--- name: voc-collection-plan description: "Which methods, owned by whom, how often, keep the VOC evidence log fed — a real plan tying interviews, gemba sessions, and other collection activities to the specific questions you want VOC evidence to answer. Use when: You want VOC collection to be a standing practice, not a one-time push before a single interview guide gets used once and forgotten. You have real questions you want evidence to eventually answer and want to know exactly what's keeping the evidence log fed for each one. You want to know honestly which of your goals have no real collection activity behind them yet. Not for: You just want to run one interview — that's the interview guide directly, no standing plan needed. You don't have any real goals yet, just a general sense you should 'do more VOC' — sharpen the goals first, or the plan will be as vague as the goals. The plan would just restate 'talk to customers more' as every activity — that's not concrete enough to actually keep evidence flowing; push for a real method and cadence." --- # Voice of the customer (VOC) collection plan Which methods, owned by whom, how often, keep the VOC evidence log fed — a real plan tying interviews, gemba sessions, and other collection activities to the specific questions you want VOC evidence to answer. Family: Voice of the customer · Format: .xlsx · Domain: core ## What it is Every other VOC artifact in this catalogue works from evidence that already exists — the collection plan is what makes sure that evidence keeps showing up. State what you want VOC evidence to eventually answer, and a real plan gets drafted: which method (interviews, gemba sessions, ticket tagging, surveys), who owns it, how often it happens, and exactly how its output reaches the evidence log. Any goal with no real activity behind it yet is named directly, not silently left uncovered. ## When to use it Use it when: - You want VOC collection to be a standing practice, not a one-time push before a single interview guide gets used once and forgotten. - You have real questions you want evidence to eventually answer and want to know exactly what's keeping the evidence log fed for each one. - You want to know honestly which of your goals have no real collection activity behind them yet. Not when: - You just want to run one interview — that's the interview guide directly, no standing plan needed. - You don't have any real goals yet, just a general sense you should 'do more VOC' — sharpen the goals first, or the plan will be as vague as the goals. - The plan would just restate 'talk to customers more' as every activity — that's not concrete enough to actually keep evidence flowing; push for a real method and cadence. ## How to fill it in - **scope** — What population or customer journey does this collection plan cover? - **goals** — What do you want VOC evidence to eventually answer? A real collection activity gets drafted for each one where a concrete method genuinely fits. - **activities** — Drafted from your goals — method, owner, cadence, and exactly how the output reaches the evidence log. Reassign an activity's linked goal or edit any field directly. - **coverage** — Computed for you: total goals and activities, and which goals still have no real collection activity — nothing to enter here. - **narrative** — Drafted from the plan and any coverage gaps — which goals are well-covered, which still need a real activity. ## What good looks like The example below plans standing collection for four goals using the exact instruments built elsewhere in this catalogue — customer interviews, support ticket tagging, and a gemba protocol — and honestly leaves the fourth goal (why enterprise deals stall) with no activity yet, naming the win-loss interview guide as the natural next step rather than forcing a weak activity onto it. Full worked example, on-screen and as a downloadable .xlsx: https://www.katafacts.com/katas/voc-collection-plan ## Common mistakes - **Writing an activity that's really just 'gather more feedback' restated.** — A real method with a real cadence and a real evidence-flow step is what actually keeps the evidence log fed — a vague activity produces nothing to log. - **Treating a coverage gap (a goal with no activity) as good enough to ship.** — A goal with no real collection activity behind it is still just a question, not a plan to answer it — the whole point of this tool is surfacing that gap honestly. - **Building the plan once and never revisiting it as goals change.** — A collection plan is a standing practice, not a one-time document — re-run it as new goals emerge or old ones get answered, the same way any other artifact in this catalogue gets re-run when the underlying situation changes. ## What it connects to Downstream: - **Customer interview guide** (`customer-interview-guide`) — An activity that names 'customer interviews' as its method is exactly what the interview guide exists to support — build the actual guide once the plan names the need for it. - **Voice of the customer (VOC) evidence log** (`voc-evidence-log`) — Every activity's 'evidence flow' field describes exactly how its output should land in the evidence log — the plan and the log are meant to work together continuously, not as separate one-off exercises. ## Where AI helps Judgement — stays with you: - Deciding whether a drafted activity's cadence is realistic given real team capacity - Deciding which coverage gap to close first Analysis — AI helps: - Drafting a real method, cadence, and evidence-flow step from a stated goal - Drafting the narrative from the plan and any coverage gaps Drudgery — automated: - Counting goals and activities - Identifying which goals still have no collection activity - Exporting to xlsx in the house format --- Voice of the customer (VOC) collection plan is licensed [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Attribution: Katafacts (katafacts.com). ## Using this skill Apply this method as part of whatever broader task, instructions, or deliverable you're already working on -- it's a method to use, not a standalone conversation to start. There is no generation tool for this catalogue yet, so draft the artifact's actual content yourself, following the fields above, the same way a person filling this out by hand would. The canonical guide page and a downloadable worked example (.xlsx) are at https://www.katafacts.com/katas/voc-collection-plan.