Have you heard? My new book Continuous Discovery Habits is now available. Get the product trio's guide to a structured and sustainable approach to continuous discovery. This post is part of a series about making better product decisions.
Recently during lunch, our Director of Sales mentioned that one of our customer’s was at risk because we didn’t support a specific feature. He asked if we were going to build it. He argued, if it allows us to keep 3-4 customers, why wouldn’t we.
I get this all the time. I bet you do too. it makes perfect sense on the surface. You’ve got customers requesting features. Why wouldn’t you build them?
In this particular case, the feature was straight forward, it was inline with what we offer, and it fit within our product vision. Shouldn’t it be a no brainer?
Hold on. It’s not that simple.
Our Director of Sales is asking a “whether or not” question, whether or not we should build a particular feature. Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the book Decisive, call out “whether or not” questions as particularly problematic when it comes to good decision making. They argue “whether or not” decisions frame the problem too narrowly.
We shouldn’t be asking whether or not we should build a particular feature. Instead, we should be asking, what can we build that provides the most value for most of our customers. We need to broaden our view of the problem. This allows us to consider all the possibilities.
Consider Opportunity Cost
“Whether or not” decisions come up every day as we build products. The danger is that they keep us from considering the opportunity cost of building one feature over another.
Opportunity cost comes from the field of economics and represents what we give up when we made a decision. For example, when we choose to spend time watching TV, the opportunity cost is all the other things we could have been doing with that time—hanging out with friends, reading a book, cleaning our house, and so on. Or if we buy a new pair of shoes, the opportunity cost is all the other things we could have spent that money on.
It’s far too easy as we go about our busy days to consider each “whether or not” decision as they arise. Should we integrate Facebook Connect? Should we redesign our product emails? Should we build a mobile app? Each of these questions are really a “whether or not” decision in disguise. Answering yes to any of them, means you are answering no to all the things that you could be doing with the needed time and resources.
These questions don’t just arise when we are considering features. We also fall into the trap of asking “whether or not” questions when we decide what market segments to go after, what initiatives to put on our roadmaps, what bugs to address.
Keep an eye out for this narrow frame and work to reframe your view of the problem you are tackling. Stop asking “whether or not” questions, and instead ask, what could we do to accomplish our goal questions. When we ask, what else should we consider, we consider multiple options. Multiple options lead to compare and contrast decisions.
For more on “compare and contrast” decisions see: How Compare and Contrast Decisions Lead to Better Outcomes
This post is part of a series about making better product decisions.
Really good post, and I am sure it comes up often.
The “whether or not” questions will come at you rapid fire, and as a product manager you need to not snark back (which can be really hard), but to quickly shift the discussions around to the what will provide the most value.
This is most difficult with sales as you lead off. They see the world as a series of transactions, and they view you as the person who is in the way of closing the order(s) in the pipeline. I always have two or three high profile, must have, features that are in the plan in mind, and I come back with a “I can do that, but you delay feature X by 9 months to get that…” Senior sales execs will immediately back off. It is all about opportunity cost.
(oh, in my experience, every time that I have caved in and just done the “whether or not” request, it hasn’t translated into even one closed order. It always turns out that it wasn’t as crucial as sales was lead to believe)
Geoff, great comment! I do think this is a natural tension between sales and product. A sales rep is focused on doing everything they can to win a deal. This should include lobbying for product to add requested features. But as you mention, the missing feature is rarely the reason why the deal is won or lost and it’s our job to keep that in perspective.
The real hazard is that the Director of sales usually has a better pipeline to the GM or VP of your business unit, and they are not shy about applying leverage to over-rule you. Fortunately, I have enough pull to fight back, but a junior PM or a PM in an organization that doesn’t have a strong leader, and you will find yourself doing lots of these “can’t you just …” features.
I have scars from the battles I have fought.
Yup, I’m giving a talk on this very topic in a couple of weeks – How to Help an Organization Move from Being Sales Driven to Product Driven.
http://www.meetup.com/StartupProductTalks/events/123471302/
Totally agree with sales not coming through after pushing for features. It happens in every organization.
In my experience, it helps to do a couple of things:
1. Connect with the customer directly. A lot of times requirements will get lost in translation when going through sales. In some cases, there may be an alternative / workaround that you can suggest to a client instead of developing features.
2. When sales argues that multiple customers request it – ask for details. Opportunity size, names of customers, etc. verify info. If the opportunity checks out, take a look other your roadmap and decide if opportunity cost is justified.
3. If you decide to implement feature based on sales pressure, make sure the senior / executive team is aware of change and opportunity costs. This will put more pressure on sales to come through on promises.
JK
Hi Jan,
Thank you so much for reading and taking the time to write such a great comment. I agree with all three of your points and have found each to be tremendously useful.
Cheers,
Teresa
I’m a Junior PM (around 7 months) and I already received a lot of “whether or not” features (now I have a name for these kind of requirements, thanks Teresa). I’m lucky though, because my boss is a strong leader and she’ve been in these fights for a long time, so she supports me when a person comes along with a request like this. But I must admit that it’s not easy for a junior to handle this with VPs or Directors within organisations.