How to do a Feature Audit

Always focus on the user needs

Jeff Bezos is famous for saying “focus on the things that don’t change.” The problems that people and businesses encounter don’t change often. However, the ways they can be solved changes almost yearly. So it stands to reason that making things people want should start with “what people want” and not the more tempting “things we can make.”

Making things people want involves understanding a human or business need and then using technology to:
• take out steps
• make it possible for more people
• make it possible in more situations

Improving a product

The two most popular ways to improve a product are to add new features, or to improve existing ones.

Adding features

Adding new features expands the scope of the product. However, they can be risky. When you are focusing on improving your product, a great question to ask is, “Where do we suck, and where does it matter?”

Improving features

You can improve an existing feature in three different ways:
• You can make it better (deliberate improvement).
• You can change it so customers use it more often (frequency improvement).
• Or you can change it so more people can use it (adoption improvement).

A deliberate improvement seeks only to make a product better in ways that will be appreciated by current users (i.e., making it faster or easier to use, or improving the design). Regularly the biggest opportunities lie in areas the product manager regards as being “complete”, “bug free”, “good enough” etc. Put simply: a minor improvement on an important task is almost always a larger opportunity than a big improvement on an ancillary one.

Use frequency improvements when there is a feature that the majority of your customers use infrequently, and you believe that using it more would be of benefit to them.

Adoption improvements target users who are not using a feature. To get more people using it, rank and resolve the issues that are stopping them by asking the 5 whys (i.e., ask why 5+ times). When planning adoption improvements, always consider improvements outside of the software too. Sometimes it’s not about how the feature is designed or built, it’s about how it’s explained. Often users just need to know why or how to use a feature. In those cases, better product marketing and customer communication is how you solve it, not product tweaks.

An acid test for new features

1. Does it fit your vision?
2. Will it still matter in 5 years? Eschew the trendy and focus on the meaningful.
3. Will everyone benefit from it? Don’t satisfy the whims of a small sample of vocal users without taking a second to investigate how many people really want or need the feature.
4. Will it improve, complement or innovate on the existing workflow? Will more people use it? Will people use it more? If neither, then will it definitely be better for those who do use it?
5. Does it grow the business?
6. Will it generate new meaningful engagement?
7. If it succeeds, can we support and afford it?
8. Can we design it so that reward is greater than effort? For any feature to be used, the perceived benefit has to be greater than the perceived effort. Drag out the old cost-benefit analysis to help you.
9. Can we do it well? The problem here is when product teams tackle areas they don’t fully understand. This is often the case when a team moves beyond self-design.
10. Can we scope it well?

And finally, when you do release that snazzy new feature, get the marketing right. Often, feature announcements are very inward looking, focusing much more on “what we did” rather than “what you can do.” If you want people to use your product, encourage them by showing them what they can use it to achieve.