Why Product Needs Reinventing in Archaic Industries
Over the tenure of my career, I’ve had a decent amount of exposure to how large industrial firms ideate, develop, and commercialize their B2B products. In a previous role, I also studied and was taught modern product principles from thought leaders in the space such as Marty Cagan. The gap between how the best companies in the world do product (such as Amazon or Google) and how firms operating in rather “archaic” industries do product is quite wide.
Speaking from personal experience, these large mature firms launch a new product through the stage gate process when some portion of the product is hardware. When I say hardware, I mean just some physical material (not computer boards). While this provides structure and is an easy format to formulate deadlines and key results against, it poses some drawbacks to consider.
#1: The sunk cost of development has already been incurred by the time one gets REAL customer feedback
This feedback often stems from a MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in stage three. When I say REAL feedback, I don’t mean disingenuous statements of “oh this is great!”, rather the customer can explicitly elaborate what outcome can be expected by using it. If the outcome desired by the customer does not match the outcome given by the MVP, you’ve obtained the answer to a very important question that could have been answered before even starting. Namely, is the most right problem being solved in the most right way? (Note how I did not say “best”, most right is to account for situational variables, it’s impossible to always achieve the best solution.)
#2: The most important stakeholder (the customer) is not involved to a degree which exposes psychogenic needs during the idea generation stage
Some firms may say they do product discovery in stage two, but often it’s not deep enough to properly understand the hidden message behind face value statements of pain points. For example, let’s say one conducts a VOC session on a next generation product with the feedback of “this price is too expensive”. Taking that at face value would likely translate to “remove the lowest ranked feature(s)” to get to a comfortable price point. Underneath that perception may be more valuable information. What if another product is eating away at their budget, but must be maintained because it makes that user look like a trailblazer (esteem)? What if the user is afraid of requesting additional funds again (safety or security of keeping their job)? These needs are often much more important than business needs when it comes to purchasing decisions, and additional “prying” at face value statements reveals subconscious desires of your users.
#3: New solution ideas are not deviated between the two buckets of “vitamins” and “painkillers” with customers
Some product leaders akin this metaphor to product market fit, the “holy grail” of any product manager’s goals. Using the stage gate process and relying on internal stakeholders for idea validation will often times lead to a prioritization of new technology (cough AI cough) to be built. Then they’ll market how revolutionary the product is, but the focus on what particular problem it solves is lost in the process. (There’s that psychogenic need of recognition and esteem creeping back up by the way.) What was once a must-have product has now transitioned to a nice-to-have, or even worse, something not desirable at all.
My intent was not to wholly bash the stage gate process, I do believe it serves a great purpose and can still be utilized. Rather the focus in each stage needs to be detracted away from hitting the goals of the next review gate to obsessing over obtaining customer actuals. The best way to do this is through rapid prototyping in the discovery phase alongside your customers. Most product leaders don’t speak to this through the lens of the industrial world, as they are accustomed to software focused products. In a different post, I will try to elaborate on how to adopt these principles and the culture behind them, as well as exposure to rapid prototyping techniques for a more hardware focused world.
