Keep your customers at arms length. Many products fail because they were designed in silos or glass houses separated from the end customer. Assumptions are made and user scenarios are designed around how the technologically savvy or experienced product manager wants to solve problems. If you wait until you release your product to your customers then you have done the product development equivalent of playing roulette and going “all in” on green. Not a great chance of success.
Assume that you will duplicate your last success. If you managed to pull off a miracle and get your product released on time, against all odds, then you should consider that a product launch failure. The simple reason is that if you cannot explain why your product was successful then you are unlikely to be able to do it again. For this reason, you can learn more from your failures than your successes. People tend to pat themselves on the back after they pull off a close one, rather than focusing on how easily the outcome could have gone the other way. As a result, the next release tends to go south because superficial improvements are made and the other problems are not addressed.
Believing if you build an amazing product then it will be successful in the marketplace. Research has shown that timing is at least as important as the idea, team or execution of a company trying to bring a product to market. The same idea applies to your product - you do not control all the variables but your plan should be to run your product team as effectively as possible, learning and improving all the time, so that you can last long enough in the marketplace to hit it big.
Design big elaborate systems that solve many problems at once. The more complex the problem you are solving becomes, the more you need to break the problem into management chunks. Complexity and risks grow exponentially as the problem set increases on a linear scale.
Decide that your customer is only external people paying for your product. You may have several stakeholders and “customers” for your product even if they are not directly paying for it. For example, the marketing department likely has research and trends that should inform, not necessarily determine, your product’s feature set. If they do not understand your product they cannot help find a market for it. Likewise, if your product is too complex then the sales team will probably not sell your product or they may sell something that is easier to understand. external solutions.
Assume that internal teams will use your product because you built it. For internal only products, this becomes especially important because your product is essentially competing with licensed software and services. These licensed products may be more compelling if only because they are more fully featured and available right now. Like water finding the shortest path to the ocean, you will find that people want to find the easiest way to accomplish their goals, not counting for internal mandates (“you will use internal products only”).
Corollary: Assume that internal mandates will ensure adoption and usage of your product. Even if your company has mandated products or processes, if these products are inefficient and require extra work or unacceptable levels of risk, you will find that people will cheat or quit. Time is the most valuable resource on the planet and if people find a way to recapture it or find a higher value for their time, they will seek it out. When frustration levels get high enough with mandates and inefficiency you will start seeing people emotionally check out and seek outside opportunities.
Assume that no questions during a product demo means that everyone understands and values what was created. Silence or polite clapping does not guarantee that people understand, appreciate, or want to use your product. Depending upon cultural differences, people may not want to insult you or your work. The worst case scenario is when you have no feedback because people have given up on your product as a “lost cause” and it’s not worth it to them to even provide feedback. You must actively seek out honest feedback from your stakeholders.
Don’t familiarize yourself with your competitor and their products. Whether you are number 1 or number 10 in the marketplace, you have something to learn from how other teams have solved similar problems or selected markets. Upon closer inspection you may find out that they solved a problem you have been struggling to address or they may see an industry trend you are missing. Conferences and networking events in your industry can be excellent sources of inspiration, knowledge and contacts for future hiring.
Stop asking WHY. You should set aside time to stay on top of new technology trends and use cases for your target customers. This can happen through talks, internet research, journals, or just asking questions. When product managers or owners start to “rest and vest” on their laurels, their products inevitably take a downturn and it affects their customers. Continuously seek out the implicit assumptions in your product offering and feature set to find points of failure before someone else does. No plan or product is perfect but we should always strive to reach that elusive state. If you reach 90% and everyone else is content with 80% then you will control the market.
Measuring the wrong things. Focusing solely on points per sprint, new features, or even hitting release dates can still lead to product failure. If you’re not delivering measurable results from your team that at least justify the expense of product development, you should take time to define what success looks like for your customer. Your customer won’t care if you did a bunch of work if it doesn’t ultimately make a difference for their business.
Wrapping product or business value propositions in jargon. If you cannot explain how your product adds value in measurable ways, then you need to re-examine your product. A simple test for this is to ask yourself what your product does, how it adds value to customers, and how success is measured over time. When you can address those three points, run them by your customer to get their feedback. They will probably appreciate that you took the time to consider what is important to them and in return will provide helpful product feedback.