Product Decision #12: AirBnB’s Vision-Driven Approach to Feature Development

This is #12 in a collection of posts highlighting decisions made in tech to build and grow products.

Product Decision

In an article about building product teams, AirBnB’s director of product Jonathan Golden talks about the idea of constantly revisiting the product vision to determine whether features that have been finished or are in process even make sense to continue. The example he gave was their “Wish List” feature, which originally was for individual users to bookmark homes they found interesting. As the company’s product vision evolved, this very feature morphed into more of a collaborative tool that a group would use to plan their trips than a bookmark tool for individual users. In turn, usage of the feature increased.

Details

Here’s the high-level framework that AirBnB uses to make decisions:

Golden explained the decision on changing the feature:

By the time the tool was relaunched this year, the product vision had been torn down and rebuilt. “We had to take a step back to say, ‘Okay, is this actually what we want the product to be? Does it change our people’s behavior in a positive way?’” Armed with a new product vision, one informed by data, the team reinvented Wish List as a collaborative tool for planning trips (and saw a significant jump in usage).

Read the full article here.

Have you tried something similar at your company? If so, share your results in the comments.