LFM student donut-and-shop-floor consulting method

Voice of the customer applied at MIT's Leaders for Manufacturing program. Tom references prior telling ("the story I told you about Matt").

I met a guy from Detroit, and he said there was one Japanese person — not a salesperson, but from one of the Japanese automotive companies. The first question in the conversation, after the pleasantries, was, "What kind of car do you drive? What do you like about it?" This was his way of trying to find out what the customer wants, rather than "Will you buy my product?" That's not all that different from the story I told you about telling the LFM student to buy donuts and go out and ask the people on the factory floor what they need help with. Some of the things were way beyond her capability of solving, but some were not. If you just start chipping away at the little things, you'll find that other people will help with the bigger things.