Product outcomes outline the particular worth a product creates—for customers, prospects, and the enterprise. When utilized accurately, they align stakeholders, create focus, and provides growth groups clear path. However getting them proper isn’t straightforward. Too usually, product groups select outcomes which can be imprecise, outsized, or worse, options dressed up as targets. The outcome? Confusion, misalignment, and roadmaps that look strategic however fail to drive significant affect. On this article, I’ll deal with these points and supply sensible recommendation that can assist you outline the appropriate outcomes that provide help to obtain product success.
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A Transient Introduction to Outcomes and Consequence-based Product Roadmaps
Historically, a product roadmap is a feature-based plan that assigns capabilities like registration, search, and reporting to a timeline.[1] Such a roadmap basically states when a bit of performance can be delivered. This may be reassuring for purchasers and stakeholders. However sadly, it has a number of drawbacks, together with the next two:
- A feature-based roadmap could make it exhausting to safe settlement, as stakeholders compete to get their options carried out. Within the worst case, this ends in a Frankenstein product—a group of unrelated options with a horrible worth proposition and a horrible person expertise.
- The options are generally thought to be a dedication quite than part of a high-level plan that’s more likely to change. This limits your capability to experiment and study, to find the easiest way to handle the person and buyer wants and create worth for the enterprise.
These drawbacks are prevented through the use of a unique strategy: an outcome-based, goal-oriented product roadmap. Because the identify suggests, this plan focuses on product outcomes, that are additionally known as product targets and aims. Examples are buying prospects, growing engagement, and lowering price. What’s extra, utilizing outcomes makes it simpler to align stakeholders and information growth groups, and it helps uncover the appropriate product performance and direct the product backlog.
Determine 1 reveals what an outcome-based roadmap could seem like utilizing my GO Product Roadmap template, which you’ll obtain at no cost along with a useful guidelines from my web site.
Out of the 5 parts in Determine 1, the objective is crucial one, because it describes the client/enterprise consequence you wish to obtain together with your product. Strictly talking, all different parts are non-obligatory. Whereas the GO Product Roadmap nonetheless makes use of chosen, coarse-grained options, these should help their outcomes. Objectives come first, options second.[2]
| What about OKRs?
OKRs, aims and key outcomes, are a goal-setting methodology initially developed at Intel within the Seventies. The target describes what you wish to obtain. The important thing outcomes state the particular standards that should be fulfilled to fulfill the target. For those who use OKRs on your product, you may merely view the target as the result. The recommendation I share within the the rest of this text will subsequently provide help to set the appropriate aims.[3] |
Determine the Proper Product Outcomes
Because the outcomes on a product roadmap play such an necessary function, it’s essential to decide on the appropriate ones. To attain this, I’ve discovered two strategies useful: deriving them immediately from the wants and enterprise targets within the product technique and figuring out them with the assistance of key efficiency indicators (KPIs). Let’s have a look at the 2 methods in additional element.
Derive the Outcomes from the Wants and Enterprise Objectives within the Product Technique
To make the dialogue extra concrete, let’s use an instance. Say that I wish to supply a brand new healthy-eating app. Its product technique states that the person want is to “scale back the danger of creating type-2 diabetes,” and the principle enterprise objective is to “create a brand new income supply.” Let’s additionally assume that the enterprise mannequin I’ve chosen is freemium, giving freely a free fundamental model and producing income by means of subscriptions.
With this info in place, I can ask myself what the primary, concrete step to fulfill the wants and the enterprise targets is. My reply may be, “assist customers perceive their consuming habits and purchase an preliminary person base.” What I’ve carried out right here is break down the 2 higher-level targets said within the technique right into a extra particular consequence.[4]
Making use of this methodology not solely helps decide the appropriate product targets. It additionally connects the product roadmap to the product technique—the previous is actually derived from the latter. To place it otherwise, the technique varieties the inspiration for figuring out the appropriate product outcomes. Determine 2 illustrates this strategy.
If I can see additional than the preliminary providing, or MVP, I might derive further outcomes. These would possibly embrace aiding customers in bettering their dietary habits and increasing the person base, in addition to supporting customers in reaching higher health and producing income by means of subscriptions. Collectively, these targets kind a significant narrative. They describe how the product is more likely to evolve within the coming months: Every consequence is a step in direction of realising the overarching wants and enterprise targets, thereby serving to implement the product technique.
Notice that this methodology assumes {that a} product technique and enterprise mannequin can be found which were validated: They don’t include any vital dangers and assumptions, and their statements are based mostly on empirical proof, quite than beliefs and opinions. For those who lack such a method, observe the recommendation I share within the articles Product Technique Discovery and Tips on how to Construct a Technique for an Current Product earlier than you proceed to find out outcomes on your product.
Use KPIs to Decide the Proper Product Objectives
Deriving product outcomes immediately from the product technique works effectively for a product that experiences innovation and alter, because it’s within the introduction or early progress stage, for instance. However the methodology just isn’t as efficient for merchandise which can be steady or mature, that bear incremental adjustments and smaller updates. Fortunately, there may be another: utilizing the product’s key efficiency indicators (KPIs) to determine the appropriate product targets, as proven in Determine 3.[5]
Say that engagement, like each day lively customers (DAU), is a key indicator for my healthy-eating app and that it has been declining for the previous three months. I’ll then wish to select a product objective that addresses the difficulty and improves the metric. This may be enhancing the person expertise by simplifying an necessary person journey, or offering efficiency and stability enhancements, relying on what causes the engagement to be low.
One other instance could be a rise in software program bugs and code complexity, which signifies that the product’s well being is degrading and that the software program is turning into tougher to increase and keep. On this case, I would select a product objective like “lower technical debt to cut back growth price” to handle the difficulty.
In each circumstances, the outcomes recognized should be aligned with the product technique—they have to assist meet its person/buyer wants and enterprise targets. This ensures that the product technique guides roadmapping selections and that the roadmap and its outcomes implement the technique.
Use True Outcomes, Not Options in Disguise
As product folks, we’re generally so centered on delivery options that we combine up outcomes and outputs and find yourself utilizing roadmap targets which can be options in disguise—quite than describing the optimistic affect we wish to obtain.
Let’s take my healthy-eating app once more for instance this problem. Say that I wish to discover what the product may do for the customers, and I provide you with “measure calorie consumption and decide blood sugar degree.” Do these statements then qualify as product outcomes? I don’t assume so. They describe product capabilities and characterise the answer. However they don’t state why it’s worthwhile to progress the product.
check is then to ask the “why” query, as prompt in Determine 4. For instance, why wouldn’t it be useful to measure calorie consumption? The reply would then reveal the true objective, resembling “assist the customers enhance their consuming habits.” Subsequently, watch out to not mistake options for outcomes, and be certain that your product targets at all times seize the specified consequence and never the output.
Proper-Dimension the Product Outcomes
When you’ve chosen the appropriate outcomes and checked that they describe precise advantages, take the subsequent step and get their dimension proper: Roadmap targets needs to be no smaller than six weeks and never larger than 4 months. Right here is why: If an consequence might be completed in lower than 4 weeks, it tends to be too granular and sometimes resembles a short-term, tactical objective like a dash objective. If it takes longer than 4 months to realize it, it’s too coarse-grained and doesn’t supply sufficient steering.[6]
If it seems that the outcomes you have got recognized are too massive or small, rework them till they’re the appropriate dimension. In some circumstances, this may increasingly require splitting a bigger objective into two subgoals that may be met individually. I would, as an illustration, cut up an consequence like “assist customers perceive their consuming habits” into the next two targets: “assist customers perceive their breakfast habits” and “assist them concentrate on what they eat for lunch and dinner.”
Some product groups prefer to work with quarterly targets. This will make roadmap planning simpler and assist handle stakeholder expectations. However there isn’t any exhausting requirement for all outcomes on a roadmap to have the identical dimension, and also you shouldn’t be afraid to make use of smaller or larger targets if required. For example, should you uncover that your product suffers from an growing quantity of technical debt that threatens its architectural integrity and makes it costlier and time-consuming so as to add new options, you would possibly wish to set a two-month objective that addresses the difficulty, thereby deviating from the quarterly cadence—assuming that that’s sufficient time to hold out the mandatory work.
Make the Outcomes Particular, Measurable, and Possible
It’s nice to have a BHAG—a giant, bushy, audacious objective—because the product imaginative and prescient and strategic wants and enterprise targets that act as guardrails however aren’t essentially measurable and time-bound. However in relation to product outcomes, you need to use targets that supply extra concrete steering and meet the next three qualities:
- Particular: Everybody understands what the objective means and what it takes to fulfill it.
- Measurable: You possibly can inform if an consequence has been met or not, if it has created the supposed affect.
- Possible: The objective might be achieved with out having to depend on time beyond regulation and hero efforts.
It is not uncommon in my expertise to initially determine comparatively coarse-grained product targets, that are neither particular nor measurable. Consequently, they should be reworked and improved till they’re clear and include a goal, if potential.
With particular outcomes in place, just be sure you can clearly decide if a objective has been met and if the specified affect has been achieved. For example, in case your objective is to accumulate between 5-10% new prospects, decide how you’ll measure if the target has been fulfilled. Does a profitable acquisition require that a person register together with your web site, for instance? Or must you measure if the variety of distinctive visits has elevated? And what does “new” imply? Ought to the shoppers belong to the identical market or market section that’s presently served, or do you propose to achieve out to a brand new one?
Moreover, state by when the objective needs to be met. Within the case of an acquisition objective, you may need to attend a number of days or perhaps a few weeks after the software program is launched earlier than sufficient information has change into obtainable so you may perceive whether or not the specified profit has materialised.
If, nonetheless, you discover that making all of the targets in your roadmap particular and measurable is just too troublesome at current, then give attention to the primary consequence, and be certain that not less than this objective might be measured. Depart the opposite ones as they’re for now and rework them if you assessment the product roadmap.
Lastly, verify that every consequence is possible and might be achieved with out violating sustainable tempo and requiring folks to work time beyond regulation. One of the simplest ways to do that is to contain the event workforce members in figuring out and refining the targets, as I’ll focus on within the final part of this text. Don’t pressurise folks to conform to the targets. As an alternative, hold an open thoughts and modify the outcomes or lengthen the allotted time frames if required.
Set One Product Consequence per Timeframe
Usually, there may be a lot work but so little time. It’s subsequently tempting to make use of a number of outcomes per roadmap timeframe. For instance, should you’ve chosen a quarterly cadence, you would possibly go for setting two or three outcomes per quarter.
Whereas this would possibly look good and probably assist appease some stakeholders, it carries the danger of slowing you down. Following a number of targets dilutes focus, undermines teamwork, and makes it more durable to trace progress. A greater strategy is to make use of one product objective at a time. This affords the next advantages:
- Enhanced focus and alignment: Engaged on a single consequence creates a shared goal that everybody works in direction of.
- Elevated productiveness and velocity: A single, shared objective encourages collaboration, and it avoids useful resource conflicts and activity switching.
- Improved transparency: A single consequence makes it simpler to know progress and decide if the objective has been met.
It’s best to subsequently keep away from setting a number of product targets for a given interval. For those who select to make use of a number of outcomes, make it an exception, and don’t let it change into the norm. If that is difficult, think about using smaller targets that may be achieved in shorter timeframes, along with the prioritisation strategy I share within the subsequent part.
Make sure that the Product Outcomes are Shared
The most effective product outcomes and probably the most wonderful roadmap are of little use if the important thing stakeholders and the event workforce members don’t perceive and help them. To make sure that the roadmap and its targets are really shared, I like to recommend involving the people in setting the outcomes, ideally within the type of a collaborative workshop, as proven in Determine 5.
To construction the workshop, take the next 5 steps.
- Collectively determine candidate outcomes, for instance, by asking the workshop attendees to seize their targets on notes. Then invite them to share their ideas. Test that the objects are precise outcomes—and never options in disguise.
- Group comparable notes and discover in the event that they help the person/buyer wants and enterprise targets said within the technique and/or deal with points highlighted by the KPIs. If there are too many outcomes, select those which can be more likely to create probably the most worth, utilizing an affect/effort-based metric like RICE.[7]
- Prioritise the outcomes by contemplating dependencies between the targets and their price of delay.
- Proper-size the outcomes and ensure that they’re particular, measurable, and possible. If the latter doesn’t maintain, modify the outcomes or lengthen the allotted timeframes.[8]
- Safe consent to the outcomes from all members to create the mandatory buy-in and alignment.
Think about using a devoted facilitator to average the workshop, as an illustration, the workforce coach or Scrum Grasp. This enables you, the particular person in command of the product, to give attention to figuring out the appropriate outcomes as an alternative of getting to make sure that all people is heard and no person dominates.[9]
Notice that the product supervisor in Determine 5 has the attribute primus inter pares. Which means the person is empowered to have the ultimate say if no settlement might be reached. Collaborative objective setting doesn’t imply that everyone will get their manner or is essentially tremendous pleased with each single consequence. It means leveraging folks’s experience to create product targets that assist maximise the worth the product creates and that appeal to as a lot help as potential.
Overview and Replace the Outcomes Usually
An outcome-based product roadmap just isn’t a set plan however an adaptive one. As market situations, the aggressive panorama, and applied sciences change, the roadmap, along with its outcomes, should be up to date. This ensures that it continues to be a useful, forward-looking plan that aligns the stakeholders and guides the event groups.
Reviewing the outcomes is greatest carried out as a part of a technique workshop, the place the product technique and the product roadmap are mentioned collectively. The workshop ought to happen as soon as per quarter, as a rule of thumb, and contain the people who’ve helped you create the roadmap.
Moreover, I like to recommend repeatedly reviewing the product efficiency utilizing KPIs, in addition to keeping track of the competitors and related tendencies. This ensures that you simply spot alternatives and threats as early as potential so you may reply to them proactively and modify the product outcomes as quickly as potential, as I clarify in additional element within the article Steady Strategizing.
| A Notice on Utilizing AI to Decide Product Outcomes
The work described on this article might be supported and partially automated by AI, particularly within the following two areas: First, monitoring the product efficiency utilizing the KPIs you’ve chosen. This consists of analysing qualitative information like help tickets and name transcripts. Second, predicting the possible affect of outcomes, thereby serving to you select the appropriate ones. However earlier than you begin closely utilizing AI, guarantee that you’re competent at manually setting the appropriate outcomes and constructing efficient outcome-based roadmaps. Because the product supervisor, you should at all times be in command of your product, personal the strategic product selections, and determine which outcomes your product ought to obtain. |
Notes
[1] I exploit the time period characteristic to confer with a product functionality, as a big piece of performance that’s larger than an epic—which is a big person story.
[2] To study extra concerning the GO roadmap, learn the article The GO Product Roadmap or watch the video GO Product Roadmap Introduction. To get began with outcome-based roadmaps, check out my article Tips on how to Get Began with Consequence-Primarily based Product Roadmaps or watch the equally named video.
[3] See my article OKRs and Product Roadmaps to study extra about OKRs and outcome-based roadmaps.
[4] Notice that I used a compound objective within the instance to seize the specified consequence. The objective consists of two intently related components—a person half, “assist the customers perceive their consuming habits,” and a enterprise one, “purchase an preliminary person base.” This enables me to obviously describe the particular worth the product ought to create for the customers and for the enterprise. Moreover, it avoids the danger of neglecting the customers’ wants by being fixated on enterprise outcomes.
[5] This assumes, after all, that you’ve efficient KPIs in place. If that’s not the case, determine the appropriate indicators earlier than you proceed setting product outcomes. My article Tips on how to Select the Proper KPIs for Your Product will provide help to with this.
[6] Notice that this guideline assumes a product roadmap is complemented with a validated product technique and that it covers a 12-month timeframe. For longer plans and outcomes which can be additional out sooner or later, a much bigger dimension would possibly initially be applicable. For instance, on a two-year roadmap, the final two targets would possibly cowl a six-month interval. For those who make use of outcomes this massive, break them into smaller ones when you’ve began implementing the plan.
[7] The acronym stands for Attain, Influence, Confidence, Effort.
[8] To grasp the possible effort required in reaching an consequence, ask the event workforce members to base the estimates on their information and expertise. See the article Launch Planning Recommendation for extra steering.
[9] You possibly can take this strategy additional, proceed to contain the identical folks in strategic product selections and kind an prolonged product workforce. See my articles Constructing Excessive-Performing Product Groups and Maximising Stakeholder Purchase-in to Product Technique and Product Roadmap.