4 Steps to Building a Great Product-Focused Organization

1. Create a strong, clear and flexible road map.

Great product-focused organizations have a short-term (12 months), mid-term (24 months) and long-term (36 months and beyond) vision as to where they want to go and how to get there. This unified view, or "north star," is what guides all product-development decisions the company makes. Product-focused organizations recognize the importance of focus and getting all internal team members on the same page.

2. Conduct user research and product discovery.

With social media and our hyper-connected world, we can regularly engage with customers to test and better understand how and why customers use products. We also also need to recognize the difference between a new and repeat customer and their differing behaviors that change over time.

Ultimately, the goal is to understand the problems and commonalities among all customers. To accomplish this, your product team should be asking these simple questions:

·         What problem are we solving?

·         For whom are we solving this problem?

·         How does solving this problem fundamentally move our business forward?

·         Does this fit into the long-term strategy?

Great product teams spend 80 percent of their time understanding, challenging and validating every assumption they have with customer feedback and adjusting their strategies accordingly.

3. Test, measure and understand.

All companies generate product ideas. Great companies, however, know how to cultivate and nurture the best ideas. They also understand that ideas can and will come from throughout the organization, from the founder to a salesperson to a client

4. Communicate regularly and transparently.

Feedback cannot be effectively used to improve upon a product idea unless the entire organization has constant, consistent and honest communication, both internally and externally.

Internally, make sure all organization team members know and understand the process outlined above. This allows everyone in the company, not just the product team, to understand how products are vetted, developed and iterated. Make sure customer support is synced with the product team so all members are ready and able to answer incoming questions.

source: entrepreneur.com