way
Check your inbox. If it has not landed in a minute or two, look in promotions or spam, and add sam@startuppatterns.com to your contacts so the rest arrive.
Adapted from the Discovery chapter of The Mindful Product Company by Sam McAfee.