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It's hard to define actionable and meaningful product outcomes that help teams solve user problems in a way that works for the business. Let's set your team up for success by taking a look at some common pitfalls in defining outcomes.
A product team’s job is to always create value for the user and in turn create value for the business. At Hike One, we like to apply the habits of Continuous Discovery to cultivate this product mindset, and build products that really make a difference. Continuous Discovery is defined as weekly touch points with customers by the team that’s building the product, where they conduct small research activities in pursuit of a desired product outcome.
The paths we may take to reach our desired outcomes are charted in an Opportunity Solution Tree. It connects what a product team is doing to the company's goals. Since outcomes are the root of the tree, defining them is the first step—and often the hardest, even for seasoned teams.
Let's first take a look at the difference between the business outcome and the product outcome. The business outcome measures if the business is moving forward, whereas the product outcome measures if the product is moving the business forward. That means a product outcome is a user behaviour that occurs within our product and that we can measure. Earlier, we shared the four steps in translating high-level business goals to actionable product outcomes. When your team and stakeholders define outcomes together, beware of some pitfalls we often spot at our clients.
A product outcome is a a leading indicator. This means that it's driving lagging (business) indicators. When product teams start applying Continuous Discovery, they often make the mistake of defining a product outcome that is lagging, even though it’s customer behaviour. The key is to focus on behaviour that’s indicative of something else.
For example, in e-commerce, putting things in your shopping cart is one of the last things users do within our product. We actually want to know what happens before that likely causes or predicts people putting things in their basket. Our product outcome could be aimed at helping people find what they’re looking for.
→ Examples are time to complete a task, click-through rates on search results, browse other products from the same line, browse other lines, browse through more pages, or to stick around for more minutes. Or our product outcome could be aimed at getting people to buy more expensive things, e.g. the amount of products browsed that have a minimum price of X.
Many product teams struggle with how broad or specific a product outcome should be. There's no silver bullet: find what works for your team.
If this is the first time you’re doing this, you’ll probably set a broad outcome because you want to learn about all the ways that you could impact the user behaviour that will lead to business success. And the next quarter, you probably learned what specific behaviour to focus on. Just make sure you don’t pick a traction metric: this is too specific and measures only the traction a feature gets, not actual impact.
→ For example, if this is the first time you're doing this, and you’re focusing on the checkout flow of an online store, you’ll probably set a broad outcome like 'more people start and complete the checkout'. You want to learn about all the ways that you could impact user behaviour within the checkout flow. And maybe you find out that people are having trouble getting through the credit card payment screen. So your outcome for the next quarter will only focus on increasing success there.
Product teams in a new company or product tend to set product outcomes that don't scope the discovery work. If your product outcome is not measurable yet, at least make sure it directs your efforts somewhere.
Never focus on things like ‘get first paying customer’ or ‘find product-market fit’. Check yourself: If every other startup could have the exact same outcome, that's a sign it's not helpful! Start with your target customer profile and value proposition, and define a product outcome that catches the value you hope to create for your customers, even if you don’t know how yet.
When you're just getting started with product outcomes, you may feel overwhelmed with all the levels of the Opportunity Solution Tree, or with how far removed your product team feels from that elusive business outcome. Or you may struggle with combining product outcomes with your company's existing way of working or cadence. Here's four tips from us to ease some of that pain.
When product teams start applying Continuous Discovery, they often ask us: "What if we have a roadmap with all sorts of features on it that we simply have to deliver? How can I start thinking in outcomes in the first place?"
Our advice is to start small and work your way up. Look at the features in your roadmap and make the connection to the outcome that the company wants to achieve with it by asking yourself:
Always focus on the one outcome that will have the biggest impact. Don't get tempted to go for several outcomes at once. We all tend to overestimate what we can actually get done, and we don't want to spread ourselves thin. Accept that it takes time and headspace to understand and structure a problem space, to find valuable solutions to opportunities, and to actually have an impact with those solutions.
Throughout the quarter, you'll be working on several opportunities and solutions, but also one at a time. That means that your prioritised Opportunity Solution Tree will reflect that—for yourself and in your communication with stakeholders.
Think of OKRs as a way to express desired outcomes that all relate to one overarching idea. An Objective is a qualitative statement that should inspire, whereas Key Results are quantitative measures that indicate whether you’ve made any progress towards the Objective. Several product teams could be working on one Objective, and each team could have their own measurable Key Result (product outcome) to work on.
→ Let's say Hike One wants more revenue. Our objective is to help organisations renew business-critical software. The way we measure progress towards that, so our key results, could be more engagement with followers on LinkedIn, more contact with people through our website, or more people attending our webinars.
→ Or let’s go more toward a product, and let's imagine Hike One has an app for people to learn about product management. Its objective could be for more people to apply Continuous Discovery in their work. The way we measure progress towards that could be the amount of learners that track their habits in our app, or the amount of learners that engage with other learners in our app.
You should focus on a product outcome for at least a quarter. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to pick a new one each quarter. Revisit your product outcome by asking yourself the following questions:
If I'm going for engagement, and I defined engagement as usage of feature A, B, and C, at least once a week. But after this quarter, I know that those are not the right features. Or I know that once a week isn't the right timeframe.
All outcomes have a ceiling of diminishing returns. So is this the outcome that will (still) give me the most value for the time I put in (ROI)?
Is there any reason for me to focus on a different outcome, even though I haven't (fully) achieved the current
one? Maybe we learned something that made us pivot, either from interviewing customers or from high-level developments such as the rise of AI or the Covid-19 pandemic.
After defining desired outcomes, it's time to explore the problem space by uncovering opportunities. Then, you can move on to the solution space and find out what you might build to create value for customers, in a way that also creates value for the business. Want to know more about how to define product outcomes that connect user and business? Read more about it.
If you're struggling to define outcomes, or with any of the other Continuous Discovery habits, apply to join our Beyond Design community. We regularly host webinars and events for you to learn from experts in the field and share experiences with peers. Or give us a call for a custom approach.
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