Outcomes Over Output

1. Outcomes are changes in human behavior that drive business results

An outcome is a change in human behavior that drives business results.

Outcomes vs. outputs. Outcomes focus on the results of your work, not just the work itself. They are specific, measurable changes in customer, user, or employee behavior that lead to positive business impacts. For example, increasing the rate at which users complete a purchase, rather than simply adding new features to a checkout page.

Outcomes link to value. By defining outcomes, teams can more easily connect their work to real business value. This helps prioritize efforts and ensures resources are spent on initiatives that will actually move the needle. Some examples of outcomes include:

• Increasing the frequency of user logins
• Reducing the time it takes for customers to complete a task
• Boosting the number of referrals from existing users

2. Focus on outcomes instead of outputs for better value delivery

Features can be finished and delivered and "work perfectly" but still not deliver any value.

Avoid feature obsession. Many organizations fall into the trap of equating feature completion with success. However, simply shipping new features doesn't guarantee value creation. By focusing on outcomes, teams are forced to consider the actual impact of their work on user behavior and business results.

Enable agility. An outcome-focused approach allows teams to be more flexible in how they achieve goals. Instead of being locked into specific feature requirements, teams can experiment with different solutions to achieve the desired outcome. This promotes innovation and allows for faster course correction when initial ideas don't pan out.

• Benefits of outcome focus:
  • Clearer alignment with business goals
  • More room for innovation and experimentation
  • Easier prioritization of work
  • Better measurement of actual value delivered

3. Use customer journey maps to identify key outcomes

A customer journey is an idea from the world of service design. It's a simple idea: you make a diagram that reads from left to right and describes what people are doing (their "journey") when they interact with your product or service.

Visualize behavior. Customer journey maps provide a visual representation of how users interact with your product or service over time. This helps teams identify critical touchpoints and potential areas for improvement.

Identify outcomes. By mapping out the customer journey, teams can more easily spot key behaviors that drive business results. Look for actions that predict success or failure at each step of the journey. For example:

• Early in-person meetings between buyers and sellers in a marketplace
• Newsletter opens predicting future purchases
• Completion of onboarding steps leading to long-term retention

Use these insights to define specific, measurable outcomes to target in your work.

4. Create outcome-based roadmaps for more flexible planning

Instead of building plans around the outputs that you'll make, it often makes more sense to plan around themes of work, problems to solve, or outcomes to deliver.

Move beyond feature lists. Traditional roadmaps often consist of lists of features to be built over time. Outcome-based roadmaps instead focus on the problems to be solved and the behavioral changes to be achieved.

Enable experimentation. By defining outcomes rather than specific solutions, teams have the flexibility to experiment with different approaches to achieve the desired results. This allows for faster learning and adaptation.

Example structure for an outcome-based roadmap:

1. Define the high-level business impact (e.g., increase revenue)
2. Identify key outcomes that contribute to that impact (e.g., increase purchase completion rate)
3. List potential experiments or approaches to achieve each outcome
4. Set timeframes for working on each outcome, rather than delivery dates for specific features

5. Organize teams around outcomes rather than features or channels

We had been managing this huge queue of old work. We had all these old tickets. Hundreds of them. We got rid of all of them.

Rethink team structure. Instead of organizing teams around specific features, products, or channels, consider structuring them around key outcomes or customer behaviors. This promotes cross-functional collaboration and a more holistic approach to solving problems.

Clear the slate. When transitioning to an outcome-focused approach, it may be necessary to reassess and potentially clear out backlogs of old feature requests. This allows teams to start fresh with a clear focus on driving meaningful results.

HBR.org example:

• Reorganized from channel-specific teams to two outcome-focused teams:
  1. "Buy" team: focused on increasing purchases
  2. "Consume" team: focused on increasing content consumption
• Created a separate "Operations" team for run-of-business work
• This structure allowed for better alignment with overall business goals and more flexibility in how teams approached their work

6. Build trust and alignment by focusing on shared outcomes

It's so refreshing to see the focus on what you learned. A year ago, no one would have stood up there and said, 'here's what we did wrong.'

Foster openness. When teams focus on outcomes, it becomes easier to have honest conversations about what's working and what isn't. Encourage transparency about learnings and failures to build trust with stakeholders.

Align stakeholders. Use outcomes as a way to bring different parts of the organization together around shared goals. Instead of competing for resources based on individual feature requests, stakeholders can collaborate on achieving important business results.

Strategies for building alignment:

• Hold regular goal-setting meetings with executive leadership
• Engage stakeholders in defining and prioritizing outcomes
• Increase frequency of check-ins and informal touchpoints during projects
• Share retrospectives and lessons learned openly with stakeholders

7. Apply outcome thinking to organizational transformation efforts

Your colleagues are your customers.

Internal outcomes matter. The principles of outcome-based thinking can be applied to internal initiatives and organizational change efforts. Consider the behavior changes you want to see in your colleagues and teams.

Treat colleagues as customers. When working on internal initiatives, think of your colleagues as the customers of your work. What problems are you solving for them? What value are you providing?

Examples of internal outcomes:

• Increase the percentage of leaders who can articulate the company strategy consistently
• Boost the adoption rate of a new internal tool or process
• Reduce the time it takes for teams to make decisions

8. Use experiments and hypotheses to test and achieve outcomes

An MVP is simply an experiment. Teams make MVPs to test an idea. They're testing their hypothesis about how to best achieve the goal—the outcome—they've been given.

Embrace uncertainty. Recognize that you often can't predict exactly how to achieve a desired outcome. Instead, frame your work as a series of experiments designed to test hypotheses about what will drive the behavior change you're seeking.

Start small and iterate. Use the concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to quickly test ideas and gather data. This allows for faster learning and reduces the risk of investing heavily in solutions that may not work.

Structure your work as experiments:

1. Define the outcome you're targeting
2. Form a hypothesis about what might drive that outcome
3. Design a small experiment to test your hypothesis
4. Measure the results and learn
5. Iterate based on what you've learned

9. Measure progress through leading indicators of behavior change

Outcomes are the behaviors that drive the business results we're seeking.

Identify leading indicators. Look for early signs that your work is having the desired effect on behavior. These leading indicators can provide faster feedback than waiting for lagging business results.

Focus on behavior metrics. Instead of solely tracking business metrics like revenue or profit, measure specific user behaviors that you believe will lead to those results. This provides a clearer picture of whether your work is having the intended impact.

Examples of behavior-based metrics:

• Rate of early in-person meetings between buyers and sellers
• Frequency of user logins or engagement with key features
• Time spent using a product or completing specific tasks
• Number of user-generated content submissions or social shares

10. Shift stakeholder conversations from features to business problems

In the next meeting, I asked them to talk about what they were worried about. It was night and day. They started telling their stories about their business.

Change the dialogue. Instead of asking stakeholders what features they want, engage them in conversations about the business problems they're trying to solve and the outcomes they're seeking to achieve.

Encourage storytelling. Let stakeholders share their concerns and the challenges they're facing in their part of the business. This provides valuable context and helps identify the most important outcomes to focus on.

Strategies for better stakeholder engagement:

• Ask about business worries and challenges instead of feature requests
• Use a ticket template that focuses on problems and desired outcomes rather than solutions
• Hold prioritization meetings that discuss business impact rather than feature lists
• Provide regular updates on progress towards outcomes, not just feature completion

Last updated: August 20, 2024