Escaping the Build Trap

1. The Build Trap: Focusing on Outputs Over Outcomes

Companies end up in the build trap when they misunderstand value. Instead of associating value with the outcomes they want to create for their businesses and customers, they measure value by the number of things they produce.

Misaligned focus. The build trap occurs when organizations prioritize the quantity of features shipped over the actual value delivered to customers and the business. This misalignment leads to wasted resources, unmotivated teams, and products that fail to meet customer needs.

Consequences of the trap:

• Reduced market share
• Increased vulnerability to disruption
• Diminished customer satisfaction
• Inefficient use of resources
• Lack of innovation

To escape the build trap, companies must shift their focus from outputs (features shipped) to outcomes (value created). This requires a fundamental change in mindset, processes, and organizational structure.

2. Product Management: The Key to Becoming Product-Led

A great product manager must be able to interface with the business, technology, and design departments and to harness their collective knowledge.

Bridging disciplines. Product managers play a crucial role in connecting various aspects of the organization to create successful products. They must balance customer needs, business goals, and technical feasibility to drive product development.

Key responsibilities of product managers:

• Understanding and articulating customer problems
• Aligning product strategy with business objectives
• Collaborating with design and engineering teams
• Prioritizing features and initiatives
• Measuring and communicating product success

To become product-led, organizations must invest in developing strong product management capabilities and empower product managers to make strategic decisions.

3. Strategic Framework: Aligning Vision, Intent, and Initiatives

Strategy is a deployable decision-making framework, enabling action to achieve desired outcomes, constrained by current capabilities, coherently aligned to the existing context.

Hierarchical alignment. A good strategic framework connects the company's vision to concrete actions through multiple levels of strategy. This alignment ensures that all efforts contribute to the overall goals of the organization.

Levels of strategy:

1. Vision: Long-term aspirational goal
2. Strategic Intents: Medium-term focus areas
3. Product Initiatives: Specific problems to solve
4. Options: Potential solutions to explore

By creating and communicating this framework throughout the organization, companies can make better decisions and allocate resources more effectively.

4. The Product Kata: A Systematic Approach to Problem-Solving

The Product Kata is the process by which we uncover the right solutions to build. It's a systematic way that teaches product managers to approach building products from a problem-solving standpoint.

Iterative learning. The Product Kata provides a structured approach to product development that emphasizes continuous learning and improvement. By following this process, product teams can systematically tackle problems and validate solutions.

Steps of the Product Kata:

1. Understand the direction and current state
2. Define the next target condition
3. Identify obstacles
4. Run experiments to overcome obstacles
5. Reflect and adjust

This approach helps teams avoid jumping to solutions prematurely and ensures that products are built based on validated learnings.

5. Experimentation: Building to Learn, Not to Earn

Experimenting to learn is key. We are not creating stable, robust, and scalable products. Often, we don't know what the best solution would even be when we begin experimenting. That is the point in doing this work.

Validated learning. Experimentation is crucial for reducing uncertainty and validating assumptions before committing significant resources to building a product. By focusing on learning rather than immediate revenue, teams can make better-informed decisions and avoid costly mistakes.

Types of experiments:

• Concierge: Manually delivering the solution
• Wizard of Oz: Simulating automation behind the scenes
• Concept testing: Gauging interest in potential solutions
• Prototyping: Creating low-fidelity versions of products

Effective experimentation requires a culture that embraces learning and is comfortable with the possibility of failure.

6. Prioritization and Cost of Delay: Maximizing Value Delivery

Cost of Delay is a numeric value that describes the impact of time on the outcomes you hope to achieve. It combines urgency and value so that you can measure impact and prioritize what you should be doing first.

Economic impact. Understanding the Cost of Delay helps teams make better prioritization decisions by considering both the value of an initiative and the urgency of delivering it. This approach ensures that teams focus on high-impact work that delivers value quickly.

Factors to consider in prioritization:

• Business value
• Time criticality
• Risk reduction or opportunity enablement
• Effort required

By using Cost of Delay as a prioritization framework, teams can optimize their product development process and deliver more value to customers and the business.

7. Creating a Product-Led Organization: Culture, Communication, and Incentives

If you are a leader at a company, it's time to reevaluate how you are incentivizing people. You should be rewarding people for moving the business forward—achieving outcomes, learning about your users, and finding the right business opportunities.

Organizational alignment. Becoming a product-led organization requires more than just implementing new processes or hiring product managers. It demands a fundamental shift in culture, communication, and incentives throughout the company.

Key elements of a product-led organization:

• Outcome-focused communication
• Rewards and incentives aligned with learning and value creation
• A culture of psychological safety that encourages experimentation
• Cross-functional collaboration and transparency
• Continuous learning and adaptation

By aligning these elements, companies can create an environment where product thinking thrives and innovation flourishes, ultimately leading to better products and business outcomes.

Last updated: October 3, 2024