When exploring new market opportunities, why are people so eager to jump the gun?
As soon as everyone starts ta
lking about something new, all of these “great” features just start popping-up out of thin air – without much merit or though behind them. I could come up with a million cliches for this – cart before horse, the chicken and the egg, etc, etc…
If you are examining a potential new market opportunity, slow down. Things don’t have to be, and will never be, 100% correct before making that first sale.
Your price will be wrong. The code will have bugs. You will screw up delivering adequate service to the client. All that stuff will happen – so getting over it early will do you a world of good.
Take the time to make sure you are doing things the correct way. Make sure you at least take different aspects in to consideration – who are the initial prospects, for example? Are you satisfying their needs? Even more importantly, what ARE their needs?
If you don’t have answers to the most basic product question(s) (i.e., “what is the product going to solve?” or “what opportunity presents itself by solving this problem that I think exists?”) you are already in over your head. Productization will only get you in to a world of hurt unless you have the appropriate discussions with the appropriate people to determine what it is you are trying to do.
Then, and only then, can you start to proceed down the path of forming ideas around possible solutions by way of a product. You may realize you are only talking about a feature to an existing product. Hell, you may find the opportunity doesn’t even exist at all.
Remember. when everyone else is dreaming of bright lights, and their names on the marquees, its your job to reign them back in a bit. Bring them back down to earth with the fundamentals. You can’t get caught up in this blue sky crap as a PM – chances are, if you do, you will only hurt the product in the end.
Of course it’s great to “dream big” and think of all the “cool stuff” a product can do. Don’t limit yourself, and possible solutions to a problem to the same old boring and basic stuff. You can’t ignore the cool factor.
All I’m saying is – don’t let those grand ideas run away from the basics because it’s the easiest thing to do. Trust me – users will not benefit.
So when everyone is crying for “out of the box” and a “complete solution” – ignore them. If you don’t know what the basic problem is (regardless of how critical it may seem), you need to either evaluate again, or put your hand up and say, “I don’t get it.”
Your customers / clients / users will thank you for it – and isn’t that what being a PM is all about?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree with you. Adequate market research and analysis of the opportunity needs to take place. That's the difference between being market driven and technology driven. It's not about what we could build it's about what the market needs. Product managers are responsible for identifying the needs of the market segment that is being analyzed. Before performing any analysis, we need to look at the product strategy and first identify the arenas or segments that our core competencies align to. Sometimes organizations use a PIC (Product Innovation Charter) to determine target segments and strategy. In Robert Cooper's book “Winning at New Products” he talks about performing opportunity arena analysis as part of identifying market opportunities. Once that is done, market research or market sensing can be performed to identify market problems. Based on those problems, features or products can be defined that solve the market need. Good discussion thread on the usefulness of problem statements on http://onproductmanagement.net/2009/02/09/prima...
Knowing what the basic problem you're looking to address is one third of the challenge.
I am consistently appalled how many companies start with “I want to build a product that solves the following problem” as opposed to “I want to build a product that solves the following problem that is pervasive [lots of people have the problem], urgent [the problem is causing meaningful, measurable and motivating pain] and which people are willing to spend $ to solve [as opposed to fixing it themselves or waiting it out or fixing a related problem].”
The latter is often masked by the fact that there is a buyer for the most niche-y of products. . . but the fact that there is some small amount of buyers does not necessarily equal that there is a sustainable market for that product. Remember, there is only one thing worse than having no customers for your product: having one customer for your product.
Not all opportunities should be acted on, even if it means solving a meaningful problem for someone. The other two elements of the calculus must be met. The PM who groks the problem but who does not nail the other two is going to fail, even with the best product.
There will always be technology fetishists who want to build what they want to build – and believe they can force the marketplace to acknowledge the brilliance of whatever it is that they've built. That's swell. It's inside-out, when more success can be had from taking an outside-in perspective on development.
Totally true, Bob – totally true. I think in some cases, PMs face pressure from the top to build something, even if they know it's not the right thing to do.
If you have the CEO breathing down your neck to get something out in to the market, even if you know it's not the right thing to do. And it's a shame – but in some cases, the reality.
Many folks would rather keep their job than stand-up for what they know to be right.
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