Your team is divided on crucial product innovation features. How do you navigate conflicting priorities?

Approach these conversations with a 'yes and' mentality. Often as humans we 'listen' while also preparing rebuttals and defending our own positions. Instead, approach each concept or idea you hear from someone else as though they know something you don't. Often, they do! By seeing each expression as a great idea in the making we free ourselves to be open to critique our own assumptions. Likewise by seeing each expressed idea as one that, with a few tweaks and maybe even a context change, can be turned into an actionable insight, we are more open to learning and exploring the perspectives that initiated the concept in the first place.

Clear milestones and a well-thought-through product roadmap will help resolve any dispute on feature priorities. The problem-centric approach helps to identify unmet needs and the best way to address them. The roadmap is the execution plan based on feature priorities. It is the centerpiece of corresponding marketing activiteis. For instance, effective product marketing messaging must be grounded in customer needs. A successful business strategy and a viable monetization model allow for sustainable growth and maximized revenue at each stage of the product journey.

By having a clear goal, you set up a metric to objectively evaluate against. If a team member supports an idea different from your own, this sets up a perfect opportunity to evaluate the core hypothesis of each concept through iterative prototyping and testing. Does one get design closer to the determined goal (ie, reducing bounce rates, increasing engagement, etc.)? This sets up a fair, healthily competitive, and collaborative space to constantly critique assertions against how much closer the idea or concept pushes the design to its intended outcome. Careful though! Don't waste valuable product development time testing against two opposing concepts that aren't differentiated enough to justify the use of time.

Une méthode simple de priorisation des fonctionnalités consiste à : - Inviter les parties prenantes à évaluer chaque fonctionnalité selon deux dimensions : l'importance du bénéfice attendu et la complexité/co?t de développement de cette fonctionnalité. - Calculer la moyenne des notes des parties prenantes pour chaque fonctionnalité et pour chaque dimension. - Calculer un score pour chaque fonctionnalité, par exemple en utilisant une moyenne pondérée des notes moyennes pour le bénéfice et la complexité. - Prioriser les fonctionnalités en fonction de leurs scores. Cela peut servir de base objective pour une discussion sur la priorisation.

Always prioritize the validation of features that represent a core assumption that would need to be true in order for the product to reach success. If people didn't feel safe booking accommodation online, no matter how many features Airbnb added at its inception, few would've resulted in the critical mass adoption necessary to make that product as successful as it is today. Validate the reception of those core features as early as possible before moving on to more frivolous 'nice to have' features in order to avoid stack fallacy and thus, building a solution without a problem.

Having a feasible MVP construct is crucial because it allows for customer feedback collection earlier in the product development journey when the value proposition is not in stone yet and changes are encouraged. The are must-have and nice-have features. Make sure you don't introduce too many features at once leading to feature staffing, one of the major issues affecting rapid product adoption. On the contrary, the product must be lean and nimble, allowing it to grab market share and keep it, improving the odds of product longevity as a result of feature stickiness. As Steve Blank famously suggested: get out of the building and talk to customers!

An MVP and an early stage validation prototype are not the same thing in product development. Jumping ahead and assuming your MVP is your prototype can, in most cases be a costly mistake. Remember: the cost to make changes increases exponentially with time invested. Instead of jumping right into MVP, ask yourself, what is the lowest effort prototype one can put together to validate one aspect of the core hypothesis that would make this product reach success? This will enable you to more easily pivot. By assuming that the prototype may or may not have success, you open yourself to honest feedback from users and an increased ability to break what you have and iteratively develop and test again.

Rapid iteration is one of the benefits of agile product development. It allows cash-strapped startups to build a viable prototype and quickly test product-market fit hypotheses without investing a fortune. A constant feedback loop is critical at this stage. It allows us to identify the most important features of the product that help customers solve the problem. Not only does it help create a better product, but it also signals customer obsession and adherence to a problem-centric approach to product development. The size of the market and the first-mover advantage allow for sustainable growth at the later stages.