Lesson #4 — Implement a Product Development Process
How do you know if the features you’re building are the right ones?
Honestly, there is no 100% guarantee that your features will work. However, if you test your ideas with real customers and ask for feedback — you can iterate before investing heavily in major changes. As a CTO, you are going to say “no” more than you say “yes” to building stuff. You have a finite budget, a team with a fixed capacity and not a lot of time to get things right. You have to prioritise the things that benefit the business — increasing revenue or reducing costs. Therefore, you need a process to determine what to build (listen to the Frank Oelschlager podcast here).
“If the technology doesn’t serve your business objective, then you shouldn’t be doing it.” — Frank Oelschlager (Ten Mile Square)
What does a product development process look like?
Start with a simple list, stick to it and slowly tweak it over time as you grow. You should be pretty certain that the features you bring to market are what your customers want.
Get the feedback from your customers — compile it, analyse it and make it accessible to your team. Don’t just do each thing that your customers ask for — the list may be endless. Categorise the requests and find trends instead.
Align customer requests with your product vision — If your customer requests fit your product vision, add them to the backlog. If they don’t, then ask yourself why. Is it a custom thing? Or, is it just something you don’t want to do? Will your customer pay for the changes (or features)?
Evaluate the impact of the request or new feature — How will it impact existing customers? Will it disrupt current customers or make things easier for them? Generally, if it’s a low-impact positive change, it’s a no-brainer. If not, take a second to evaluate the consequences.
What is your Return On Investment (ROI)? Will your changes impact the top (revenue) or bottom line (profit)? Will they bring in more customers, convert existing customers to a higher tier or reduce internal costs? All of these are good things to consider and prioritise according to your growth strategy.
Verify your assumptions — Once the change has been rolled out, figure out whether your customers are satisfied. If not, tweak your process until you get feedback earlier in the development and testing loop. Ask clearer questions, build prototypes and validate that value exists with real customers ASAP.
Of course, all of the above sounds very simple and straightforward but it’s easy to forget about everything whilst you’re scaling at hyper speed (and everything is falling apart). As a CTO, you are the last line of defence for the business — you need to make sure that your team is focused on creating value for the customer.
Recommended reading: That Will Never Work (Mark Randolph) + The Mom Test (Rob Fitzpatrick)
Take me back to the Startup CTO Handbook >
Go to Lesson #5 - Build IT processes that fit your business
This guide originally appeared on Medium, you can find the original here.