Two questions software product managers must always ask

1) “What is the problem we are trying to solve?”

Ask the internal stakeholders who are pitching new ideas to you, ask this of customers who are asking for new features and repeatedly ask yourself to make sure you are not deviating from it as you are getting caught up in the weeds.

2) Is this going to move the “needle”?

What is the measurable impact solving the problem has and by how much? Which “needle” is this going to move  – sales “needle”? customer satisfaction “needle”? customer support cost “needle”? marketing “needle”?, engineering “needle”? If it is not going to move anything significantly, then it is nothing but a “nice to have” and probably is not worth spending time on. Don’t forget about the opportunity costs when you are pursuing something that is nice to have.

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Image: Courtesy of Winston Motor sports

Futility of “feature wars”

If you as a software product manager is arming your sales force with detailed information on all of the features in your product(s), you are arming them with information to fail. If your sales team is engaging in a “feature war” with your competitors, you are bound to lose to the competitor who is smart enough to engage the customer in a discussion on their needs and how their product(s) solves these problems and how it would help the customer achieve their goals.

What exactly is a “Feature war?” – software vendors trying to outdo each other on who has more features than the other. You cannot win this war – any product is going to have a feature that another one does not and vice versa. Engaging in a “feature war” is death knell for two reasons:
1) You are losing focus on the fact that the customer is looking for a solution to their problems and not for a product with features. They want to know how your product (as a whole, not individual features) benefits them, solves their problem(s) and achieve their goals.
2) If you get caught up in the features (weeds), your driving force is going to be add more features and create a very complex product – a “Frankenstein”.

Mature products have feature bloat – they have more features than one would ever want to use. Take the example of MS Office. I would still be happy with MS Office 97 because I still use maybe 2% of the functionality that is there. I would bet there is a large majority of users are like me. But software vendors often have to keep adding features just to put out a new release to feed the subscription “engine” (often a large “revenue” stream and only “profit” generator) and and also to create momentum for their sales force. This is fine if the new release solves problems for new market segments or problems previously not solved for existing customers. But often times, it is not. It is change for the sake of change.

You should rather be spending time on solving the customer’s problem(s) better – understand it better, solve it better than anyone does today. Then make sure your sales force is armed with information on how your product(s) solves the customer problems better than your competitors. Make sure they start the discussion at a very high level, thoroughly understand the problems faced by the customer and then convince the customer on how your product(s) provide the best possible solution and if needed the features that make it work.

When you are training your sales force, make sure you are educating them on the customer benefits of using your product(s), what problems it solves and how the individual features contribute to solving the problems. Package it for your sales force so that it is easy for them to grasp than them getting caught up in the weeds.

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Image: Courtesy of filesanywhere.com (the use of this image does not indicate in any way that filesanywhere.com is engaged in feature wars or has feature bloat. The image is for illustration purpose only. In fact they have a very good website that clearly explains customer benefits of using their product using words that I as a customer would use. Please check them out.)