I mentioned use-cases in a recent post on technology and innovations in medicine. It’s an important topic because use-cases are the most practical tools in our toolboxes for helping clients exploit technological innovations. I have designed hundreds of them over my career and continue to develop and use them in training, process reengineering, business model development, and even competitive strategy analysis. When properly crafted, use cases serve as antidotes to the confusing abstract language common to technologists, engineers, and consultants.
What are use cases and what makes them so useful? Use cases broadly describe how people perform tasks and pursue outcomes using tools and systems. They range from simple ones that capture common activities like how visitors navigate and use a website to search, select, and purchase products, to more complex ones that choreograph how managers and executives can leverage innovative technologies for competitive advantage.
This is where experts can render use cases less useful by employing unfamiliar technical and analytical jargon. Our teams employ use cases to simplify and make it easier for our client's staff to innovate their use of new technologies. We similarly craft them to help managers and executives exploit the same technologies to pursue higher administrative objectives and strategic opportunities. These include reducing risks, improving quality, increasing productivity, reducing costs, increasing capacity, and growing margins.
Finally, use cases can help teams recognize opportunities to deliver new and more compelling value to their customers and stakeholders. To this end, we frequently help our clients develop and fine-tune their own use cases. The process improves buy-in across organizations and helps them grow the value of new innovations after the end of our engagement. I will illustrate use cases for innovative medical technologies in upcoming posts through Biobeat’s innovative BP24 Blood Pressure Profiling Kit.