How do you connect product feedback to business goals?

The involvement of stakeholders when determining feedback sources is crucial. This will create early buy-in which is needed when feedback is being discussed. Stakeholders in most cases also hold on to access to systems, particular data sets and reports which are internally used, having an overview of what’s already there occasionally reveals clues and blind spots which can be further explored.

In my experience, the “gap” between the product feedback and business goals is a metric to evaluate the “product market fit”. Higher the gap between the two, bigger is the possibility of product failure. Hence product feedback and business goals are like parallel moving rails!

To identify your feedback sources, you need to consider all of the ways that customers, users, and internal teams can provide feedback. This may include: -Surveys: Surveys are a great way to collect feedback from a large number of people at once. -Interviews: Interviews allow you to have a more in-depth conversation with customers or users. -Reviews: Reviews are a great way to get feedback on specific products or features. You can find reviews on websites like Amazon, Google Play, and the App Store. -Analytics: Analytics tools can provide you with insights into how users are interacting with your product. -Support tickets: Support tickets can be a source of feedback about specific problems that users are having with your product.

To connect product feedback to business goals, start by categorizing and prioritizing feedback, align it with specific business objectives (e.g., revenue growth, user retention), and use this alignment to guide product decisions and improvements that directly contribute to achieving those goals.

1. Align feedback with business goals and product vision. Focus on feedback that aligns with these priorities. 2. Use a prioritization framework. Frameworks like RICE and MoSCoW can help you rank feedback items based on their potential value and feasibility. 3. Use data to validate your assumptions. Use A/B testing, UT, or customer interviews to validate your ideas and measure their outcomes. Example: Feedback: Users are complaining that the product is difficult to use. Business goal: Increase customer satisfaction. Product vision: Create a user-friendly product that is easy to learn and use. Prioritization: This feedback aligns with both the business goal and product vision.

Some ways to do this; - First have a means to capture and clarify the feedback _ Then have a forum for priotization based on business and customer value. The higher the value, the higher the priority. - Determine if this is a quick fix or requires huge effort. - Finally, execute based on the priotization and effort required to deliver that value, ensuring that you have all stakeholders have visibility and clear communication on the work being done

Post analysing feedback, we try to map it with our future roadmap to see where it fits and what value it brings and based on this we can prfioritize the same.

1. Use your feedback prioritization process to identify the feedback items that are most important to your business and your users. 2. Group feedback items into themes. This will help you to identify the key areas where your product needs to be improved. 3. Map feedback themes to your roadmap. For each feedback theme, identify the roadmap items that address it. 4. Prioritize roadmap items based on feedback. Use the feedback prioritization process to prioritize the roadmap items that are most important to your business and your users. 5. Communicate your roadmap to your stakeholders. Get their buy-in and support for your product direction and value proposition.

I think there is a big difference between 'will' and 'could' evolve over time. Because by mapping the feedback on the roadmap and deciding what to do next (placing bets on one or multiple options), a roadmap will become far from static.

Metrics are critical when collecting and acting on product feedback. They help to make sense of prioritization and impact evaluation rather than scampering over ideas from different feedback. The ultimate goal is to remember to create a product that meets customers' needs and drives business growth. And that's the real art of product management.

Remember, the goal here is not to make every change possible based on feedback, but rather to make strategic decisions that align with your business goals. It's about finding the sweet spot where customer needs and business objectives meet.