Google knows how to build great products and experiences.  Not just once, but consistently.

Google started with Search.

Then it was Gmail, followed by AdWords, YouTube, Chrome, Drive, Photos, Maps, Docs, Cloud etc. The list goes on.

How does Google do it?

They leverage a customer first approach to build products.

Where, instead of building features and hoping that customers like it (project centric mindset). They obsess over uncovering their customer’s true needs, discovering the right solution (via experiments), and then building the product. 

And by the way, this “customer first” mindset is not just how Google builds products. Netflix, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and a multitude of start ups all build products the same way.

Let’s dig into both, how digital leaders build products and why they are so successful at it.

(This article is Part 2 in our 3 part series. You can read Part 1 here, and if you enjoy reading stuff like this, consider subscribing to my free newsletter.)

Digital leaders leverage customer first product development practices to build products.

In Part 1, I discussed how products are built with a project mindset. That approach, unfortunately, rarely delivers products that customers love.

Which is why digital leaders created a set of customer first product development practices.  Where they check with the user first and then build the product.  

Here is how it works,

Step 1: Set OKRs

The entire process starts with identifying desired outcomes.

Executives decide on key business objectives, desired results (with metrics), and investment amount by each product area. The Objectives And Key Results (OKRs) are then socialized with the entire team for input and alignment.

Once finalized, they are assigned to a product team that specializes in that area. These teams are persistent (i.e been working with the product for several years and have deep domain knowledge). And are cross functional – at a minimum include, a product manager, designer, and developers.

Depending on where the product is in its lifecycle, the team may create / update the product strategy canvas and conduct a high level risk assessment.

Step 2: Discover solutions (experiment)

Since these teams don’t know what solution will deliver the OKRs.  And guessing (even an educated guess) is too risky.  They begin with discovery.

While there are many ways to experiment (discovery), the process is fairly straight forward….

1. Ideate: Come up with as many potential ideas and solutions that the team thinks will deliver the OKRs
2. Test: Build prototypes of the most promising solution and show it to the users. Use user feedback to narrow down the solution further.
3. Iterate: Repeat the above two steps till the team is confident (with user data to back it up) that the solution will work for the users.
4. Align: Conduct technical feasibility check. Gain alignment with key business stakeholders (legal, risk, sales, marketing etc.). And finally, receive go / no go signal from key executives.

For example, check out the case study on how the Gmail team came up with a 100 ideas for a user experience, prototyped 8, and eventually narrowed it down to 1 key user journey.

This ability to rapidly experiment without writing any code is Google’s true super power. It provides you insight into the future – of what will work and what will not work.

Better to learn now, before the team waste time and money on building something that they “think” will work.

Step 3: Build with confidence

Once the product team has validated that the solution will work – user wants it, can use it, can be built, and will deliver OKRs. They move forward to step 3.

In this phase, the solution is radically tapered down (MVP). The goal here is to build as small as possible. Instead of trying to jam as much as possible in the release. A better approach is to pick a journey, build it, and launch it. At the end of the day, MVP is just another asset that allows you to collect user data from a wider audience.

Also, at this stage the developers and designers take the lead. And since they have been active participants in the discovery. Nothing is lost in translation. They understand the context and know what needs to be built.

Step 4: Monitor impact

Once the MVP is launched, the real work begins.

Unlike traditional product development, the core team sticks around (remember they are persistent). And the first thing they do is monitor to see if the product delivered the desired impact.

The only real difference between this step and step 2, is that the team now collects data from a wider audience.

If the metrics confirm what they saw in discovery, they move on to building the next part of the product / journey. If not they iterate. They learn, go back to the drawing board and start discovery all over again.

For these teams step 4 is just another loop in the feedback cycle. Always looking for data and confirmation that they are on the right track before they commit to building more.

Seven reasons why a customer first mindset produces better results.

In Part 1, we shared with you the challenges of building product with a project mindset.

Lets take a look at each of the issues and see why customer first product development approaches are way better.

#1. Outcome (not output) centric

The entire modern product development process is focused on delivering outcomes.

You can see it throughout the process. Step 1 begins with defining OKRs (outcomes). Step 2 focuses on discovering the right solution that will deliver the OKR. And step 3 on building an MVP to mitigate risks. And step 4, ends with measuring impact so that teams can decide what to do next.

Digital leaders are outcome obsessed. It is in everything that they do.

#2. Empowered teams as default

Modern product development practices firmly believe that the best products are uncovered by doing deep user research.

To do so, teams have no choice but to talk to users, build prototypes, experiment, and arrive at a solution (backed by data).

Which means that instead of executives telling the team what to do (project mindset), the team learns directly from the users and decides what to do. It is them telling the executives what solution will (and will not) work.

#3. Get the most value from your resources

In this process, the core team consists of product manager, developer, and designers.

Doing so, allows developers and designers to influence the product early on. So that solutions coming out of discovery are technically feasible (can be built within time and budget) and user friendly.

Its a win-win for everyone. Business gets value out of IT’s most prized resources and IT gets a true seat at the table.

#4. There is one owner – the core team

In addition to getting the most out of the individual team members (see above), the outcome based process also provides three key benefits at the team level.

First, since all the key stakeholders are represented, the ownership of the OKR begins and ends with that team.

Second, tying OKRs at the team level, encourages collaboration. Their destiny is tied together.

Third, if something breaks, its no longer about pointing fingers. But about learning from it, so that it does not happen again.

#5. You build better products

Modern product development is by its very nature an outward (customer centric) facing activity.

It requires you to spend time understanding the user’s real needs, experimenting with various solutions, validating, and then building. As a result, the teams have a much better chance of building products that users love.

Now that does not mean that you end up creating a hit product each and every time. Even the likes of Google, Microsoft, & Apple are not that good. But it does dramatically improve your odds of success.

#6. Fast & cheap way to build a product

All risks are front loaded when you use a customer first mindset.

Instead of finding out that the product is not needed after you have already spent time and money. Modern product development forces you to discover the right product upfront. And only then spend money building it.

Doing so not only saves you time, money, and resources. And it is by far the most effective and efficient way to build a product.

#7. Provides maximum flexibility

While traditional project centric development forces you down a one way street. Where there is no way to recover wasted time (opportunity cost).

Modern product development tries to prevent you from wasting time in the first place. Since the teams find out very early on the viability of an idea / solution. They can choose to either continue to experiment till they discover the right solution, or stop discovering all together and move on to build something else.

Thus giving you the flexibility that traditional approaches simply cant.

So how do you shift from project to customer centric product development?

It’s not simple.  But it is not as hard as you think either.

It requires executing the following four steps,

1. Identify the gaps in your current product development capabilities
2. Upskill your teams on the key gaps (both the core team and product leaders). You dont need to solve all the problems, just the most important ones.
3. Pick a few lighthouse teams and help them adopt the new practices. This is where you will start seeing positive changes.  Scale to remaining teams.
4. Codify the changes by updating the operating model and internal processes.

In Part 3 of this series, we will deep dive into each of the above steps.

Happy Building!!