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How to come up with a product that is truly unique

How do you come up with a product idea that the whole world is not already selling? This is an interesting question that I think every entrepreneur asks him or herself regularly. I don’t have the answer for it, but I can tell you something about how to end up with the answer.

Ban TechCrunch 
The first step is to stop reading start-up media. Any start up media! That’s over – period. These just promote Groupthink and turns your attention to products and services that everybody is already doing. This is why the world is flooded with instant messaging and photo apps and to-do lists.

Think of it as entrepreneur information detox. You need to get it out of your system. If you absolutely need to read something, read something that nobody else reads. I can recommend Kafka’s short stories, Thomas Tranströmers poems or Mike Tyson’s biography.

If you have special knowledge…
Do you know something that most other people don’t? Have you worked in a niche? If you do then think hard about how to leverage that knowledge for a product or service. Is there some problem that is frequent in this special area you know, preferably a problem that someone would pay to get rid of. If that is the case you have your first lead there.

If for example you work in a cinema you may have noticed that it is a problem to clean chairs quickly enough between showings if somebody spilled something. Maybe the solution is a special coating for the chairs, maybe a cover that can be changed.

A good example of a company that did this is Zendesk | Customer Service Software & Support Ticket System. Zendesk started from the founders’ working with customer support systems, which they found to be too complex and difficult to implement and use.

If you have no special knowledge…
If you don’t have any specialised knowledge, which is often the case if you are fresh out of school or have spent most of your youth playing Fifa, there are several options. Think about stuff that you absolutely wouldn’t like to work with. Stuff that would be really boring, disgusting or socially awkward. It should be something you would lie about it if you were telling about it on a first date.

Think along the lines of condoms for dogs, reading stories for senior citizens, avoiding sewage blockage or code review. Now come up with a product/service that would make this thing easier.

“But why would I do something I don’t want to do?” you may ask. The thing is that this is usually a good indicator of what other people think as well and that is where you have the opportunity.

One of my favourites in this area is the company The Specialists who employ people with autism to do tasks that others find tedious like testing. What is incredibly boring or difficult for other people is something they like to do. Another example is Coloplast who makes products for continence care. Essentially they just make plastic bags, but for a special purpose.

Go datadriven
Another option is to find some way to pick up on a demand that is currently not well served. It could be selling niche stuff on amazon, which can be amazingly lucrative (see this thread on Quora). There are even tools for discovering such opportunities like Jungle Scout (Jungle Scout makes product research on Amazon EASY). But there are also other general SEO tools that can give you the same effect like Moz.

Get out into the world..
Now that you have some vague directions you have to go out into the world to find out how to build a business model around this. This takes research about the users and customers, but also about competitors and suppliers. Strategyzer | Business Model Canvas is a good short hand for figuring out what to think about and where to go.

Lean start up, MVP etc…
I’m not going to go into more detail about this here. A quick search will flood you with quality material on how to build a product from an initial idea and turn it into a success.

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Wyldstyle or Emmet? Lego lessons for product managers

This holiday season offered a chance for me to see the Lego movie once again. Since I had seen it once already, my mind, not so tied up with following the action and intricate plot, was free to see the deeper perspectives in the film and put it into a product management context.
At the core the movie is about two different ways of building with legos. On the one hand we have Emmet, the super ordinary, construction worker and his friends who always build according to issued plans. On the other hand we have Wyldstyle and the master builders, who build innovative new creations from what ever is available.
The master builders are the renegades, “the cool kids”, those that fight the evil president business. They are extremely creative and anarchistic. The prophecy of Vitruvius states that the chosen one, a master builder, will save the universe.
When Emmet becomes the chosen one, a certain friction arises because he definitely does not have much in way of creativity or innovation potential. But he redeems himself in the end, because he is able to make plans and have the everyone work as a team. He gets the master builders to work together to infiltrate the corporate offices etc.

Working as a team
So, what does this mean? we could generalise lego building to any kind of building and therefore also building software. There are two modes of creation: the heroic genius way of the master builder  or the dull plan based of the team. Just as in the movie, we in the tech industry celebrate the master builders: we cheer the work of the lone geniuses: Steve Wozniack, Linus Thorvalds, Mark Zuckerberg etc.
But just as Walter Isaacson’s latest and highly recommendable book “The Innovators” show, the geniuses NEVER made anything entirely by themselves. It was always as part of some sort of team effort.
Further, every day the wast majority of software out there is built by lifeless ordinaries like Emmet, who are just following plans. Maybe it is time for their vindication and time to take seriously that software development is a team effort. It is never the result of the mythical master builder and there is no prophecy that a chosen one will save the universe. The ability to work is just as important as being a genius.

Worth keeping in mind for the product manager
In practise there are three lessons we could learn from the lego movie
1) Don’t frown upon a plan. Even if it might be changed along the way, a plan is not a bad thing in itself. Agile development for example is often pitted against plan based development. There can be different kinds of plans like roadmaps, specifications or project plans. Following your gut and just jumping from sprint to sprint entirely on inspiration and a spur of the moment will not suffice. It will, metaphorically, only let you charge towards the front door, while a plan may take you all the way towards the top.
2) There is an I in team – it’s hidden right in the “A” hole. A team effort is a team effort, and if you can’t control your ego you are an A hole. It is  important to keep egos in check, because the power of a team will always be superior to that of any individual.  Most people are not geniuses, but that doesn’t mean that their effort is less worth. The entire team may loose motivation and coordination will diminish if egos prevail.
3) Master builders are great and necessary. It is from the individuals who dare think differently that new impulses come. Prototypes, drafts, wild ideas are the domain of the master builder. He or she is not sufficient, though a crucial source for innovation. It is therefore also necessary to allow room for the innovators in a team, but not so much that their ego takes over, but enough that they don’t wither and die.
As a product manager or any type of manager it is therefore important to keep these three lessons in mind: have a plan, keep egos in check and give room for the innovators.
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Product Management Maturity And Tool Support

A recent report on product management tools by Sirius Decisions has revealed that 50% of Product Managers are looking for product management specific tools.

There are a number of dedicated product management tools, such as those surveyed by Sirius Decisions, yet when you ask product managers only 13% seem to use such tools. What can be gleaned from another survey,  by Product Hunt  is that no dedicated product management tool seems to be on the radar of product managers. At first I thought it was a mistake, so I contacted Product Hunt to verify. The method they arrived at their list was the following

We came up with the PM tools list by polling leading product managers in the industry and that’s what they selected

Being the supplier of one such dedicated Product Management Tool, we wanted to dig deeper into why there were such discrepancies in the market. Looking at the list by product hunt, the tools are all generic tools or for some single purpose, but none were used for supporting a coherent product management process. At least not such as described in the reference models of AIPMM, ISPMA or similar industry standards.

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In the ERP space there are numerous tools that cover for such industry standard processes like Procure-to-Pay or campaign management. So, why don’t we see more tools that support a best practice process, but only tools for either very generic purposes (Trello, Evernote or Excel) or very specific purposes (like KISSmetrics, Streak or Do)?

Maturity

I believe that the reason has to do with maturity. The maturity level a company has is a fairly good indication of what tools will work. If you want to implement SAP in a CMMi level 1 company it is going to be a tough ride, since SAP is wonderful for repeatable processes, and at level 1 you don’t have such. Conversely if you want to implement project management in a CMMi level 5 company with only trello, it might also be a hard sell.

The CMMi model is both loved, hated and misunderstood. Anyhow, given the right understanding and appropriation, I think it is a good framework for conceptualizing maturity.  We have to remember that it is not about any particular process, but a metamodel that stipulates something about the proces that you should follow. therefore it is not a competitor to the ISPMA syllabus or the AIPMM PRODBok. Rather these are particular ways of executing product management process.

Product Management is covered by the Development process in the CMMi model called CMMi-DEV and it should therefore be possible to single out process areas and look at what sort of tool support that fits. In the following I will go through the 5 maturity levels of the CMMi model and describe key processes and give recommendations for optimal tool support.

Level 1 – Initial (Chaotic)

It is characteristic of processes at this level that they are (typically) undocumented and in a state of dynamic change, tending to be driven in an ad hoc, uncontrolled and reactive manner by users or events. This provides a chaotic or unstable environment for the processes. As the CMMi-DEV says:

“Maturity level 1 organizations are characterized by a tendency to overcommit, abandon their processes in a time of crisis, and be unable to repeat their successes.”

There are no particular process areas pertaining to Level 1.

Tool use: Eclectic, Usually Microsoft office suite (Excel, Word, powerpoint)

Recommendation: Select one key part of the product development process to support with a tool (idea management, Bug fixing, development, planning). Find one central place and tool to document. The tool should be tactical and “light weight” and easily customizable

Examples: Trello is light weight and will fit for almost any work proces where you have work items (ie. tasks, features, userstories) that go through phases. Podio is another popular tool where the strength is in its customizability. There are plenty of Apps where one is guarantied to come close to your needs and then you can just adapt it. Uservoice is good if you want to manage the ideation process. Zendesk is for support and will be great if your primary pain is to address and fix users problems.

Level 2 Repeatable

It is characteristic of processes at this level that some processes are repeatable, possibly with consistent results. Process discipline is unlikely to be rigorous, but where it exists it may help to ensure that existing processes are maintained during times of stress.

Here is what the CMMi writes about Level 2:

“Also at maturity level 2, the status of the work products are visible to management at defined points (e.g., at major milestones, at the completion of major tasks). Commitments are established among relevant stakeholders and are revised as needed. Work products are appropriately controlled. The work products and services satisfy their specified process descriptions, standards, and procedures.”

Key Process Areas:

  • PP – Project Planning
  • PPQA – Process and Product Quality Assurance
  • REQM – Requirements Management

Tool Use: Usually one tool is used for part of the process, but often you will see differing tools across different departments in the organisation.

Recommendation: Converge on a common tool to use and focus on lowest common denominator across the people involved in the process. The most important here is that it should be possible to see the status of work products.

Examples: Jira is already used by millions and very good for assuring clarity regarding what is committed and the status of work products, Rally and Version One are similar and flexible. These tools are all good for the above mentioned process areas.

Level 3 – Defined

It is characteristic of processes at this level that there are sets of defined and documented standard processes established and subject to some degree of improvement over time. These standard processes are in place (i.e., they are the AS-IS processes) and used to establish consistency of process performance across the organization.

“A critical distinction between maturity levels 2 and 3 is the scope of standards, process descriptions, and procedures. At maturity level 2, the standards, process descriptions, and procedures can be quite different in each specific instance of the process (e.g., on a particular project). At maturity level 3, the standards, process descriptions, and procedures for a project are tailored from the organization’s set of standard processes to suit a particular project or organizational unit and therefore are more consistent except for the differences allowed by the tailoring guidelines.”

Key Process Areas:

  • DAR – Decision Analysis and Resolution
  • PI – Product Integration
  • RD – Requirements Development
  • RSKM – Risk Management

Tool Use: Usually a suite is used for a part of the process. And use of this is consistent across different departments.

Recommendation: Make sure the tool you have selected is a suite that is tightly integrated with up stream and downstream processes, because when you begin to reap the benefits of being at Level 3 you will usually want to expand the process reach. This is best done if it is already a suite.

Examples: Focal Point is often used for RD and RSKM and is very customizable. Sensor Six is aimed towards DAR and therefore worth considering if you want to focus on that process area. HP Quality Center, Rational Suite are sort of all round and has extensive functionality to support most processes.

Level 4 Quantitatively Managed

It is characteristic of processes at this level that, using process metrics, management can effectively control the AS-IS process (e.g., for software development ). In particular, management can identify ways to adjust and adapt the process to particular projects without measurable losses of quality or deviations from specifications. Process Capability is established from this level.

“A critical distinction between maturity levels 3 and 4 is the predictability of process performance. At maturity level 4, the performance of projects and selected subprocesses is controlled using statistical and other quantitative techniques, and predictions are based, in part, on a statistical analysis of fine-grained process data.”

Key Process Areas:

  • OPP – Organizational Process Performance
  • QPM – Quantitative Project Management

Tool Use: Consistent and mandatory use of a suite for the entire process

Recommendation: Make sure the tool supplies full fledged reporting facilities out of the box and customizable. Visualization is key to success here, because metrics that are not easily visualized are not going to help managemen.

Examples: same products as Level 3, but it is probably necessary to boos reporting: Qlikview, Mixpanel, Gekkoboard are good for visualizations of process trends, but if you need more sophisticated statistical analysis, SPSS, SAS or Rapid miner, to mention an open source alternative, are good options.

Level 5  – Optimizing

It is a characteristic of processes at this level that the focus is on continually improving process performance through both incremental and innovative technological changes/improvements

“ A critical distinction between maturity levels 4 and 5 is the focus on managing and improving organizational performance. At maturity level 4, the organization and projects focus on understanding and controlling performance at the subprocess level and using the results to manage projects. At maturity level 5, the organization is concerned with overall organizational performance using data collected from multiple projects.”

Key Process Areas:

  • CAR – Causal Analysis and Resolution
  • OPM – Organizational Performance Management

Tool Use: The requirements for the tool at this level is that it is “intelligent” and will supply the process with transformative input that is not realized at any earlier levels. It could be intelligent estimation or market analysis.

Recommendation: There are no tools at this level yet, so either it should be integrated with general AI systems or dedicated niche players

Examples: IBMs Watson is an interesting new general purpose AI, that could oprobably be used here. Another example is Qmarkets who supply prediction markets, for improving project delivery by using market dynamics. Employees can “gamble” on what projects or products will succeed.

 Conclusion

There are many options for tool use and many options for process improvement. The best thing is to be very selective and start from the process side. Tools with out a process are like hammers without a nail: they can make a lot of noise. When you know what process areas to focus one you should try to find a tool that suits this area and the maturity level you are aiming for. The tools are all good, but they are built for a particular purpose, so if you use it for something different the result may lack.

 

 

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What product development strategy is right for your start up?

There are two primary product development strategies and multiple ways of executing them, but there is only one that is right for your company. Finding that strategy and understanding the dynamics may be the difference between success and failure. It may also revert your perception of whether you are doing well.

Nicholas Nassim Taleb has an interesting concept of antifragility. Antifragility are strategies that benefit from shock or randomness, where fragility is the opposite.

A fragile strategy is the classical stock investment or lending money where most likely you will get an ok return, but there is the odd chance that you could loose all your money.

An antifragile strategy is counting on loosing money with the odd chance that you could gain a lot. Options trading would be an example. Here the unexpected is your friend.

Product development
I was thinking about how that could translate into product development strategies. Developing a product is similar in that you invest in it and expect to get a return.

The fragile strategy would be to continually try to develop the product so it performs a bit better in the market place. This is the typical way, and we know it from techniques such as A/B testing and constant tweaking to increase performance on some central product parameter. But this is also risky, because suddenly you may wake up and find out that your entire product line is obsolete even though you have continually improved it. This is what happens when companies are disrupted.

So, could an antifragile strategy be the solution and how would it look? I think it would be a strategy where you try a lot of things that are most likely going to fail, with the odd chance that you could hit it big time.

One scenario is launching a lot of products just to try and see. This is what google and Richard Branson do. There is no end to what they launch. A cheaper way to do this is to probe for demand through market research, prototypes or some other way to get input from the customer about the perceived value. The Lean start up movement is the champion of building cheap “fake” products that are good enough to verify a potential demand.

Another scenario is to launch a product in a market that you feel there could be a potential, but where no product has really had any success. Continuing to develop this product is certain to loose money, but something might happen. You may hit the right combination or market conditions could change. You just need to make sure not to make the same mistake twice

Choose the right strategy for you
Choosing one or the other strategy is not not self evident. Whereas the financial system seems to have most people following a fragile strategy it seems that the start up “industry” is following an antifragile, which is great for the very few people who have time, resources and luck enough to stumble upon a product that hits it big time. It seems to me that your choice of strategy should depend on what sort of life you want to live. Is it ok, although very unlikely, to one day not have a product? Can you live with continuing protracted loss? Do you just want a predictable return? or do you want to have the remote possibility to become a billionaire.