How can you balance your vision with customer feedback when iterating?

Customer feedback is best used to understand the problem space better. Far too often, customers also propose the ‘solution’ to their problems. They can’t be blamed for that , they just want their immediate pain gone. But, a PM should weigh solutions against alignment to product vision and if it solves for the long term. Sometimes, short term pain is a necessary collateral damage.

Customer feedback is essential to a successful product vision. While balancing your product strategy and customer feedback, you should consider adding feedback that aligns with your objectives to your product roadmap. If feedback doesn't align, it's still useful for formulating future challenges. If feedback doesn't match your long-term vision, it may indicate new trends or opportunities to create new products.

Customer feedback sparks innovation and enhances the overall experience. I recall being tasked with creating a hypothetical solution for a major on-demand taxi service in India. My boss, Soumya Acharya, encouraged me to empathize with the customer's perspective. After discussions with colleagues and friends, I recognized the pressing issue of women's safety. This led to the proposal of a GPS-based SOS system with three-way communication, connecting to the nearest police station, contact center, and automatic video recording. It underscores the importance of staying attuned to grassroots challenges to stand out from the competition.

Customer feedback shapes the assumptions that you might have about the problem space, your certain cohort’s struggling moment, their emotional needs etc. You cannot ever discount customer feedback. And how you process the feedback is crucial. However, you can filter out certain outlier customer expectations. The key is to understand how your vision amplifies or the path to achieve your vision gets impacted with different feedback trends, qualitative insights.

Customer inputs should always be welcomed and appreciated. You don't want to be in the dark. They represent market demands and often expose where a product adds value to the business, yours and theirs. Customer inputs must always be evaluated to capture real needs from wish lists. In addition, whether those real needs for one Customer are fit for others operating in the same or other geographically distributed markets. In this case, the Customer at hand is your pilot and the program with them is your pilot program. The outcome is the prototype for reuse in multiple other markets and Customers. There you have it cost savings and several times returns on your initial investments. Walk the path together with the Customer. Get into their shoes.

I agree that while it's essential to consider the feedback from stakeholders, customers, and other sources, it's also critical to distill the core insights from this feedback rather than taking it at face value. Innovators should aim to understand the underlying needs and desires that may not be explicitly stated. This approach allows for anticipating future demands and incorporating innovation into the product proactively. Simply meeting current needs can indeed result in falling behind, especially if competitors leverage the same feedback to forge ahead with novel solutions. It's about balancing immediate improvements with forward-thinking, strategic innovation to stay ahead in a competitive landscape.

Some factors that inspire a vision: - Unmet needs for a core user segment validated by user research or proxy data - Competitive trends making it vital to catch-up and differentiate - Evolving technology with potentially untapped applications Vision for a product needs to be grounded in a core user need which is currently not served well. For step-change innovations users may not realize a certain need; here I validate by checking if the vision of the product and subsequent iterations save time, cost or effort for users; if so, there is a market for it. If this 'saving' impact is higher in proportion to the effort needed, then it becomes a worthwhile iteration to prioritize.

About 10 years ago when I built a tech startup, I was getting feedback from various sources (comments on social, customer interviews, survey data etc.) and I considered all feedback. However, I did not consider the *types of users* giving that feedback, which led me down a few dead-ends. Lessons learned? Not all customer feedback is created equal. Evaluate feedback from target customers and look for patterns in the feedback. Then use questioning methods like "The 5 Whys" to unpack customer problems in more depth. Once you feel like you truly understand the problem space on a deeper level, take a step back and evaluate which feedback aligns with your product vision. Establishing a customer advisory board can also be very helpful.

Prioritizing feedback is a crucial skill for product managers. With a plethora of input from various sources, including users, stakeholders, competitors, and market trends, it's essential to filter and rank feedback based on its potential impact and the effort required for implementation. Leveraging frameworks like RICE, Kano, or MoSCoW can help you systematically evaluate and prioritize feedback, ensuring that your resources are directed towards the most valuable and feasible improvements, ultimately leading to a more effective and customer-centric product.

A lot of things may look tempting to act on. But being data-driven is the key here. Analysis of the impact a particular iteration or new feature can have, the effort it will require and more over the opportunity cost of the same. This is where prioritisation helps. In optimising the opportunity cost.

Developing a new feature or iterating one is like brewing up a hypothesis. And hypotheses always need to be tested. There are several ways to do so. Also, when making a change, a CUG release, based on the type of audience you're targeting could be your go-to plan.

In the world of product management, your vision isn't set in stone; it's a hypothesis waiting to be tested and refined. To achieve this, utilize various experimentation techniques like prototypes, MVPs, or A/B tests to validate your assumptions and measure the results of your proposed changes. Employ feedback loops via user testing, surveys, or analytics to gather valuable data and insights from these experiments. Embracing this iterative process of experimentation and hypothesis testing allows you to learn from both failures and successes, helping you evolve your product in a data-driven manner.

Here's a simple framework I use for test and learn: 1. What problem (from the feedback received) are you trying to solve? 2. What is the north star metric for your product? (e.g. acquisition) 3. Where in the customer journey do you want to run the test (e.g. onboarding flow) 4. Qualitative data sources (e.g. first purchase survey) 5. Quantitative data sources (e.g. web analytics) 6. Hypothesis (what do you expect to occur based on the change you are making?) 7. Target audience (e.g. new visitors coming from Instagram ads) 8. Duration (how long will you run your test?) 9. Other metrics (e.g. "Welcome 10" discount email signups) 8. Next best actions There are good T&L frameworks out there. Find one that resonates with you.

Communication is the key for a PM. Keeping all the stakeholders on the same page is essential to drive a product. The process should also be transparent and all the relevant stakeholders should be able to follow up.

In the realm of product management, effective communication is paramount. Your vision and the feedback you receive are not only essential for your own understanding but also for your team, stakeholders, and customers. To ensure everyone is aligned with the same objectives and expectations, employ various communication tools like roadmaps, user stories, or changelogs. Utilize channels such as newsletters, blogs, or social media to consistently share your vision and feedback. This communication strategy fosters trust and engagement with your audience, making it a vital aspect of successful product management.

As mentioned, you can use tools such as roadmaps and user stories to communicate your product vision and solutions based on customer feedback. But I'd recommend supplementing these artifacts with something more creative, like a fictional press release, to ignite the imagination. I've even gone as far as pretending I'm a writer for Tech Crunch and I'm writing up a story about the product. This exercise is not only fun but will force you to use simple language that most readers can easily understand.

There is a Jeff Bezos quote that says, "Be stubborn on vision, but flexible on details." A strong product vision is a long game. For example, I recall Google Chromebook's original vision from over a decade ago, which was... "Make computing simpler and more accessible for everyone", which they arguably achieved. Fast forward 10 years, and they have a new product vision... "Our vision for Chromebooks is to keep helping people get things done and to provide helpful and secure experiences." Consider many factors, not just feedback, to adapt your vision over time but remember, it's a long game.

In the world of product management, adaptability is a core principle. Your vision should not be rigid; rather, it must evolve based on the feedback you gather and the ever-changing landscape of the market and customer needs. Employ methodologies like retrospectives, reviews, or audits to rigorously evaluate your vision and feedback, allowing you to identify gaps and emerging opportunities. By adapting your vision in response to feedback, you can ensure your product remains pertinent, valuable, and appealing to your users.

Customer Feedbacks is often like a compass which shows the direction the product should be heading. But, then you need also understand which feedback are really useful and which of them are just information, else it will become a wild goose change. Thats why, its most necessary to create a CAB ( customer advisory Board) for each market segment (midmarket/SMB/Business/Enterprise) and regions(like NAM, EU, UK, APAC, ANZ) and get periodic feedback about your vision/strategy. Making customers invested in process of product creation, will not only make them feel inclusive but also would make they buy and promote this product to other customers ( just like flywheel effect)

It may sound simple, but a great first step is to clearly recognize that it is in fact a balance and you as product manager have control over the scale. Customer feedback may reinforce your vision, oppose it, or shine a light on some new insight. All are valuable as inputs. The fun work, and hard work, is to decide which inputs and how much weight to include in your decision. Sometimes you pivot, sometimes you see something they don't. And as stated above, experiment, experiment, experiment.

One additional consideration is the importance of fostering a culture within your product team that values and encourages the dynamic interplay between your vision and customer feedback. A culture of curiosity and openness can lead to greater innovation and a stronger sense of shared purpose among your team members. Furthermore, acknowledging and celebrating the successes and learnings that come from aligning your vision with valuable feedback can be a powerful motivator and team-building tool. So, nurturing this culture can be as essential as the strategies and processes you employ in balancing vision and feedback effectively.

Product managers (PMs) can balance their vision with customer feedback when iterating by participating in an Inspect and Adapt (I&A) event at the end of each program increment. PMs, technology, and stakeholders gather to demonstrate and evaluate the current state of the solution during the I&A event, which consists of three parts: - System Demo - Quantitative metrics & qualitative feedback - Retrospective & problem-solving workshop The teams review the data, trends, and feedback to identify any potential issues. During the workshop, they apply root cause analysis to the issues, brainstorm solutions & identify improvement stories and features. Based on this outcome, PMs update the vision based on feedback for the next program increment.