I agree with your thesis Michael. Most companies are in endless feature battles with competitors to see who can have more features. They should instead focus on serving customers. It is a better way for the company as well as customers. A Win-Win alternative.

IMO, every company's products need an identity. There is a certain core set of features that every product requires, and differentiated features that must fit a company's philosophy (as opposed to being in there just for the sake of differentiation). In addition, a steely resolve to fight of 100's of "me too" feature requests from the sales team is essential to successful product development

Hi Michael,
Nothing to do with this article, but to do with the appearance of your web site.

With the dark background the articles in your site becomes difficult to read.

Since i browse through your site from my laptop (ie TFT Monitor) it becomes all the more difficult to read.
Can you please consider using lighter colors to make it readable.

Regards
Srinivasan

Hi Srinivasan,
Thanks for the suggestion! When viewed from my computers (including my laptop), I see white background on articles as shown in this image.

Is this not what you see?

- Michael

HI Micheal,
I truly agree with you ,Sometimes we have to add features to product only coz it is there in the competitive product but might not make much sense from customer perspective

While it's hard to argue with differentiation as a strategy, it is also hard to ignore a "cost of entry" feature. It is easy for all of us to laugh at the notion that a bug tracker would have any value in a CRM application, and at the keeping up with the Joneses arms race that is so typical in most markets, but it isn't always that obvious when you are the one faced with the decision.

For example, a few years ago (say 5 to put a number on it) there were tons of announcements about implementing web services in products. At the time those announcements were being made, it was a trendy thing to have, but offered no immediate value to any customer. If you were a purely customer-focused organization, and adhered to the philosophy of not copying everyone else, but differentiating on your own terms, then you would have ignored the frenzy to re-cast your product as services. And, if you made that decision, you'd be toast today, because you would be either spending gobs of money to play catch up or giving up share to your competitors.

At the time, these infrastructure "cost of entry" features are often hard to recognize and distinguish from "bug tracking" fluff. And, just because one is an advance in the plumbing and architecture, and the other is more purely a feature doesn't give you an easy out. Many supposed world changing plumbing technologies are lieing in the dustbin of history too.

You won't get any argument from me about the value of hewing a different path and adding real value through differentiating, but how do you recommend predicting which features will be "cost of entry" that you'd better get done as fast as you can?

Hi Paul,
Your points are certainly valid. It is indeed hard to know ahead of the time - even Bill Gates claimed that the "Internet" was a fad in 1995! :)

Having said that - I think many companies spend a lot of resources in "keeping up with the Joneses" types of features that they *know* customers don't need and are not "cost of entry".

- Michael

For Paul's question about how to predict which features are 'cost of entry', I'd say by understanding customer needs soundly. This means one has to understand his target market, customer base and their needs. That would helps one know which features are 'cost of entry'.

At most companies, including mine such features (competitor's useless features) are added to the products because of corporate dynamics. What I mean is, someone higher up in the org asks (not "suggests", but "asks") you to do it. It may be your boss, VP of [whatever], CEO and so on.

I'm not sure there is an easy, practical way to overcome this. A PM can stick up for such principles (I agree with your "Rule #1" wholeheartedly by the way) and risk getting fired, or go along with others and keep the job - but release compromised products.

Most PMs I know opt for the latter option and I can't blame them for it. I think this post should be read (and acted upon) by VP of Product Management, more so than by PMs.

Hi Josh,
Welcome back to the blog! You make a valid point - I actually thought about covering this point in the original post, but decided to skip it for brevity.

It is indeed hard to say "No, go away" when your boss or CEO asks for a feature that you know to be useless to customers! However, I think the PM can and should argue his side, and try to "educate" the others (including those higher up in org chart). May be they can print this post and use it as one of the props to make this point!! :)

If after hearing this argument, your higher-ups "instruct" you to do it anyway - of course, you gotta do it to keep the ball rolling.

If this happens all the time and the PM doesn't like it one bit, I'd suggest that the PM quit and go join a company that understands the importance of listening to customers instead of mindlessly copying competitors. Those types of companies are more likely to be successful and more fun for a PM anyways. IMO, always doing things to "keep up with the Joneses" sucks - in life and in business!

- Michael

I think the key is to really have a value assigned to a feature, put the complete list on your website and allow your customers to give a feedback on your ratings.
The ratings given by the customer can give an insight on what customers really want.

Great Post --

I provide an Agile approach to prioritizing product features. Read about it here -- it might be helpful for some:

http://www.shmula.com/158/focus-on-the-customer

Peter Abilla

Did you ever write Part 2 to your article "Sun Tzu on Product Strategy - Part 1"?

Hi Rajakumar,
The short answer is - not yet!

The long answer is - I envision writing not just Part-2, but also Part-3, Part-4, ...

That is - this is a multi-part series, not just two-parts!

- Michael

Hi Michael,

This article helped me a lot in my assignment. Thanks :).

I totally agree to what you have said.
What is your view on prioritization of product features using focus groups?
Apart from that,having read an article by Pine B Joseph and his co authors, I personally believe that if a product manager assumes his/her responsibility to look for "The product for the people" instead of looking "People for the product", then he/she can certainly come up with some very smart ideas about what features to add the product.

I think we should naturally be cautious of competition who's main argument is "faster, better, cheaper." This was also the philosophy of NASA when former Administrator Sean O'Keefe was around, and this didn't always "cut it."

In this regard, its poignant that Sun Tzu said, "The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin." Complacency or mismanagement compromises safety and progress.

As for business competition, its arguably based at least partly on deception. Hence, Sun Tsu says, "when able to attack (our competition), we must seem unable (take them by surprise); when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy..."

Hi,
I found your blog via google by accident and have to admit that youve a really interesting blog :-)
Just saved your feed in my reader, have a nice day :)