After realizing that I had failed in my previous attempts to head off a questionable new product idea being advocated by our head of Sales, I decided to fabricate a bare bones working example to advance the conversation.
To be honest, I was more than a little intrigued by the new product being proposed, not because I thought it would prevent us from losing deals to our competitors - to my knowledge, we hadn't lost any yet, at least not for this supposed product gap. And it wasn't because the technology was particular fascinating or exclusive - in fact, many of our customers could likely build a lightweight version of this on their own without much trouble.
I'd have to say my curiosity was driven by the opportunity to create something new.
Our company has been building a large software platform for over a decade and it increasingly becomes harder and harder to innovate when you're towing along such a hefty code base.
One of the classic mistakes companies can make is to blindly pursue building a new product just because it is feasible for them to do so.
But I wasn't going to let my own fascinations cloud my judgment. One of the classic mistakes companies make is to blindly pursue building a new product just because it is feasible for them to do so. I know better than that and I didn't want to carelessly lead my team down the wrong product path.
The next step then, was to find a way to better validate the claims coming from our own Sales team but to do so with the minimum amount of effort and investment.
What drove this decision
Our Head of Sales was steadfast, still convinced that our product had to have this missing functionality, mostly because our chief competitor was flaunting their own version in front of our prospects. I had tried - and failed - to squash the idea before it gathered any more steam. It was becoming clear to me that I would have to dedicate more cycles to this product proposal even if the end result (i.e. not moving forward) was the outcome.
My chief problem, however, was that our Engineering team was booked solid for the next few sprints and I didn't want to distract them with a side project that was still a long way off from being productized.
I needed a way to make some incremental progress with the new product idea without impacting the team's current development velocity.
The decision: Outsource a simple prototype to an overseas development partner to avoid disrupting the in-house Engineering team.
Giving a new project to an external team can be tricky. My goals were to properly scope the work up front, produce the desired results quickly, and have a clear path forward when the project was complete.
Plan of attack
I was focused on reducing the size of the project to the point where I had what I needed to start validating the product with our end users and prospects. That meant more than just providing good requirements however. I also needed to give the remote team the support it would need to complete the job and deliver the goods.
Define basic requirements and allowable shortcuts
One nice thing about sharing early prototypes such as wireframes or mockups is that your intended audience will often be very forgiving. I have found that when provided with sufficient clarification, users will focus on what's there and not obsess about what's not yet there.
I wanted to make sure that the proof of concept had enough relevant functionality in place to confirm our initial hypotheses. I also wanted to identify places where we could safely skip over steps that would have to be part of the final solution. These include the compulsory but more technically challenging operations like installation and authentication.
I wrote and delivered the requirements to the remote team being careful to emphasize the elements that would have to perform accurately for the end user. I then highlighted the remaining elements that didn't contribute directly to the end user experience where I felt we were safe in taking time-saving shortcuts (i.e.. "just hardcode it for now").
PROVIDE TECHNICAL SUPPORT TO TROUBLESHOOT the remote work
Our remote development team had been working with the company for several years but some new faces were joining this project. To make sure they could ramp up quickly and avoid any first-time stumbling blocks, I recruited a few key internal, technical resources to help launch and support the effort.
As it turns out, the remote team did hit some stumbling blocks in their attempts to use our new API and in resolving those issues, we actually uncovered - and fixed - some problems with our own API deployment process!
Secure the POC artifacts for the next round
When the proof of concept was finished, I had the remote team demo it to a few folks from our Engineering and Product teams. We were all pleased to see the results and I felt confident that we now had a suitable working model to go back with our Sales team and begin engaging customers.
The impact
I had already expressed my doubts to the Sales team about the actual effects of adding a component like this to our product mix - specifically, that it would not significantly advance competitive deals that are in jeopardy. With a working proof of concept in our hands now, it would be easier for us to determine exactly what (would-be) customers were looking for and whether this would affect their buying decision.
I would still have much more work to do in building a truly shippable product if I was wrong and customers latched onto this proof of concept. But I am convinced that I made a good tactical decision at this point and that we would realize a good return on this particular product investment decision.
Look for more reports from theProductPath around product validation, feature prioritization, and managing stakeholders here on PM Decisions.
In an attempt to summarize our collective accomplishments over the past 12 months, I decided to create a simple, 1-page chart that communicates the product advancements and highlights remaining product opportunities.
The Product Decision: Use the familiar customer process as a backdrop for reporting finer-grained enhancements across the entire product suite.