{"id":1732,"date":"2023-10-09T07:27:45","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T07:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/?p=1732"},"modified":"2023-10-09T07:27:45","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T07:27:45","slug":"theres-no-such-thing-as-the-product","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/10\/09\/theres-no-such-thing-as-the-product\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no such thing as \u201cthe product\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Image
Image by Pexels from Pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of the words that get misused or oversimplified, \u201cproduct\u201d is one of my favorites. It creates such an easy image in people\u2019s heads that often is completely inaccurate, especially in the high-tech domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we hear the word \u201cproduct,\u201d we tend to think of this widget that passes hands from one of our salespeople to the customer. We get paid for it and move on with our lives. The product is simple, the sale is transactional and the relationship with the customer ceases to exist once the transaction has been completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, this is of course completely inaccurate for, especially, software-intensive products. There are at least three reasons why the notion of \u201cthe product\u201d is difficult to define in this context: boundaries, integrations and DevOps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, even if it may seem easy to define what the product is and what it isn\u2019t, in practice, there tend to be multiple elements that are part of the overall product. Typically, there\u2019s of course the physical product, consisting of mechanical parts, electronics and software, potentially including machine learning components. In addition, however, there often is some kind of cloud solution to complement the physical product. This cloud solution often provides a set of additional capabilities, including configuration, data-driven insights, predictive maintenance and recommendations. Finally, there might be a mobile app providing an additional interface to the physical system. All these parts, when combined, make up the offering to the customer. Many forget about everything except the physical product when referring to \u201cthe product.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, even in the cases where it\u2019s easy to put boundaries around the product by the organization providing it, customers use the product in a context together with other systems from other providers and\/or internally developed solutions. This causes the product to be integrated with, potentially a plethora of, systems on the customer\u2019s end. In those cases, even if we seek to keep boundaries clear, the customer will force us to lean over those boundaries and take responsibility for the integration. And, of course, it becomes significantly less clear what the product actually is as we\u2019re likely getting paid for taking that responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, virtually all companies I work with are adopting DevOps in some way, shape or form. DevOps results in a continuous relationship with the customer, rather than a transactional one. As you push new software, data collection code and ML\/DL models to systems in the field on a continuous basis, you also need to ensure that the product continues to function as intended. Not just in isolation in the test lab, but also in the specific configuration and integration context at the customer. In many companies, this has led to the business model changing from transactional to continuous as the latter aligns better with the product\u2019s cost structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a lack of clarity around the product, in terms of boundaries, integrations and continuous improvement, is counterproductive, we need to address this. The most helpful mechanism I know of is Clayton Christensen\u2019s model of the jobs to be done. In this model, a product is \u2018hired\u2019 to do a job that the customer wants to get done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cjobs to be done\u201d model reinforces a point that I think is critical to remember: no customer gives a flying hoot about your product. Except for a very small number of luxury products that are solely used for social signaling, customers acquire a product to accomplish a certain outcome. They don\u2019t care about the product itself. In fact, many would prefer to not get the product if there was another way to achieve the same outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an example, I own a car, but I thoroughly dislike it. It takes up a lot of space, services are expensive, it costs quite a bit to drive, parking in the city is a nightmare, and so on. I only own it because I have a job that needs to get done, I have mobility needs and the car proves to be the best way to meet my needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For mature, stable markets, products have clear, well-defined interfaces and most of what I shared so far doesn\u2019t really apply. For technologically advanced products, however, the interfaces are much less clear because the \u2018industry-dominant design\u2019 isn\u2019t developed to the same extent or it\u2019s changing at a much higher rate than for commodity products. Consequently, deeply understanding the continuously evolving \u201cjob to be done\u201d by the product is critically important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of radical innovation where the company is seeking to introduce a fundamentally new product, the customer is often not even clear on the job to be done and what product to hire for it. So, in that situation, closely working with the customer to achieve clarity is most likely the most effective use of our time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although many refer to \u201cthe product,\u201d in practice, it often is unclear what the boundaries of the product are, how it\u2019s integrated with other systems at customers and how it evolves. To address this, companies should focus on the job to be done for which the product is \u2018hired\u2019 by customers. Starting from that understanding can significantly improve the way companies work with their products and it leads to much more clarity as to what the product actually constitutes. As Jay Abraham says, \u201cSell the benefit, not your company or the product. People buy results, not features.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Want to read more like this? Sign up for my newsletter at\u00a0jan@janbosch.com<\/a> or follow me on janbosch.com\/blog<\/a>, LinkedIn (linkedin.com\/in\/janbosch<\/a>), Medium<\/a> or Twitter (@JanBosch<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of the words that get misused or oversimplified, \u201cproduct\u201d is one of my favorites. It creates such an easy image in people\u2019s heads that often is completely inaccurate, especially in the high-tech domain. When we hear the word \u201cproduct,\u201d we tend to think of this widget that passes hands from one of our salespeople to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1734,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions\/1734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}