I asked 5 CPOs what a Product is. Here‘s what they said. (Part 2)

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HERBIG.CO

PUBLISHED

Jun 7, 2024

READING TIME

4 min & 45 sec

Dear Reader,

This is the sequel to last week’s newsletter. You can catch-up by re-reading it here.

What is a Product?

Arne Kittler, Product Org Consultant & Fractional Leader, ex-CPO at Facelift

It can make sense to differentiate the external from the internal perspective even though they ideally lead to the same result. Let me explain:

Externally, a product is a digital solution and/or service that is understood by the user to do one more jobs for them and help them achieve a certain outcome. A product can be marketed as such.

Internally, larger organizations often refer to a more granular set of user-facing capabilities as products to reflect separate areas of responsibility that various cross-functional product teams may have.

This internal perspective can be problematic if the different internal "products" don't correspond with what users perceive as the product: There's an increased risk of disfunctional silos, suboptimal solutions for the users and limitations in accountability the product teams with regards to go-to-market. This is why applying a meaningful org topology is important when deciding on how to cut the scope of teams in a multi-team setup.

Lily Smith, CPO at BBC Maestro, The Product Experience Podcast Co-Host

We have a simple product at BBC Maestro and our Product Managers own high level business goals of part the experience, rather than the end to end product. One PM is responsible for acquisition and the second is responsible for engagement and retention. Then we have a PM who owns the experience for our business customers which is end to end - from acquisition through to offboarding. The Product itself is essentially ‘the business of BBC Maestro’, and each PM owns a key objective of the business. So each PM creates a strategy, owns discovery and the roadmap for their business objective.

Ravi Mehta, ex-CPO at Tinder, Product at Facebook

A product is something that creates value for users — but we need to draw an important distinction about how a product creates value.

A product creates value by delivering utility and entertainment:

Utility delivers a measurable return on investment for users.
Entertainment delivers a desire for users to spend time with the product.

Consider two different cars: a family SUV and a luxury sports car. The SUV is a utility-focused product, and the luxury sports car is an entertainment-focused product. Product builders often assume that utility is more important than entertainment. But, not so in this case and many others. The SUV delivers more utility, yet the sports car is more valuable.

This distinction between utility value and entertainment value can inform work across the product lifecycle. For example, we can rethink the idea of a minimum viable product. An MVP must be both "minimally functional" and "minimally desirable". It must deliver just enough return on investment to warrant the costs and be just compelling enough to win the user's attention. Viability depends on the purpose of the product and the alternatives users have available.

A product is something that delivers utility value and entertainment value to the user — a good product is both functional and desirable.

HOW TO PUT THIS THEORY INTO PRACTICE

Separate Product Scope from Org Chart Scope. Your users don't care about your org chart. Identify distinct experiences that create Outcomes and form and enable the needed teams to deliver on them.
Everything can be a product. Don't limit yourself to externally facing products. Consider internal products or services as well.
Products and Teams can have a 1:1 or 1:n relationship. Teams can be responsible for an aspect of a product, as long as you create tight alignment with the other teams. Don't minimize what a product is just to fit it within one team.

Did you enjoy this one or have feedback? Do reply. It's motivating. I'm not a robot; I read and respond to every subscriber email I get (just ask around). If this newsletter isn't for you anymore, you can unsubscribe here.

Thank you for Practicing Product,

Tim

PS: Part 2 of my "State of Discovery"-Poll is live on LinkedIn. This time, it's about the lead time to insights.

New In-Person Workshop Dates Announced

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(early bird pricing available)

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