Prioritizing for success: why hunches are no contest versus a clear North Star

Product development is fast paced. When I started in software, releases happened every two to three years. (And many times, longer!) At IFS, we do a major release for our customers every six months.

What makes technology valuable is that it is intimately linked with solving myriad, typically multi-layered, business problems. Throw those things together, and the fun really starts. In product management, the real challenge, is prioritizing which problems, or new product features, should really be at the top of that to-do list.

As SVP for Product Management at IFS, that’s what I wrestle with almost every day. What ideas, and in what order, should we look at? And are we solving problems that are really going to make a difference to our customers in the right way?

Delivering the ‘what?’…but forgetting the ‘why?’

Before joining the amazing team at IFS, I spent time at Microsoft, General Electric and what is now DXC, with a wide variety of roles across the business. I saw a lot of talented people doing a lot of great things. And, just like many big corporate businesses, I saw some things we could probably be doing better.

Along the way, I came to one of the most important realizations in my career: we often get so busy focusing on what we are doing that we forget why we are doing it.

The good news is my nickname when I was a small child was “Why” And no, it wasn’t my parents asking why they had me, but rather every time I was presented with a fact or life lesson, I would ask the person who told it to me, "Why?"

You see, it turns out the ‘why?’ is important. Without the why, there’s no purpose to rally our teams against. And without a purpose, there’s no North Star - no meaningful endgame. In this scenario decision making, and setting priorities to achieve success, both become incredibly difficult.

Rarely in any product can you have a single “North Star.” You end up with multiple outcomes that you must then balance.

Dopamine, kudos and dicey decision-making.

Are we making a decision just because we feel better about ‘making a decision’? Or are we making an informed choice for our company and our customers because it’s the right path to reach a stated end goal?

What tends to happen is that individuals are affected by their own unconscious bias or belief when considering options. Hunches are not a great way to plan development, even though the dopamine kick and kudos may seem rewarding.

In order to succeed you have to overcome preconceived notions. It’s about looking at what others are doing, questioning if your current path is still the best, and asking if there may be yet another way to deliver better results.

Pass me that map…

Once the strategic outcomes are agreed, the next challenge is working out how to get everyone on the same page, aligned to the same goals.

At IFS, we’re transparent about sharing our objectives company-wide and with customers. We set out our ‘Business as Usual’ activities for continuous investment but publish our Strategic Product Initiatives for our focus over the next 12-24 months. Our Business-as-Usual list often includes things that customers don’t ultimately see but impact the creation of great software!

But our focus areas – our strategic initiatives – are the big ideas that have the potential to make a real difference down the line, either for our customers, ourselves or even the world.

For our strategic initiatives to come together successfully, they require sequenced and concurrent work across multiple different teams across IFS.

But if our Product Managers work in silos, we know we cannot make fast, effective progress and decisions. Instead, we ensure each activity track is resourced with multiple cross-functional skills. We create activity teams whose expertise spans several, often very different business areas.

By way of example, one current IFS strategic initiative is around our award winning Service Management application. For that one Strategic Initiative, we have over 10 teams directly contribution to its success as a goal.

Stay savvy. Think ‘what’s next?’….

Constantly looking ahead to ‘what’s next’ in technology for business is what’s helped to put IFS firmly on the global stage. Every six months our senior leadership team comes together to share where we think our horizons for enabling business technology need to be in two, three- and five-years’ time. We’ll all raise and debate myriad different trends and influences.

• What’s happening with our customers around things outside of areas IFS offers a solution for e.g., like Ransomware?
• What’s next in Environmental, Social and Governance reporting?
• How should we evolve our industry cloud strategy?
• How might managed marketplaces evolve?
• Where could AI-based assistants be heading?

And, ever our favorite, how can we give customers even more business value from their data?

Another difference for IFS is the work and demographics of our end users. Many of our users are not sitting in a cushy office. They are working out in the field, or in a warehouse or factory. They’re often periodically offline, perhaps underground or out at sea on an oil rig. They need to access the information they need on a tablet or a phone, maybe with gloves on. And they may be doing it at the top of a wind turbine or drilling gantry wearing a safety harness. We must make sure we focus on their needs when making sure our solutions meet their needs.

Stargazing has its benefits.

This all means that the business problems IFS software must solve tend to be complex. It also means that, just because someone spots a new use case or a cool feature, it does not mean they should simply go off and pursue it alone. Successful development needs to bear scrutiny: Is this worth doing? Why does it matter? And how does it fit within our overall business roadmap?

In short, without being clear on common priorities, any tech company ultimately runs the risk of losing its focus. Stargazing has its benefits: make sure your development teams can follow and track your own North Star.