Last week we were in the zone… the “Product development” zone. For a whole week EPAM's focus and energy were mainly on sessions and workshops about products, business and success. Brilliant minds from all around the globe shared their fascinating experience and knowledge, teaching those - hungry and eager to develop great products and conquer the world. My humble contribution was a workshop, dedicated to Product owners, and everybody interested in improving their mindsets and knowledge about great products’ development, marketing and business success.
The participants had to design their own product from scratch, elaborating vision, roadmap, backlog and strategy, and then present it to ask for feedback and decide on changes or even a complete pivot. As usual, I will be sharing some of the content we covered below.
Starting with a research presented by Bull Gross on the ‘Top factors for company (and product) success.’ It covers the inconvenient truth – no money, idea, or business model could guarantee product’s success, nothing can save you if the timing is not right and the execution is bad.
Moving to Peter Teal’s ideas and beliefs “All happy companies are different – each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem.” At the same time “All failed companies are the same – all of them failed to escape competition.”
Discussing and elaborating on Michael Porter's generic strategies (on business and product development).
- Cost Leadership – targeting broad market by offering the lowest possible price.
- Differentiation – targeting broad market and providing unique product and service. Success comes as your clients would be happy to pay premium to use your products.
- Cost Focus – targeting a niche market and offering the lowest possible price.
- Differentiation Focus – producing unique features for a niche market. Strong brand loyalty among customers should be top priority.
On the topic of the ‘effective feedback’ it is important to never be satisfied with a surface-level feedback. Dig deeper, observe hidden feedback and ask precise questions to uncover the truth. Observe your product’s users very carefully. Are they excited, when playing with your product? How do they use the features? What do they spend money on?
Learn to ask laser-sharp questions
- What exactly did you like about the product, and why?
- Which feature are you going to start using immediately?
- What is your main issue / pain-point?
- What about it made you feel ‘wow’?
The ‘Agile planning onion’ could be a trap for the inexperienced Product owner. If you notice most of your day, energy and effort go towards solving mundane issues, problems and dramas – you might be losing the big picture in mind. And the vision should be your top priority and you are the person to be reminding and driving everybody, every day, every hour and minute towards achieving it.
The people in the group were fantastic - active, full of energy and willing to learn, get better and kick ass with their products. We all had a lot of fun - designing, scoping and executing on products... to master the game of product development.
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