The Problem
Many product groups operate largely as feature factories, with the team working hard to output every feature imaginable according to an exhaustive roadmap. At worst, innovative new features represent solutions still in search of a problem. They offer little real value to customers. At best, those features that do respond directly to customer requests or to competitor innovations tend to be undifferentiated from competition for those very reasons- they are all expected, and everyone is doing them. Ultimately, the outcome of the outPUT focus of the feature factory is underwhelming customer interest and satisfaction, and suboptimal business results.
The Value Proposition
To change this pattern, product teams must shift to an outCOME focus that aligns product initiatives around a deeper understanding of the practical outcomes that customers seek, and around the company’s own business objectives.
Drill Down
But establishing an outcome focus requires the team to do more than just collect customer feedback and requests. The customer doesn’t fundamentally want a blue button on the left of the screen, nor a longer lasting battery, nor those additional database fields in the application they are asking for. They want the outcome that they believe those things might deliver. Those desired outcomes are often not expressed but they are implied- if you just probe enough to understand them: Why are they asking for these things? What outcomes do they hope to achieve? A product team with an outcome focus drills deep enough to unearth those latent needs and, in turn, opens the door for differentiated innovation.
Let’s expand on Theodore Levitt’s classic drill/hole analogy to illustrate. Imagine a dedicated product manager for a tool manufacturer who scrupulously collects VOC from the customer base concerning what they think would make for a better drill. He/she hears things like: lighter weight; more ergonomic; smaller; more torque; more durable; etc. That dutiful product manager then outlines these customer desires to the engineering team who, in turn, energetically starts working on those features. The feature factory is in motion.
But, if that product manager had instead drilled-down from these output-oriented suggestions by asking the outcome-oriented question: “What are you trying to do with the drill?”, the answer would likely be something like: “Make holes more easily.” That outcome-oriented insight yields a rather different discussion with the engineering team. Instead of problem solving around torque and battery life they brainstorm around: “How to make holes more easily”. To address that customer outcome the team might envision, for example, an existing laser boring technology that could be acquired and adapted for consumer use. Such would not only let customers more easily make perfectly dimensioned holes of any size without drill bits, it would also avoid the drill dust that then must be cleaned up. Customer-desired outcomes achieved in a highly differentiated way.
Innovation Runs Deep
Opportunities for innovative, differentiated solutions almost always emerge from such deeper understanding of needs, and the deeper you go the more opportunities appear. That insightful product manager could drill even deeper by asking customers: “What outcome do you want these easily made holes to achieve for you?” To that question some subset of customers might answer: “Pictures hanging on the wall.” With that insight the astute product manager has identified a sub-segment of the drill market that doesn’t actually want a drill per se nor even holes. They just want to mount pictures around the house.
If the company wants to better exploit this segment, the insight poses a very different outcome for the engineering team to consider: “How can we help customers hang pictures easily?” Here the innovative team might envision using a non-marring adhesive to which a picture hook could be attached so that the customer can hang a picture without even making a hole. (As a matter of fact, 3M and others will now gladly sell you such a solution.)
Open for New Business
When the product team makes the switch from an outPUT orientation focused on feature expansion and portfolio gap filling to an outCOME orientation, meaningful opportunities emerge around the essential matters that drive customers to look for solutions in the first place. It all starts by drilling down to the “why” of things rather than just taking orders. Product teams should use tools like the Jobs-to-be-Done model and Opportunity Solution Trees to dissect customer needs in this way. They should also replace the typical output-oriented roadmap that lists features and delivery dates with outcome-oriented roadmaps that plot target customer outcomes as aligned to strategic business objectives.
When you close the feature factory you open possibilities to create truly differentiated, customer-satisfying solutions.