Effective Product Prioritization for the Win
At a time when startups have flooded the market, sustainability is the key to success. Many startups are at odds with each other and literally have the same product, leading to severe competition.
A tech team will be awesome at delivering software, but when it comes to project-level details and decision making, they need direction. That’s where a project manager, product manager, or scrum master need to pitch in. This direction will have an enormous impact on time-to-market and, eventually, sustainability.
It’s very easy for teams to implement projects using a sequential or linear approach. However, I personally prefer the value-based development approach. Adopting this approach will be beneficial in difficult times. Value-based approach prioritizes your features based on the value it provides to the finished product, aiming to implement the most valued feature first.
During project initiation, a team might have a very good plan but they can run into bottlenecks and get slowed down. Sometimes scope can put teams in a bad spot. All of this will either result in hiring more resources in order to meet timelines or delaying the product launch. And in this era of cut-throat competition, a delay in the launch or a huge spike in cost can turn out to be highly detrimental.
Prioritization comes to rescue here.
The Situation
Let’s look at an example of how the value-based approach and effective prioritizing can be a lifesaver in such situations. Suppose your company is launching a Christmas Express train on Christmas Eve. Everyone is very excited and the best team has been assigned to this task. Then your competitor announces the same launch date, a few days after this decision was made.
This puts you in a situation where missing the deadline is not an option. You later decide to include some luxurious facilities and modern interiors for your passengers. Your competitor is also adding similar features.
There is a marketing war bringing traction to the product. Your marketing team will need your support, but do you have the bandwidth? Suddenly, the competitor announces a closer launch date, and renames the train the Thanksgiving Express.
Can you handle this situation? It all depends on your approach and prioritization. Many teams would decide to de-scope some complex and most valuable features to meet timelines.
The Path Forward
Your competitor was using a value-based approach. They started working on the engine and a few train bogies first. However, your team was busy refining the passenger facilities and beautification of the coaches. Your project manager was providing a percentage-based completion status (a common trend) and informed the organization that they are working around the clock in order to succeed.
In reality, your team is running around like chickens with their heads cut off, they’re burned out, and there’s project friction. The organization was also informed that the product will be 75% complete, which means out of 7 bogies and an engine, 6 bogies will be ready by Thanksgiving. Your organization was celebrating because the competitor will only be 50% done. Below is how your train looks compared to your competitor’s train.
The Early Bird Catches the Worm
Your competitor worked on the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and was better prepared for today’s fast-paced era than your team. Without adding extra resources, a workable product was built.
MVP takes a value-based approach and prioritizes the features that add more value. If you are developing an online store, the app should prioritize ‘product listing’ and payments feature and these should be implemented (and probably released) first, rather than working on sleek login features.
For example: Take a look at the simple Google or Facebook logins and account creation pages, and we can deduce that they focus on what matters. The pre-release of the train example can be viewed as a pre-launch of software or a demo at an important conference. In the future, there are numerous ways to decide what to implement first, when you break down your features or epics into a granular level.
Takeaway
As mentioned earlier, without direction, product teams tend to follow a sequential approach. The sequence that is often used may be based on common user actions or wireframes. (As an example, while developing an online store application, there is a tendency to work on ‘creating an account’ and login sections first).
Normally, teams spend more time first working with the functionalities that they are developing . They may like to fine-tune or make things fancier. Later, when the team realizes that time is not on their side, they have to play catch up with the most important functionalities. Either the team will have a buggy implementation of an important feature like payments or it will be de-scoped from the initial version. Consequently, the product loses on the race to getting to market first. In order to de-scope any feature, they may keep complexity as the deciding factor. This can have adverse effects.
Using a value-based approach could have meant smooth sailing. Going by the same example, ‘listing of products’ and payments should always be at the top of your priority list and should never be a candidate for de-scoping.
