Significance of Product Evolution : Part 1

Need for constant product design, repeated prototyping & experimentation

Introduction

Constants and variables are integral part of a mathematical equation. Numbers with fixed value are constants, where as the ones that can take on different values or be unknown are variables. ᴨ Or PI is a well-known constant and the famed quadratic equation (a+b)2 has a and b as variables. An equation can be solved by working out the values of variables — a and b in this case. These equations can help us deal with a problems small or big. Solving for variables can help build suspension bridges to launching a space shuttle. Isolating variables can help discover cure to diseases and improve efficacy of medicines. In the world of products, if you work out variables that impact its adoption, usage, customer loyalty or attrition rate, an organization can achieve sustained growth and success. The philosophy is to arrive at a standard formula or process, evaluate market variables and identify constants that can inform corporate decisions or strategy for improving chances of success.

A quick glance at research papers, articles and blogs available in public domain suggest that less than half of newly established products survive beyond a year after their launch. A phenomenon that is privy not only to FMCG products but is shared other types — Digital, culinary, entertainment etc. Several market elements that vary with time, geography and economy influence the success or failure of a product or service — regardless of it being fresh or an erstwhile blockbuster product.

From the time an idea takes birth to the time it is incubated and eventually launched into the market for customers to realize value, a standard set of steps, often referred to as frameworks, are followed to achieve a market fit. Market fit is elusive and few find it and few don’t. However, the point to remember is that success or failure of a product is an interplay of several variables and the outcome itself is not a constant. To achieve sustained success or at the minimum, maintain status quo is a challenging task for many organizations. This is simply because the contributing variables keep changing and it is up to an organization to continuously adapt to changing variables and keep innovating the product or service offerings accordingly. A Product strategy that worked today may not work tomorrow and a failed strategy today may not be so tomorrow.

In the next few sections we intend to highlight the sustained challenge that product or service managers encounter in practicing their craft. In doing so, we intend to study few industry known product or service success and failure stories to back our hypothesis for Product success. A hypothesis that underlines the need for organizations to continuously gauge and adapt to changing market needs. In support of this hypothesis we look at rapid prototyping concept as a tool that aids in continuous experimentations, its benefits and assumptions. We also study few industry illustrations where rapid prototyping led to successful product launches and sustain market competition over a period of time. The study focuses on underscoring the challenges of design and development of digital products and benefits that rapid prototyping can offer.

The concept of Rapid Prototyping

Rapid prototyping followed by continuous experimentation, in the context of Product design can be arguably touted as a leading technique that aspires to gradually improve product parameters — customer acceptance, product quality, security or efficiency. The approach is based on frequent prototyping, controlled launch and feedback cycles. Experimenting with prototypes during early stages of design and development is accomplished in a simulated environment using advanced algorithms that study past performance data of the product, analyze it and predict future outcomes. Latter stages of Product development follow a more traditional approach of testing the product parameters with a controlled user group and pursuing feedback. Results of both methodologies form a direct input to teams engaged in design and engineering the product.

Rapid prototyping is not a novel concept in the industry. Industries such as aerospace, pharma and automobile have been ambitiously seeking to master this process for decades now and make products progressively safe and secure. The variables that govern success of tech enabled Products differ tangentially from these traditional industries but customer — product interaction continues to be the essentials. Consequently, given the proven success of this process, many technology giants and digital Product companies have started embracing this technique.

Within the technology industry there are several categories of Products and its customers or popularly known as User behavior also differ accordingly. Organizations work with different mix of technologies aimed at solving a particular problem through their products, often with a goal of achieving that subtle product differentiation which can possibly provide them with a much required competitive edge in the market. A lot of market research goes into understanding the customers, how their or competitor’s products are used and what is it that customers look for while making a purchase decision? Primary purpose of the market research followed by product design and engineering is to build a Product that resonates with customer needs and instills confidence among target customer segment to adopt the product.

For instance, an application launched in 2005 which at the time had slight relevance has since transformed the way people travel from point A to B. Google maps made its entry to the world when smart phones did not even exist or existed as concepts on design papers. In a world dominated by feature phones, the application started its journey steadily transforming itself and along the way transformed the entire navigation experience for its User community since. A traveler at one time carried printout of maps, travel guides with a full blown city map immaculately folded and stapled as center page and asked for directions from locals along the journey.

Google maps has surely simplified his travel need by leaps. Google maps however, has not achieved this feat purely on the basis of improving navigational aspects offered by the maps. At least the statistics around Google maps platform visitors does not suggest so. It is hard to digest that 154 million1 (North America) Users visited the platform solely with a need to navigate from point to point.

Unlike several other players who also made foray in this segment, Google maps was able to consistently provide an experience that stood out among others. Navigational capabilities were at the core of every application but

Google made this feature extremely user friendly and re-invented the offering by making pioneering changes that resonated well with the User community. Move a little deeper beyond the surface of the application and one will discover a range of value adding features such as experiences and tips offered by User community, need based local business search such as restaurants, fuel stations, hospitals or places of worship and rating based recommendations. All these utilities add onto the User experiences and assist a User in making a more informed decision. A decision that still has point to point navigation need at its core but now enriched with value adding pit stops along the journey.

All this was made possible by Google continuously trying to understand the User community needs and making sure to launch features that consistently enriched the experiences of its end users. Google would launch a prototype of the new feature to select user base, observe usage patterns and seek feedback. It used this feedback to improve the offering and launch an improved version to a larger set of users. At times Google had to shelve a certain feature entirely as it failed to meet customer expectations as the feedback was not encouraging. A positive takeaway being that the idea was found to be wanting at the very early stages of design and development and the decision to apply brakes on furthering the feature was relatively easy due to low cost implications. That’s the value offered by rapid prototyping and continuous experimentation.

“In a recent report, IBM found that discovering errors after releasing software costs 30 times more than catching them at the design stage.”

Although maps was designed to solve a point to point navigation problem, Google in its pursuit to stay relevant with changing times and needs, connected the dots that together created a 360 experience for its end users. Google maps has evolved to a state where we today notice that the community that used to be end consumer of the platform is now the contributor as well. The User community can not only read reviews about a place but also provide one, indicate experiences and make recommendations using star ranks. All these possibilities contribute knowledge back to the community. Consequently, the platform is self-sustaining where the User community both contributes to its knowledge base and reaps benefit. This standing is a result of versatile design of platform, rich experience and strong knowledge base contribution. Google has repeatedly cashed in on the prospects offered by rapid prototyping and has immensely benefited from continuous experiments it conducts with the User community while developing product increments.

(To be continued…)