To build great products, you need to embrace uncertainty
Launching a new product is risky. Companies spend months trying to work everything out before hand. They plan and plan and plan. Debating every step, documenting, re-debating. All this friction seems so productive. But it is a costly and lengthy way to fail building products.
The likelihood is that you have isolated yourself too much. Leadership puts too many obstacles in your way. Engineering takes longer than expected. What you thought customers would do, isn’t what they did. Everyone feels like they failed. The worlds smallest violin plays in the background.
In The Learn Startup, Eric Ries says when you’re approaching a new product you should act like you’re driving a car. You can plan your route before you set off, but during that journey you need to react in the moment. Feel your way through. You may need to change your course. But you know you’ll get there.
When driving your car on your daily commute, you know where you’re going so well that you don’t even think about it. Yet if before leaving home, we asked you to plan exactly what you should do with your steering wheel and pedals to get to your destination, you wouldn’t be able to answer. You need the feedback your car gives you to know what to do. — Eric Ries
A lot of companies, especially large ones, struggle with this. They plan out every move they make. Strategy documents. Countless meetings about meetings. For good reason. It takes a lot of effort to change course and try something new when you’re that big. Money and jobs are at stake.
Embracing uncertainty is a skill that many start-ups have to learn. They don’t have the time or the cash to plan everything out. The ones that keep this mentality as they grow. Apple, AirBnB, Google among others. These are the ones that are able to innovate and dominate markets at scale. Why? Because they still run, for the most part, like a startup. They are small, cross-functional teams that start with an end goal and go for it.
Embracing uncertainty is a mindset change. It requires you to leave what you think will happen at the door and react in the moment. It also requires you to experiment. An experiment implies the possibility of failure. In a lot of companies, the f word means the end of the project and possibly, someones job.
Yet, failing and uncertainty are a part of successful innovation. Once you accept that premise, the question isn’t ‘How do we succeed?’ but ‘How can we fail quickly?’. At Mindera, we always ask this question first. We use techniques such as the Design Sprint to work out ideas, prototype and test them with real customers all within a week.
We also build MVP’s with very short release cycles. An MVP helps us learn the most about how a product is received by our customers in the market. We do this by launching quickly, gathering feedback and analysing metrics. Using validated learning, we can move fast and with little effort. This helps us come to see uncertainty as ‘a potential opportunity to improve’.
A lot of teams look too hard for friction. They think if something is lengthy and difficult they must be doing it right. This isn’t true. With the right approach, even the most high-stakes and complex products can deliver great results. And maybe, actually be enjoyable to build.
“We are always in transition. If you can just relax with that, you’ll have no problem.” — Chogyam Trungpa
