While developing a product, a Product Owner/Product Manager (POPM) takes into account the feedback of the development team and customers. Each perspective highlights new issues, suggestions, and opportunities, which continuously changes product development. Customers may highlight frustrations and feature opportunities, while the team may highlight bugs and technical difficulties that may arise during the development process.
Balancing these insights helps in making the best decisions regarding the product’s development. A POPM must learn to understand both perspectives and translate them into action items.
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Why Should a POPM Balance Customer and Team Feedback?
Customer feedback helps a POPM understand whether their product solves real-world issues. Their feedback helps identify issues in the functionality of a product and potential features and improvements that can improve the product quality. Not acknowledging this feedback makes the product less viable for its target audience, which can affect business goals.
On the other hand, development teams have practical insights into what can be achieved realistically. Their feedback helps highlight technical issues like bugs, the realistic time a product might take for development, or the difficulties that may arise during the creation of a certain feature. These insights help teams avoid unrealistic deadlines and the accumulation of technical debt that may arise from the pressure of delivering product increments.
When a POPM balances insights from these two groups, it helps in developing products that acknowledge its customer’s opinions but also understand the constraints and limitations of its team.
How Can a POPM Balance Customer and Team Insights?
Understand the Product Vision and Goals
A POPM can balance insights by understanding the overall goal of a product and assess feedback based on whether it helps reach that goal. A customer’s feedback may be valuable but not necessary for the overall product vision. Likewise, insights from the development team can highlight issues and observations that can affect the product in the long run. This point of reference can help the POPM discern between effective feedback and mere opinions.
Listen to a Customer’s Feedback, But Do Not Always Act on It
Customer feedback is valuable because it shows how a product is viewed by the public. However, it does not mean that the team needs to address each insight and make changes.
Before a POPM acts on customer feedback, they need to identify whether there is a pattern to it. For instance, if several customers express frustration or desire the addition of a feature, it may become feedback that the team should address to improve the product’s quality. However, if the feedback comes from only a few customers and does not pose a genuine issue to the user experience, the POPM can treat it simply like valuable insights. A few or individual opinions should not change the direction of a product roadmap.
Let Developers Contribute During Task Prioritisation
The developers play a fundamental role in ensuring that features in a product are delivered. However, when excessively large or complex tasks are prioritized without the consultation of developers, it leads to teams racing against time to finish work before a deadline; this can lead to the compromise of product quality and the accumulation of technical debt. The POPM should allow the development team to contribute to task prioritization because of the technical insights they have regarding it. For instance, the time a work item will take to complete, the architectural nuances that may arise in the development of a feature, and how it can affect the product vision in the long term.
Product backlog management helps the teams prioritize work realistically and effectively. When developers are able to contribute to these discussions, Agile teams have a high chance of delivering valuable product increments.
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Evaluate Feedback Based on Value, Impact and Feasibility
A good way to balance feedback from customers and the team is for the POPM to prioritize the impact, value, and feasibility of it with regard to the required business goals. Below are some metrics that can help evaluate the importance of feedback received:
- Business value
- Urgency
- Customer Impact
- Technical Difficulties
- Development Effort
Establish Feedback Loops
One of the best practices to ensure that there is balanced feedback between customers and the development team is to ensure that the POPM is in constant communication with both groups about decisions made regarding the product. When a customer’s feedback leads to the creation of a feature, the team should have clarity as to how the feature enhances the product’s vision. Likewise, if a team’s input influences a product’s decision; it is important for stakeholders to understand why certain priorities may have changed.
Conclusion
Balancing customer insights and team feedback helps a POPM make informed decisions that can lead to better product decisions and valuable product outcomes. By taking customer needs into account with technical constraints, development time, and business value, the POPM can make decisions that value the customer while also keeping the quality of the product intact. Regular feedback loops with both groups establish transparency and enable different parties to align on common product objectives and goals.
