Before the Data: Why Every Digital Use Case Must Start with a Human Problem

When organizations talk about digital innovation, the first thing they usually reach for is data. It’s an understandable instinct: data feels concrete, measurable, and objective. Many companies believe that if they gather enough numbers, the right insights will follow—and the right products will naturally emerge.

In reality, this is where countless digital projects quietly fail.

Office colleagues collaborate on analyzing case studies to address human-centric problems.

As Agathe Daae-Qvale explains in her book Digitized Product Management, businesses often invest heavily in datasets, dashboards, and sophisticated analytics—only to discover too late that data alone does not create value. Without a clear, validated problem to solve, data becomes just another expensive asset with no clear path to impact.

“In my experience, any problem driving a use case will need to be a real human problem. If it is not, then it will be challenging to convey the value it will produce for the end-user, and the consequent buy-in from the business side will be absent.”— Digitized Product Management, Agathe Daae-Qvale

Data Alone Is Not the Starting Point

Data is essential—but it is only one piece of the puzzle. If teams fail to anchor data to a tangible human or business problem, they risk creating insights in search of a purpose.

A typical scenario: a data scientist will naturally ask, “What do we have? What can we measure?” Meanwhile, a CFO might ask, “How does this data tie back to revenue or cost?” These are valid questions—but without first verifying the real-world problem, the answers may lead nowhere useful.

The reality is that data must serve the problem, not the other way around.

A Practical Example of a Use Case: The Door Sensor

In Digitized Product Management, Agathe shares a clear example that illustrates this point.

A building management company wants to cut heating costs. The proposed solution? Install sensors on doors to detect when they’re left open, letting heat escape. On paper, this sounds promising: the sensors can generate data on door status, duration, and energy loss.

However, without verifying the underlying problem, the entire project risks missing the mark. Is heat loss through doors truly a major contributor to high energy costs? Or are there other inefficiencies, such as outdated insulation or poorly maintained HVAC systems?

If the company skips this early validation, it could end up investing in new sensors and dashboards—only to discover the real savings lie elsewhere.

The Modern Trap: Data Without Context

This issue isn’t limited to facility management. The same pitfall shows up in digital product teams every day.

Consider a SaaS company trying to improve customer retention. The product team dives deep into usage data and sees that many new users drop off after three days. They decide the answer is a more elaborate onboarding flow—more pop-ups, more tooltips, more tutorials.

It seems logical, but when the new flow goes live, churn barely changes. Why? Because the team jumped straight to the data instead of verifying the root problem.

Talking to customers might have revealed that the real issue wasn’t confusion—it was that users didn’t understand the product’s unique value fast enough. The solution wasn’t more onboarding prompts—it was refining the core messaging and demonstrating value within the first interaction.

When teams start with the real human problem, they avoid costly distractions that look impressive in analytics but deliver no meaningful benefit.

A Timeless Lesson

Digital innovation is often seen as a race for better tools, faster algorithms, and endless streams of new data. But the fundamental truth remains timeless: every successful product and every impactful use case starts by solving a real, tangible human problem.

Even Thomas Edison’s light bulb didn’t succeed simply because it was an engineering breakthrough. It succeeded because it met a clear need—extending work and leisure into hours that were once lost to darkness. As Agathe writes, the human factor behind the problem is often what decides whether an idea will survive long enough to scale.

Start Here: Then Keep Going

In Digitized Product Management, Agathe outlines her Nine Steps of Use Case Evaluation to help teams avoid the trap of data without direction. Step 1 is simple but crucial: clarify the real problem, confirm its impact, and ensure everyone understands its value.

Before launching your next digital project, ask:

• What real human or business problem are we solving?

• Who experiences this problem every day?

• Have we verified that it’s worth solving—for our users and for the business?

If you can’t answer these questions clearly, it’s not time to build yet.

Learn the Full Framework

Problem is only the first step. The complete nine-step process shows how to move from early ideas to measurable results—without wasting time, budget, or team trust.

Explore the full framework inside Digitized Product Management and discover how to build digital products that solve the right problems, for the right people, at the right time.

Digitized Product Management: A Guide to Reinventing Your Business Through Digitalization: Daae-Qvale, Agathe: 9798398991529: Amazon.com: Books