Today, I give you three (packages of) questions to consider about product strategy:
1) Into which market do you sell your products? Is it a risky one, hardly predictable what will happen to the product? Or is it a boring one where risk is low because everything is known? Do your processes and policies take care of that question or does your organization behave identically for both kinds of markets?
2) Which kinds of product features do you develop for your customers? Are they basic ones that will make your customer unhappy if he misses them but will not make him happy when he finds them? Or do you develop exciting features your customer did not think were possible at all? In that case, your customer will be delighted to see them but will feel neutral if he does not find them. In which kind of features do you invest which kind of work (e.g. automated testing, user experience design work)? How do you plan your releases using that knowledge? Or, do you simply consider all features to be equal?
3) How urgent are the features you develop? What does the customer say: Will his business suffer if he gets one or two features late? Which ones are really urgent because of changes in law, changes in partners (e.g. credit card providers), important calendar dates (trade fair, Christmas)? Which ones can wait but should not wait forever (database upgrade to a later version, transfer of critical programming skills in COBOL)?
Whatever your answers are to these three questions: Make a difference that makes a difference! Do not treat everything alike. Markets differ, customer satisfaction criteria differ, urgency is defined differently for each customer. Why should your product development strategy treat everything alike? You can create more value for your customer and earn more money at the same time if you work differently (and charge differently) for different things.
