- Product Ops
18.March.2025
Introduction
In 2023, the Defence BattleLab faced some challenges in engagement, service clarity, customer experience, and utilisation. MilUX was commissioned to conduct a Discovery to identify problems and potential solutions. The primary research goal was to determine the barriers to engagement and suggest improvements to enhance BattleLab’s effectiveness in fostering defence innovation. The team utilised the Fit for Purpose (F4P) framework within the Discovery to assess how well BattleLab’s services met customer needs. This article introduces the framework and our approach to incorporating it into a Discovery.
About the Fit-For-Purpose (F4P) framework
The Fit for Purpose (F4P) framework helps businesses effectively align their services with customer expectations. By understanding the specific purposes that drive customers to choose a product or service, businesses can focus their efforts and resources on meeting these targeted needs, enhancing customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. The framework also emphasises the importance of actionable metrics, steering companies away from vanity metrics that offer little value and instead guiding them to develop meaningful indicators that reflect actual performance and areas for improvement. This approach facilitates confident decision-making, enabling organisations to adapt their strategies based on concrete data and genuine customer feedback. Integrating the F4P with the wider Kanban Method and Kanban Maturity Model promotes evolutionary change, allowing businesses to implement low-risk incremental improvements, ultimately leading to a more resilient and customer-centred operation.
Applying F4P to Discovery
The BattleLab, established in 2021, aimed to bridge the gap between MOD, Industry, and Academia by providing a collaborative space for innovation. The Discovery team used several qualitative and quantitative methods to gather and assess the BattleLab’s performance, identifying 14 problems related directly to customer experience. From the outset, the F4P framework provided a structured approach to measure how well the BattleLab’s services aligned with customer needs and expectations. By assessing customer purpose, selection criteria, and satisfaction thresholds, the framework enabled a comprehensive evaluation of BattleLab’s effectiveness and areas for improvement. By using the framework, the team were able to:
- Identify Customer Segments and Purpose. Customers were categorised into MOD personnel, Industry, Academia and Partners. Each category’s purpose for engaging with BattleLab was examined, highlighting differing expectations and selection criteria.
- Measuring Fitness Criteria. The team conducted a survey built around three focus areas using the Fit for Purpose (F4P) scorecard. This helped validate and gain a greater understanding of the customer’s purpose. In addition to giving a score, the respondents were asked to provide a reason for sharing their responses. This helped to assess key service aspects such as lead time (ease of booking access), functional quality (availability of facilities), and non-functional quality (customer experience, marketing effectiveness).
- Assessing Predictability and Reliability. The team also gained insights into the variability of the BattleLab’s service delivery, which was used to create opportunities for improvement in all aspects of the Service Design, Implementation and Delivery by focusing on inconsistencies in booking procedures, access to end-customers, and availability of resources. By understanding the customes’ tolerance for variations in service quality, it was possible to offer threshold levels for acceptable and exceptional performance.
- Separating the Enthusiasts, Early Adopters and Early Majority. The F4P framework also helped the team understand the fitness criteria required depending on whether the customer was an Enthusiast, Early Adopter, or Early Majority. This is important as enthusiasts and early adopters initially tolerate inconsistencies in exchange for influence and involvement. As the BattleLab looked to attract the early majority phase, the customer segments all demanded higher functional and non-functional quality, reliable service, and tangible benefits. What we were able to do during our research was help identify the improvements that would best meet the fitness criteria for the early majority.
By leveraging the F4P framework, MilUX was able to provide the BattleLab with a structured understanding of its performance, enabling targeted improvements to enhance service delivery and engagement. Whilst we cannot publicly share the findings of the Discovery, applying the F4P framework within this Discovery helped identify 14 discrete problems and propose 19 actionable recommendations to improve customer experience. If you have been visiting the BattleLab over the last two years, you’ll have seen how the customer experience has improved.
How MilUX can help you
If your business struggles to align its products or services with customer expectations or if you want to move beyond vanity metrics to genuinely actionable insights, MilUX can help. By applying the Fit for Purpose framework, we’ll work with you to identify the right fitness criteria, define measurable thresholds, and refine your offerings to meet customer and user needs. Whether you want to improve decision-making, optimise service delivery, or create a more resilient and customer-centred operation, our expertise can guide you towards success. Get in touch today to explore how we can help you design, implement, and continuously improve products and services that are genuinely fit for purpose.
The following links provide more information on the Fit for Purpose framework:
- Fit for Purpose Framework – F4P+ on Kanban+ (paid subscription)
- Fit For Purpose by David Anderson and Alexei Zheglov (Book)
- The Need for Fit for Purpose – Article on David J Anderson School of Management
Header image and Figures 1 & 2 from F4P posters on F4P+
