Feature Fancy

As a product owner, getting new feature requests is part of the job and it is also a core reason why we have said job. If no filtering took place, and we said yes to everything, could you imagine what your digital experience would look like? I shudder as I picture Netflix meets Twitch chat meets Spotify meets Amazon.

But Brian, why can't I watch TV while chatting and listening to music and shopping all in one spot? It's convenient right? Ignoring the monster binary that would be needed, the terrible UX that would take place to accommodate said experience, and the complexity of structuring your organization to align on this goal, first ask "does a customer even want this?"

I am amazed at how rarely this is brought up in my line of work. The majority of feature requests I received as a PO, and now my team gets as a leader, almost always originate in order to meet a business objective. It usually goes something like this, "if I only had feature x, I would be able to achieve y". Where was the customer in that sentence? Yeah, they were not there...

Being solely focused on your own KPIs has nothing to do with your end consumer. Do you think they care at all about DAU/MAU, revenue goals, or app installs? Of course not! They care about their needs being met in thoughtful, quality experiences that are seamless and fast

Technically, any good team can build any experience - the right question is should they?One of my favorite apps of all time is Spotify. Being honest, I think their UI is sometimes a little underwhelming, but man do they deliver a great experience and keep it simple. Great playlists, great personalization, and easy discovery of new music that I enjoy is their bread and butter. Their simplicity is a testament to their greatness.

This is critically important - the best products take complex elements and make them simple for the end users. Ever cancel an order with Amazon? That one simple button does SO MUCH WORK! It debits my account, gives me a shipping label, offers to have someone pick up my package, and updates my account status - ALL IN ONE BUTTON. Those devs are pure gold - or maybe I should say pure bitcoin given its astronomical rise in value.

As someone that lives and breaths what I do, I beg anyone reading this - please think before you push product to build something. Why should we do this? What is the value to our customer? These simple questions can often solve a lot of busy work for the teams. I waste a lot of time getting data and insights in order to say no to an already bad idea. If the requester would have done their homework and placed the customer first, I would have an awesome backlog that would ensure ongoing success and happy end consumers.