In short: "Intent devices" can be a good alternative to Letters of Intent to test real commitment from stakeholders and partners. For example, ask a key partner to give you their logo to add on your landing page, or ask a key stakeholder to share a quote that you can add in a presentation to the management board.

Sometimes you need to test partnerships and commitments to see if people really want to use a service or be part of it. The traditional approach is a letter of intent, which is formal and not a binding contract.

Asking for the logo

With a learner of the Master Service Design of the HSLU, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, we explored the idea of the "intent device." He created a landing page showing the project and how it would be advertised. He then went to potential partners and asked: are you interested to participate?

People would say yes. But here's where it gets interesting. To test if the commitment was real - not just a "yes, yes, let's do that" that doesn't lead anywhere - we asked: "Good, so can I add your name to the list of partners?"

That's already quite a good intent device. We went even further and said, what if we asked the institution if they're willing to add their logo and send it to us? That's a smart way to move from formal intent letters to intent devices - things that help you clarify the intention people have for collaboration.

Asking for a statement for a presentation

In another mentoring session with learners we explored another alternative to the letter of intent. Asking a key stakeholder if they can put a quote from them in a presentation that will be shared with a bigger stakeholder group. If the quote is about the person saying something like:

“I fully support this idea and I’m confident that my team will be able to do the work if given a 6 month notice.”

Then it really tests out if the person really wants to commit. Because now what she said to you behind closed doors will be shared with a wider group and their reputation is at stake.

Going further

The letter of intent test is something that I discovered in the book "Testing Business Ideas: How to Get Fast Customer Feedback, Iterate Faster and Scale Sooner" by David Bland and Alexander Osterwalder. In the book there is a library of 44 tests or prototypes for service ideas.

Written with AI help: This article is based on an audio note I took that was transcribed and cleaned using Notion AI. I then reviewed and improved the text by hand.