Product is a ubiquitous term: we all talk about improving and designing products, and we also have many roles focused on the product: product managers, product designers, product owners. But… what is a product?
It is important to define what a product is, not because of its taxonomic value but because it gives us a frame of reference from which to make product decisions (improvements, design, etc.).
There are plenty of definitions of product, from the commercial ones “any item or service offered to satisfy a need”, to the mechanistic ones “a product is the result of a process”. In other words, a product as an output.
But I would like to introduce a strategic definition of product:
“a product is an artifact that solves user problems with a positive impact on the organization”.
Even better, let’s visualize it to add an extra dimension to this definition.
As you can see, the product is represented with an infinity loop. This is because the product is a continuum between the user and the business. This means that both aspects need to be considered when making product decisions, from commercial to technological decisions.
Note: I usually use “Business” instead of “Organization” in the product definition because most of the projects I work on are for companies, but this definition applies to any type of organization:
- If it’s a for-profit organization, impact is revenue, valuation, positioning, etc.
- If it’s an NGO, the impact is on augmenting the resources that allow it to fulfill its mission.
- If it’s government, the impact is on the benefit to the population.
Marty Cagan and Jeff Patton both of whom come from the world of product also have definitions along these same lines.
Marty Cagan in definition of product states that: “When creating products for the real world, engineering was not enough […]. A successful tech product has to solve for the customer, has to solve for our business, and has to solve for the technology […]”. If you don’t address any one of these three, then the result (the product) is going to be a failure.”
Jeff Patton also defines product but from the perspective of Product Thinking in his classic and indispensable article “The mindset that kills product thinking”. He uses “outcome” to refer to the value for the user and “impact” to refer to the results for the organization. And he adds “If you’re trying to build a successful product you’ll need to focus on outcomes and impact.”
In short, the core idea of defining product from a strategic perspective is that we cannot think of a product without thinking of the business, just as we cannot think of the business without thinking of the users.
If we use the also popular idea of “outcomes over output”, we could define a product as an outcome (the value they bring to both the user and the organization) as opposed to the most common definitions of product as output (product as the result of a process).
What does this new definition imply?
Thinking of a product as a continuum between the user and the organization or in terms of outcome, has important implications for both design teams and product teams (in this category, I also include development teams).
In general terms, this definition implies broadening the perspective.
For design teams in particular, this means incorporating the business vision into their decision-making process:
- What is the product/business strategy? Are our decisions aligned with it?
- What are the results that the organization expects?
- What business and/or product metrics do they want to impact?
For product teams, this means incorporating the user’s vision, which is usually neglected.
In this sense, discovery (done well and purposefully) is not an activity that “takes more time” (and makes us less agile) but that is critical both strategically and operationally.
At a strategic level, understanding users (through Discovery) helps to:
- Make the product more desirable (in technical terms, discovery helps to generate a better fit between product and user).
- Increase the market value of the product and its differentiation.
- Create a product with greater chances of success and valuation (especially important for startups).
- Reduce risks.
At an operational level, incorporating the user’s vision allows to:
- Reduce development costs (reduce refactoring, do not produce features that nobody ends up using).
- Reduce commercial costs (customer care, post-sales support).
In summary, adopting a strategic definition of the product that takes into account both user needs and business objectives is fundamental for the success of a product. And this definition implies that both design and product development teams need to broaden their perspective.
