When I was engaged as a "Consulting Cognitive Engineer" by NCR, an important client, Walmart, which was just considering getting serious about its online store, challenged NCR to do a study of the existing version of Walmart.com and then WOW them with at least one actionable insight, with two VERY important caveats attached.
- Our insight had to be believable (we had to offer support that it was a "true" insight)
- Walmart had not thought of it already (they promised to be honest)
Given my expertise in doing the kinds of research that elicit hidden insights, such as ethnography and depth interviewing, I was brought onto the project and given the task to WOW Walmart management, who are not easily impressed with anything, as far as I could tell.
I set up a study that combined on-site (in peoples' homes and/or offices) usability testing with pretty much by-the-book Contextual Inquiry, as laid by Dr. Karen Holzblatt in her book of the same title. I had recently attended a post-Doctoral seminar with Dr. Holzblatt and knew the method well (pretty much what we call 'Ethnography Lite' these days).
To make a long story short, we met with a "cast of thousands" at Walmart, on their turf in Bentonville, AK, armed with 50 or so really serious problems with the existing Walmart.com. In my presentation, I was stopped at about the 20th actionable insight. Initially thinking that I had said something that offended someone (the cut-off was very sudden), what had actually happened was that I had already revealed 4 or 5 issues that had not even appeared as blips on Walmart's in-house research group's, product development's or management's "radar screens". The Director of Development declared that no consultant had ever come up with such useful information before and certainly not a Ph.D. type (a pretty close paraphrase of his comment). I took it as a compliment.
Result: NCR got all sorts of add-on work (things I am sure that I am not even aware of), riding the cloud of "cred" that I had helped to build. It did not hurt in developing my own internal credibility withing NCR either. One of the more satisfying moments of my professional life!
Take a look at Walmart.com as it exists today. Of course it has evolved substantially since my involvement.
