July 27, 2021
What Is Product Thinking and Why Does It Matter? Identifying Your Desired Outcomes
By Ward Andrews
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Product thinking works when you know what you are trying to achieve. You need to define success before you build anything. That means setting clear goals, agreeing on how you will measure them, and only then choosing the features worth building.
This is one of a series of blog posts exploring what product thinking is, why it matters, and how to develop it in your organization.
What Is the Final Piece of Product Thinking?
Product thinking has three parts: understanding your customers' problems, identifying the jobs they need to do, and defining what success looks like for your product. This post is about that last part.
The output side of product thinking answers two questions:
- What do you want to achieve? (Your goals)
- What are you going to do to achieve it? (The features you intend to build)
Get these two things right and you have a clear path from strategy to execution.
How Do You Define Success for Your Product?
Set a simple, agreed-upon definition of success before the project starts.
Too many projects kick off with a vague vision and no real definition of what "done" looks like. How can you know if you've gotten where you're going if you never set a destination?
A clear success statement helps everyone in the organization maintain a product thinking mindset throughout the project. Agree on it up front, post it somewhere visible, and keep referring back to it.
What Does a Success Metric Actually Look Like?
Success looks different depending on the product and the organization. It could be:
- A specific business metric like increased revenue, decreased operating expenses, or another financial KPI
- A user or customer experience metric like reduced customer service calls, increased customer satisfaction, or an influx of new users
- A qualitative or anecdotal sense that you are moving in the right direction and making your customers' lives easier
Whatever your definition, set it as a team and remind everybody constantly of what you are driving towards.
Why Does Defining Success Help You Evaluate Features?
Thinking in terms of product success gives you a filter for every feature decision. Ask yourself:
- Is this contributing to the overall success of the product?
- What do we need to see from this feature to know it is working on its own?
These are not one-time questions. They belong at the beginning, middle, and end of every product development lifecycle.
How Do You Determine the Path to Success?
If there is one reason to bring a product thinking mindset to your projects, it is this: bridging the gap between strategy and execution.
A big vision is great. An overall sense of direction is great. But you also need to make it all happen.
Why Do So Many Product Teams Build the Wrong Things?
Many product teams, often without meaning to, start with great ideas for cool features and then go looking for an audience for those features.
That is like buying a bunch of awesome gadgets and gear and then looking for a mountain to climb. You might make it up eventually, but you will probably find that your backpack was much heavier than it needed to be and half the tools you brought were useless for the type of mountain you chose.
The right order is:
- Determine the purpose of the product
- Define what success looks like
- Choose the features that are actually worth building
Following that order will save you countless hours and budget building the wrong things for the wrong people.
Does Product Thinking Mean Ignoring Design?
Not at all. A product thinking mindset does not ignore the importance of well-designed features, interfaces, or visual design. It optimizes the effort to create all of those by targeting what has the best chance of succeeding within the context of the larger problem you are trying to solve.
Nobody gets it 100% right 100% of the time. But with a product thinking approach, balanced with design thinking and a solid overall vision and business strategy, you will increase your chances of building the right product at the right time with the right amount of effort.
Looking for a Guide?
Design thinking is in our DNA. It is what we do every day to help clients create smart, useful features and designs that add real value to their products. And we never lose sight of the bigger picture. We instill product thinking into every project we tackle and we know how to guide teams of all sizes through the process of creating products that solve real problems for real people.
If you are feeling a little lost in your product strategy, let's talk about how we can help get you back on track.
FAQ
What is product thinking? Product thinking is an approach to building products that starts with understanding customer problems and desired outcomes, rather than jumping straight to features. It bridges the gap between strategy and execution.
Why should I define success metrics before building features? Without a clear definition of success, you have no way to know if what you are building is actually working. Setting goals up front keeps the whole team aligned and gives you a filter for every feature decision you make.
What kinds of success metrics should a product team use? It depends on the product and the business. Common options include financial KPIs like revenue or cost reduction, user experience metrics like customer satisfaction or support call volume, or qualitative signals that the product is genuinely making customers' lives easier.
How does product thinking prevent teams from building the wrong features? By defining purpose and success before choosing features, product thinking forces you to justify every build decision against a real outcome. Features that do not contribute to that outcome do not make the cut.
How does product thinking relate to design thinking? They are complementary. Product thinking ensures you are solving the right problem and heading in the right direction. Design thinking ensures you are solving it well. Together with a clear business strategy, they significantly improve your chances of building something that actually works.
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