John Deere, the farming technology company, encourage product managers and software engineers from urban areas to actively go out and see farmers in action.
They send their people to a fully-functioning farm set up a few miles from the office to learn more about farming.
This is what it means to be customer centric. Knowing that the most important thing you can do to create great products is to deeply understand your customers.
When you do not understand your users' problems well, you cannot possible define value for them.
In product-led companies, this is baked into the culture.
It's about avoid ending up in the build trap where we measure value by the number of things we produce instead of associating value with the outcomes we want to achieve for our business and users.
Products and services are not inherently valuable. It's what they do for your customer or user that has the value - solving a problem, or fulfilling a need or desire.
They send their people to a fully-functioning farm set up a few miles from the office to learn more about farming.
This is what it means to be customer centric. Knowing that the most important thing you can do to create great products is to deeply understand your customers.
When you do not understand your users' problems well, you cannot possible define value for them.
In product-led companies, this is baked into the culture.
It's about avoid ending up in the build trap where we measure value by the number of things we produce instead of associating value with the outcomes we want to achieve for our business and users.
Products and services are not inherently valuable. It's what they do for your customer or user that has the value - solving a problem, or fulfilling a need or desire.
- A great product manager understands the market, how the business works as well as the company vision and goals.
- A great product manager has deep empathy for the users of the product.
- A great product manager needs to be strategic enough to help craft the vision of the product and a strategy to get there, but tactical enough to ensure a smooth execution.
- A great product manager works with the team in developing and validating ideas and in marrying business goals with the user goals to achieve value.
- A great product manager says things like "I think the most costly thing we can do is build this product without knowing it's the right product to build. How do I test it and ensure that this is actually what we want? How do I become more confident that we are on the right path before I invest money in this?"
Transparency
Be transparent. The more leaders can understand where teams are, the more they will step back and let the teams execute.
When leaders don't see progress toward goals, they quickly resort to their old ways: Providing and demanding more detailed information, providing more detailed instructions, and putting more controls in place.
Tell them where you are, what you plan to achieve next and how much money you need to get to those next goals.
How do you avoid the build trap?
Be transparent. The more leaders can understand where teams are, the more they will step back and let the teams execute.
When leaders don't see progress toward goals, they quickly resort to their old ways: Providing and demanding more detailed information, providing more detailed instructions, and putting more controls in place.
Tell them where you are, what you plan to achieve next and how much money you need to get to those next goals.
How do you avoid the build trap?
"Escaping the Build Trap" by Melissa Perri
