What are the most effective ways to shift cross-functional teams' focus from outputs to outcomes?

One thing I've found helpful in getting our teams to appreciate the value of bring more user-centric is by emphasizing the link between customer satisfaction and business revenue, and therefore team budgets, salaries and bonuses. It may seem self-evident that happier and more engaged customers generate more business and better compensation for successfully user-centric teams, but sometimes this isn't entirely clear. Use data and research - both qualitative and quantitative - to help illustrate the link between customer satisfaction/user engagement and revenue/profitability, but also appeal to common sense: who is ultimately paying your salaries?

It is normal for people to narrow their focus to only their part of the product. This is great for executing a plan but to understand if progress is going in the right direction, syncing with other product teams is key to understanding the overall picture. This is where an overreaching product strategy can help point out where the teams are or are not aligned.

+1! Outcomes and metrics tied to your organization's goals are super important to ensure alignment. In order to accomplish this, someone needs to be able to tie the tactical, day-to-day execution of tasks to the bigger strategic picture. It's a lot like the navigator of a ship charting a course to the destination and making sure the crew stays on course, while the crew is busy steering the ship so that it moves forward and avoids potential pitfalls.

I have the perception that outputs and outcomes should not be seen as mutually excluding concepts. What you need is to ensure your team work in producing outputs - features, products, services - that will be connected to business wide outcomes. So what sometimes is missing is a system in which both perspectives are well connected, and having well set goals and metrics to measure progress can be a good way to link them both. Once the team can clearly see this connection, great ideas will come from it.

Often a certain outcome requires input from different product teams. Understanding where your team is dependent on or supports another product team will allow prioritising high-value work better.

This step seems like it's merely an elaboration of the 1st step. Perhaps the title could be adjust to "Define the right metrics?" As they say: "what gets measured, gets done." Make sure you are measuring the outcomes and not the outputs.

I agree with the notion of experimentation and test-and-learn. It is rarely the case we perfectly predict the activities needed to achieve a goal, and never course correct along the way. The team has to be open-minded to potential setbacks and embrace failures not as a catastrophe, but rather an opportunity to introspect, iterate, and pivot when necessary.

??. Communicating and celebrating wins allows the team to maintain momentum, even during tough times. If it's hard to shift immediately to outcome based communication, I suggest 1st focusing on the impact the output had (e.g. a product release contained 10 feature that were critically needed by customers), then shift to the outcome (e.g. a product release improved customer satisfaction by 15%).

To me, this is a critical step to accomplish any goal, not just to align focus to outcomes. Only by working together can we collectively achieve goals that are greater and more impactful than anything we can achieve on our own.

What brings the teams from across functions together is shared vision. Having a common objective, thematic areas and what each function contributes to the wnole gives a broader appreciation of teams. Giving feedback and updates on progress of the whole organisation focusing at outcomes will show the gaps that need to be addressed. However, outputs should not be neglected as they contribute to the outcomes. Cross functional teams should complement each other through collaboration and coordination. A collboration matrix is one tool and risk map that can be of help. Deliberate learning from feedback is key across functions.

Changing an existing way of working is powerfully hard; I have seen this first-hand having led and guided these types of transformations for large, complex organizations. The secret to success lies in believing change is possible, staying disciplined to ensure the team is adhering to the new proposed way of working, and celebrating the positive successes along the way. It takes time and determination, but getting to an outcome based approach is so much better and fulfilling than an output based approach for the team members as well as for the broader organization.