Product Management through Options

I’ve been working in new product development and coaching designers to make flexible products and think in terms of options.

Thinking in terms of options doesn’t come natural to everyone. So it’s important to provide examples. While researching a feature (print text documents in PDF) for a new product I ran across Adobe’s PDF Print Engine. Now I could have simply selected any number of PDF writers, but a PDF writer doesn’t provide underlying flexibility. So consider Adobe’s Print Engine. For a small initial investment of development time (let's say around 40 hours) to write the code to engage the engine’s APIs, the application could print documents in PDF. What’s more, this approach creates an array of options I can command and strike the competition with:

• Multi language
• Resolution independence
• Scalable - Handle high print volumes
• Edit PDF at different points in workflow

Of course, the print engine also has the benefits of a product platform.

Anticipating your customer's needs is key to making sure your app product has the right hooks in place, and to positioning options. Your first thought might be, “Well, are customers so confused they are unaware of what they need?” It’s not that they’re confused, it’s that there’s so much change in their world – mergers, new regulations, unplanned competition – they are unable to plan for everything. Indeed, planning may well be obsolete in many business functions. Still, people love their old, ingrained ways.

Have you ever noticed when you present new ideas you’ll meet resistance. But what about... But this... But that... That kind of thinking leads nowhere. Instead of resisting new ideas that don’t instantly click, say “Yes, and...” “Yes, and” is the passageway to the stage of improv-able results.

tags: Marketing, Product Management

Comments

[Eric Brown]

Steve - As always, great post.

Replace the word “app” from the "Anticipating your customer's needs..." sentence with product or service and this piece of advice could be used universally.

[Steve]

Eric,

Thanks for the feedback. You're right -- product is the correct word because this idea should be used with all kinds of product management.