Comments on: Technology is not better if it does not add value

By: Software Marketing: Benefits Vs. Features | Smart Software Marketing

Software Marketing: Benefits Vs. Features | Smart Software Marketing — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:01:02 +0000

[...] Technology is not better if it does not add value [...]

By: Justin T. Smith

Justin T. Smith — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:24:14 +0000

One approach to understand what, as Steven Haines said, motivates the “who” and how they “do what they do,” is paying carful attention to how we define product features, the problems the solve and the technology that enables those features.

This “virtuous triangle” must rest on features as the customer-oriented view of ‘what’ a product can do for the problems that ‘who’ experiences, then defining ‘how’ to satisfy those goals with some specific technology.

*specific* technology implementation should be brought into the equation only when you understand ‘what’ your product is going to achieve (through its features) for ‘who’

Cheers,
Justin T. Smith

By: Michael Ray Hopkin

Michael Ray Hopkin — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:55:48 +0000

Great post and compelling comments. One additional thought comes to mind: as product managers we need to be tuned in to the market. Whether technology solves the problem is not usually the important question. More important is understanding the problem/market opportunity and finding the best solution. If/how technology gets applied comes after.

By: Guna Cemballi

Guna Cemballi — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:19:31 +0000

I like this posting with specific examples for the well known phrase, “Add Value Not Features.” In addition to following this, by also focusing on how a new feature translates to money for the company, a product manager can really maximise the return on investment on new features.

By: Steven Haines

Steven Haines — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:29:54 +0000

As I write in my book “The Product Manager’s Desk Reference,” unless you understand what motivates the “who” (the customer target – not just any customer) and how they “do what they do,” no degree of technology will be worthy of investment.

By: David Locke

David Locke — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:06:52 +0000

In Guide to Growth, a new book by partners in Christensen’s consulting firm, the authors talk about how putting a lot of features into a product invites competitors with a more focused offer to enter the market.

It’s more that doing the job and no more is better than more or less features. Features get thrown in without regard to whether they contribute to getting the users real work done.

Technology is neutral to getting real work done, except in the case of IT work.

By: Paul M. Banas

Paul M. Banas — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:32:03 +0000

I think you can add the wisdom of this post to the one you wrote a while back on adding too many features to a product.

You see this in many tech products, where over engineered products that are technical marvels, but don’t address consumer needs, lose out to simpler and more user friendly designs.

The Nintendo Wii and the iPhone aren’t technically more advanced than their competitors, they are just designed in a way that normal users can use the products intuitively without reading a phone book sized manual.

By: David Locke

David Locke — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:39:37 +0000

Sales reps use the FAB framework. FAB is features, advantages, and benefits. They sell the steak, the benefits. They use features as criteria to answer the questions around parity and difference. They know that advantages are fleeting.

Advertising seems to get stuck in competitive claims around advantages. Try to market through specifics.

I once had to sell a framework written on the underlying vendor’s latest technology. That technology was only supported in one point release of the product. Then, it vanished, and with it went our market. The technology was better, but not better enough.

Technologies, products, services, and vendor operational processes should aim at constraints on current practice. They should either loosen a constraint or remove the constraint. This is where the real benefit of a technology, product, or service can be found.

We should be encapsulating our technology. It will show up at the user’s level as installation or use requirements.

When dealing with a technology, move when you must, or span and sublimate–eliminate technology choice by supporting all the vendor specific instances–to expand your market.

Supporting a technology is a cost. Supporting a technology deeply costs more and may require a dedicated team. Supporting a technology can also drive your release schedule.

By: Winnie Chau

Winnie Chau — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:33:39 +0000

I am very impressed with paying visit to customer for experiencing the real wireless networking environment.

I am product enginner for industrial hardware with customers being software or solution houses. I wonder how should I balance between interests of software / system architecture engineers and “end” users which are public citizens – Now I put the later much heavier than the former

By: Jay godse

Jay godse — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:00:32 +0000

I like the emphasis on focusing on customer value instead of technology value. It is hard to do when a technology makes a segment of a single value stream much more valuable, but not necessarily the whole value stream.

P.S. Please use a spell checker on your posting.