Solutions in search of problems
The dangers of product-centric thinking
Solution-first thinking is product centricity by definition — not to be confused with being product-led, which is a good thing! One of the most common traps a product manager (PM) can find themselves in is having a solution in search of a problem. This can be driven by a new technology like artificial intelligence (AI), a core capability of a company, a specialized skill of the PM, or an executive push to deliver a specific product vision. The initiative is doomed if it doesn’t begin with a true understanding of the progress a potential customer is seeking (the job-to-be-done, JTBD, or “job”) and what gets in their way of making that progress. Things that get in the way of making progress are something Bob Moesta, co-architect of the jobs-to-be-done theory, calls “struggling moments,”¹ and this is where truly great product craft can happen if you avoid the pitfalls of product centricity.
Here are five key issues with product centricity and solution-first thinking:
1 — Solutions are fleeting.
“It’s easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out of date.” — Roger von Oech
While jobs-to-be-done last a long time — some say they are eternal — solutions don’t have the same permanence. Experiences, environments, and expectations change over time, and the best solution to fulfill a given job will change as well. For example, people have always had a job-to-be-done of learning the news. Long ago, a town crier may have fulfilled this job. With the invention of the printing press, came newspapers and magazines. Later radio and television offered solutions, eventually 24/7. Next, websites and email delivered news. Later, mobile apps, podcasts, and social media serviced the same JTBD. Organizations that are most focused on a particular solution struggle most to evolve with changing user needs and preferences. Product people must stay close to the fundamental progress their users seek, independent of the mechanism, to avoid the thrash that comes with investing further in an outdated solution.
2 — Product centricity stifles innovation.
“I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.”² — Abraham Kaplan
When teams start with a solution in mind, they are less likely to consider new ideas and perspectives. The boundaries are already set. Assumptions have been made. Product-centricity is de facto convergent thinking. Ground-breaking new ideas do not flourish in this environment. The team’s ability to explore entirely new approaches and to revisit prior assumptions is limited. Challengers and big thinkers get in the way at this stage! Stakeholders may debate design characteristics rather than innovative ways to deliver new user value. This is especially problematic in markets that are changing rapidly, where broad creativity and new ideas are essential, creating opportunities for new entrants to disrupt more established incumbents.
3 — Solution-first thinking is expensive.
“It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.” — Winston Churchill
To build the envisioned solution, a team is forced to make many assumptions at once about user needs, aspects they value, and the dynamics of the market. Some assumptions will inevitably be wrong. However, it is difficult to identify which ones when the end-state is already assumed. Even if a team member manages to invalidate a key assumption (a valuable discovery!), there is no clear mechanism for change when the organization is expecting a specific solution. Even if a pivot can be agreed upon, the complexity of unwinding stacked assumptions makes for an even more expensive proposition. Teams often hang on for longer than they should because of the sunk costs already invested. A lot of time can be lost in this quicksand.
4 — Success is unclear.
“Don’t confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but doesn’t make any progress.” — Alfred Montapert
Due to those stacked assumptions mentioned earlier, it can be difficult to know how to measure success (or failure) in solution-first initiatives. “Launch,” clicks, or even feature usage do not tell us whether the initiative has actually created incremental value for the user, a pillar of Customer-centric Product Management (CCPM) critical for sustainable business growth. These metrics measure output derivatives rather than outcomes. Outcomes are harder to set targets against when the team has started with the solution in mind. PMs will feel that the goal posts keep moving as stakeholders each point to their own metric-of-interest with disappointment. Teams will debate interface characteristics of the product rather than the value the user is not experiencing from those interactions. This is an optimization trap. The truth is that the criteria for success was never properly aligned with customer and business objectives.
5 — Solution-first thinking relies on a visionary.
“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology. You can’t start with the technology, then try to figure out where to sell it.”³ — Steve Jobs
It’s a myth that product visionaries are immune to product-centric failures. Even Steve Jobs understood that you can’t start with the technology. A product-centric conductor is usually someone that teams follow without much questioning. Perhaps they have a track record of being right in the past. Maybe they have a lot of power in the organization. Confirmation bias is hard to avoid when a solution is dictated from above. The more tenured a leader is, the more likely they have ingrained product-centric thinking and the more important it is that they resist the urge to push solutions. Even in the best case scenario, where a visionary prescribes an amazing product, when the visionary moves on to their next priority (or leaves), the team will be rudderless to continue the work without thoroughly understanding the dynamics of the underlying job-to-be-done, leading to another reboot and sometimes, a new leader.
Solution-first thinking overlooks so much value-connected context. It skips steps. Product-centricity is the “build it and they will come” strategy. It is built on assumptions. These approaches cloud an essential understanding of what users find valuable (and the ability to measure it) by starting with what an organization can deliver. The North Star becomes the envisioned end-state experience rather than an objective rooted in customer progress. While the concepts may present well, they are not a proxy for the value that will be perceived by users. In customer-centric product management, the customer is the central economic unit, and it is most important for product teams to prioritize work that delivers more value to users. Start with the fundamental premise of helping customers achieve the progress they seek. The rest stems from there. Where more customer value is created, the opportunity to capture more business value expands.
¹ Moesta, Bob. “Want Your Product to Succeed? Then You Need to Understand the ‘Struggling Moment.’” Medium, 6 Sept. 2022, bobmoesta.medium.com/want-your-product-to-succeed-then-you-need-to-understand-the-struggling-moment-47eed7a68002
² Abraham Kaplan (1964). The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co. p. 28. ISBN 9781412836296.
³ “Steve Jobs Insult Response.” YouTube. 1 Dec, 2016. https://youtu.be/oeqPrUmVz-o
this article was originally posted at Scul.ly on Feb 26, 2024