5 Signs of a thriving product culture

We’re having more and more conversations with businesses about creating product-centric cultures. This reflects the broader shift to putting customers first. Markets and conditions change fast these days and a sharp focus on product excellence helps organisations across all sectors and sizes to be more robust, responsive and willing to take risks.

The business case for this is simple: companies that strive for a deep understanding of user needs and shift the culture away from doing tasks towards obsessing about customer outcomes will grow their revenues
4% to 8% faster than their market competitors, according to Forbes. Read more about what it means to create a successful product culture and why people keep asking us about it here.

Here are 5 signs of a thriving product culture and some inspiration to get there:

Curious

How well do you understand the people you’re designing for? Curiosity means having empathy, constantly asking questions and imagining possibilities. Last year, we visited people’s homes to understand financial strengths, weaknesses and how they make financial decisions. It helped us design more inclusive digital experiences for Sky, John Lewis and Zopa.

Adaptable

How effectively do you adapt to change, see failure as a chance to learn and respond quickly to remain relevant? We collaborate with people who love testing and learning, such as M&S. Experimentation is a big part of M&S’s product culture and we design and test quick enhancements that help customers check out faster and enjoy the online experience more.

Collaborative

How well do you encourage diverse perspectives and evolve ideas together with customers, employees or the public? The BBC offers a taster section on its website where users can share and rate new ideas. For Tesco Whoosh, we collaborated with customers to understand their main shopping challenges and get feedback on our ideas.

Entrepreneurial

Can your team take a leap of faith, put something radically different in front of customers and have enough resilience to adapt if things don’t go to plan? At Magnetic we’ve carried out thousands of experiments to help companies take risks by testing and validating new ideas. Sometimes this means working under the radar and growing a customer base in stealth mode.

Empowered

Do your teams have the autonomy to focus on the right problems? Are they accountable for the right outcomes? Can they switch from measuring features launched to measuring customer impact? Product expert and author Marty Cagan, ex-VP of Product and Design for eBay, says: “Great teams are made up of ordinary people who are inspired and empowered.”

This is an excerpt from our 2024 book: Optimism. If you’d like a copy, request it here.

Author: Lucy Willett.

Magnetic is a design and innovation company that helps design better futures. We’ve worked with global organisations to build capabilities, products, services and transform organisations. To find out more get in touch: lucy.willett@wearemagnetic.com.

Lucy focuses on strategic growth and has a passion for health innovation.