3 Product Prioritization Pitfalls to Avoid

May 16, 2011

A product’s success is highly dependent upon management’s ability to effectively prioritize product development in a way that best utilizes its competitive advantage and ensures that its products satisfy the needs and wants of its target customers.
Below is a list of 3 product prioritization pitfalls that product managers must avoid:

1. Making product improvements in areas where customers are already satisfied.

    Oft times companies will get into performance races with competitors and lose sight of their customer’s actual needs and wants or they will become overly focused on one or two performance specifications and lose touch with their customers.

    For example, many companies in the consumer printer manufacturing industry made this misstep in the late 1990s and early 2000s when they dedicated all of their focus on increasing the total pages that their printers could print per a minute when customers had already indicated that being able to print 20 to 30 pages per a minute was sufficient for any type of household use. Similarly, MySpace dug its own grave a few years back when it focused its strategy on maximizing page views to increase ad viewership and did so at the expense of the overall user experience. Ultimately, this decision led to the site falling out of favor with users.

    2. Making product improvements that resolve unimportant product issues or develop unnecessary product functionalities.

      Another common misstep is when companies focus on what can be done versus what should be done. This mistake often leads to unnecessary product functionality developments, which increases production costs and makes the product less competitive in the market place. This misstep also leads to a misallocation of company resources, which adds an expensive opportunity cost to the product cost equation as well.

      3. Making product improvements that negatively impact other functionalities and product specifications.

        Many times new product developments will come at the expense of other product feature trade-offs. Oft times companies don’t consider how the new product development trade-offs will affect the user experience and customer satisfaction when assessing a new product opportunity and thus are not incorporating all of the actual costs into their assessment of whether or not to implement the new product functionality.

        This misstep can alienate previously satisfied customers. A classic example of this misstep is with cell phone manufacturers in the early 2000s who decided to continue pushing the limits of size at the cost of battery life, usability and signal capabilities despite customers signaling that they were content with the smaller phones on the market like the Motorola Razor. Ultimately, this misstep led to a huge shift in market share from Nokia over to Motorola. Many of these product prioritization missteps can be avoided by developing target buyer personas based on information you learn from your voice of the customer research and customer profiling analytics, and then evaluating how each product enhancement would influence each buyer persona’s willingness to purchase your company’s product.

        If you are interested in learning more about product management, you should read my previous blog posts on assessing new product opportunities and designing and implementing a product scorecard. Similarly, if you are interested in learning more about the product management process and organization management design, I highly recommend reading Inspired by Marty Cagan or reading his company’s blog.

        Marketing Manager, Pricing Strategy

        <strong>Brandon Hickie</strong> is Marketing Manager, Pricing Strategy at <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a>. He previously worked at OpenView as Marketing Insights Manager. Prior to OpenView Brandon was an Associate in the competition practice at Charles River Associates where he focused on merger strategy, merger regulatory review, and antitrust litigation.