Outcome-driven development – interview with Gijs Hendrix of Convious

The CTO vs Standing Quo sequence attracts consideration to how CTOs problem the present state of affairs within the firm to push the enterprise in direction of new heights … or to put it aside from doom.

Be versatile or break – the case for outcome-driven growth

Is the standard roadmap that rigorously particulars all duties to be executed in 1 / 4 or perhaps a yr turning into out of date? Gijs Hendrix believes {that a} massive replace is required. The long run is unsure, and for those who go ahead together with your nostril in such a roadmap, you received’t discover all of the alternatives round you.

To vary this, you don’t want a greater cartographer. You want a distinct angle. Hearken to Gij discuss:

• the connection between product imaginative and prescient and outcome-driven growth,
• the significance of multi-level alignment in working with outcomes effectively,
• the position of product discovery in fostering an outcome-driven group tradition.

The upgraded roadmap and a written discovery artifact are merely the results of these issues. They’ll come to you whenever you least count on them to, so ensure to stay round and say hey to Gijs!

About Gijs

Convious – the imaginative and prescient to assist and encourage

Sławomir Turkiewicz: Hey Gijs. Thanks for participating in CTO vs Standing Quo.

You solely began at Convious final September. The corporate delivers a platform that helps vacationer sights provide a terrific digital expertise to their purchasers. How do you put together your self for the position of a CPO in such a extremely specialised trade?

In my earlier product roles, I’ve labored on horizontal merchandise used extensively in numerous industries and firms. One key problem with a horizontal product is selecting what to concentrate on.

A typical startup would possibly attempt to get as many purchasers as attainable. It’d find yourself with clients in 10 industries in a couple of years. Then, it would uncover that these purchasers have very totally different wants going ahead.

One of many the reason why I joined Convious is that it operates in a predefined area of interest. The shopper base is rather more clearly outlined in a mannequin like this.

In fact, there’s nonetheless a whole lot of variability within the leisure market. However total, the purchasers, whom we think about our companions, are inherently extra aligned with the merchandise I labored on earlier than. That makes it simpler to create worth for lots of shoppers on the identical time.

The variability is certainly there. You serve theme parks, zoos, museums, wellness facilities, and waterparks, to call simply a very powerful varieties. Every place faces distinctive issues. A serious one appears to be offering a specialised product to every one whereas remaining straightforward to make use of for everyone.

As you mentioned, horizontal merchandise wrestle with that specifically. However can Convious actually keep away from overcrowding its apps with options with so many buyer varieties?

What all our clients have in widespread is that they’ve an operation to run, which takes up a whole lot of their time. Usually, they’re not within the software program enterprise. They don’t have massive IT groups. 

We have to present them with an e-commerce and advertising answer that gives a terrific customer expertise and saves them time. Subsequently, it should be straightforward to make use of for his or her operations. We at all times bear in mind these assumptions after we construct options, which helps us retain our focus.

Some options are complicated by necessity. It’s a strong instrument. Sure product components are solely helpful for a choose buyer base, comparable to the flexibility to make use of time slots.

A giant theme park with a capability for 10,000 folks can use the characteristic to allocate time slots to scale back lengthy queues. However for them, it’s not a crucial characteristic. They’ve loads of room to accommodate folks throughout the entire day.

Against this, the area accessible to an indoor playground is rather more restricted. What’s extra, folks come over for a selected period of time. Time slots are crucial to operating a enterprise effectively and orderly in a setup like this.

To fight characteristic overcrowding, we provide totally different configurations in order that companions don’t waste time sorting by options they don’t wish to use.

So, regardless of serving a specialised market, you continue to have a whole lot of flexibility.

You might say that. Furthermore, we observed that these totally different buyer verticals might be taught from one another.

One in every of our clients is an indoor venue that gives actuality experiences. These happen in small rooms. The shopper makes use of the time slot characteristic to supply a number of time slots with a restricted capability – they’ll solely match so many individuals in a room. For them, time slots are crucial. They want to ensure they don’t promote too many tickets, however on the identical time, as many as they’ll. It’s straight tied to their income. As we assist them with this, we discover that different companions additionally start to precise extra curiosity in time administration.

One zoo started providing a distinct expertise along with its conventional common admission mannequin. It means that you can assist a zookeeper feed animals. This expertise is much like the VR venue, involving small teams at particular time slots.

The zoo adopted one other of our clients’ examples and created an revolutionary product and expertise. This reveals how we, as a software program vendor, may also help cross-pollinate concepts from one vertical to a different by showcasing examples and highlighting greatest practices by webinars and different advertising ways.

Issues over options

Issues and options are what I needed to speak about at the moment. One in every of our first visitors, Mika from Smartum, talked about a challenge through which a dialogue about including a blue button led to constructing one thing else totally. It turned on the market was a better solution to remedy the issue. He advocated beginning a product dialog by discussing person issues first.

But many tech corporations nonetheless assemble a characteristic roadmap for months or years to come back. Why do you assume this occurs?

The query of whether or not you have to be output-driven or not has been answered by now – outcome-driven growth is nicely value pursuing. This strategy reduces waste and helps the crew use their time extra successfully. Nevertheless, corporations wrestle to bridge the hole between principle and on a regular basis apply.

To start with, going from zero to full outcome-based growth is simply too massive of a change. You should do it regularly.

Product administration, specifically, likes showcasing good examples of outcome-driven groups. It generates a whole lot of anxiousness amongst folks in an setting the place they’ll’t simply abandon characteristic roadmaps. Criticizing them will not be useful. That’s why I’m a giant fan of the Toyota Approach pillars – respect for folks and steady enchancment. It’s about making steps in the fitting path. You’ll be amazed for those who look again a yr from now and see what you’ve achieved.

Furthermore, outcome-driven growth can’t be initiated from the underside up. The initiative has to come back from product management. They should clarify to all people why that is related and start implementing adjustments within the day-to-day workflows.

Let’s discover why corporations use characteristic roadmaps as an alternative of an strategy primarily based on person issues.

Some blame leaders’ tendency to impose their will on folks. They wish to dictate an inventory of options and see them applied – a top-down strategy. I ponder how prevalent this strategy is at the moment within the period of self-managed groups.

Corporations aren’t democratic. If the product management doesn’t assist transferring away from the feature-based strategy, people can’t change their mindset. Nevertheless, in case you are able of energy, you are able to do rather a lot to foster a change regularly.

You should create optimistic examples. Chances are you’ll promote knowledge analytics and the usage of knowledge to tell low-level decision-making. If you happen to get good insights about what folks do together with your product, you’ve got one thing you should utilize in a dialogue with the remainder of the administration.

We preserve speaking in regards to the Roadmap. The phrase suggests that there’s a highway you possibly can journey on to some vacation spot. However evidently you have to construct the highway whenever you wish to innovate. Is the roadmap merely a unsuitable metaphor?

I feel it’s not possible to take away the expectations from the phrase roadmap. So, personally, I’ve determined to maintain the phrase however change its that means just a little and push it in a greater path. We even have a roadmap at Convious. There are two causes.

First, within the B2B world, massive clients have urgent wants. They should estimate whenever you’ll be capable of meet them and a few readability about timelines.

Second, the product and engineering groups additionally want some readability in regards to the order of issues. So does the advertising to supply promotional content material and whatnot. It’s about coordination.

I made a decision to problem the standard roadmap – the type that has an aura of nice specificity about it and tells you what you’ll be doing on August twenty third this yr. A roadmap like that is at all times a lie as a result of it’s set sooner or later, which is unsure.

The reply I discovered is the now-next-later roadmap. Because the title says, it solely specifies what to do now and within the instant future. It could additionally embrace an inventory of issues on our radar that might be specified later. These things ought to solely have imprecise, imprecise timeline commitments.

This strategy is consistent with what John Cutler calls suitably detailed roadmap gadgets. The instant merchandise on the timeline is detailed, however issues get more and more imprecise because the timeline progresses. The present and subsequent merchandise ought to describe what downside it solves, who it’s for, deadlines, and all the things. The remainder is rather more imprecise. In fact, every assertion ought to nonetheless begin from an issue, not a characteristic, to make it align with outcome-driven growth.

That’s one solution to make a roadmap extra versatile. It’s value contemplating as a result of I imagine speaking about what you do and when it will likely be prepared continues to be crucial.

Some imagine that the strain from stakeholders additionally contributes to the present panorama. Buyers or top-level administration wish to know the place you’re heading. They don’t wish to hear that you just’ll determine it out as you go.

Precisely. That’s why you must talk with traders utilizing the imaginative and prescient slightly than the roadmap. Right here at Convious, we now have the imaginative and prescient to vary the leisure trade. The roadmap is only a results of this.

It takes work to inform an excellent story that is smart to all people. You should begin by explaining why you exist, then transfer quarter by quarter and present a logical development of your efforts. You clarify what you concentrate on now and what you is perhaps into within the following years. This units priorities for the second.

Talking of your organization’s imaginative and prescient, it seems to be prefer it not too long ago helped you safe one other funding spherical. Why do you assume traders selected to imagine in you?

We talked about what’s fascinating at Convious earlier. The identical worth proposition that excited me to affix the corporate additionally attracted traders.

In fact, I’m speaking about our clear concentrate on a selected kind of operators and on enhancing their customer expertise. Our purpose for being, so to talk, is so evident that the imaginative and prescient nearly writes itself.

Consequence-driven growth is the proper instrument to make the imaginative and prescient come true. You’ve got challenges, and that you must determine an inventory of quick—and long-term outcomes or objectives to realize to beat them. So, what’s outcome-driven growth to you?

It ensures that each minute spent within the growth course of contributes to the corporate’s objectives. And the objectives, as you mentioned, come from the imaginative and prescient. However let’s get a bit extra particular.

The first goal of outcome-driven growth is to forestall waste on the product aspect. You waste your engineers’ valuable time whenever you construct one thing the person or your group doesn’t want. Few organizations can afford to try this in the long term, particularly startups or scaleups.

As a frontrunner, that you must make environment friendly selections. There are two ranges to this: high-level and low-level.

On a excessive degree, you’ve got selections comparable to: Must you proceed with a geographical growth or concentrate on an current buyer base? Or must you spend money on enhancing system stability or new options? At Convious, we might focus on operators or particular person ticket patrons. On a low degree, it’s about discovering the easiest way to proceed in a selected high-level path. It includes the choice of applied sciences, strategies, and processes. 

Consequence-driven growth helps you and compels you to set these high- and low-level aims, however it doesn’t decide easy methods to obtain them.

Consequence-driven growth – metrics

Let’s focus on outcome-driven growth, then. Committing to an final result as an alternative of a characteristic sounds good on paper, however it is probably not straightforward to implement. Reaching an final result ought to create enterprise worth, which should be measurable to confirm.

How do you select the very best outcomes to comply with?

I are likely to view these selections as bets. As a administration crew, you need to make bets, and every one has important penalties for the product.

One such wager for Convious was geographical growth. We at present function primarily in Northwestern Europe. Some knowledge means that the US could possibly be a pretty marketplace for us. We’re betting now that focusing time and power on enabling a US growth is extra essential than different outcomes we might pursue.

There isn’t any straightforward solution to decide the very best outcomes to your firm. You want an excellent sense of your organization’s objectives and imaginative and prescient after which choose enterprise metrics related to them. When selecting objectives, as a frontrunner, you’ll have to say “no” many extra instances than you’ll say “sure.”

When you outline these objectives, you have to determine easy methods to allow them. That’s whenever you get to extra of the low-level outcome-driven growth.

In my expertise, the extra time you spend determining what you need upfront, the much less time you will want to construct the characteristic. The possibilities you’ll make one thing that gives true buyer worth enhance, too. That’s why at Convious, we at all times do thorough analysis and discovery earlier than we begin writing any code.

What number of such outcomes ought to an organization select when it first takes this strategy? Ought to it start with one or two outcomes or go all out from the beginning?

No mounted quantity exists, however you shouldn’t select too many outcomes concurrently. You possibly can solely prioritize so many. It will depend on the scale of your organization and the character of your product.

I see how this prioritization poses some challenges. When one crew prioritizes web page load as a metric, they might suggest eradicating some options that positively affect UX or conversions.

The best way to stop this type of battle of priorities between totally different metrics and groups that champion them?

I’ll be upfront and say that it’s approach simpler to do in a smaller firm. My expertise additionally comes from such corporations.

However the identical ideas apply in every single place. You want an excellent steadiness of crew autonomy and the flexibility to resolve battle between outcome-driven groups pursuing totally different objectives.

On a course of degree, you have to focus on upfront what you’re going for as an organization. Every crew can participate in these discussions and counsel outcomes that align with the general path. Quarterly purpose planning is a technique to do that in apply.

Aside from that, it’s about folks speaking on a day-to-day foundation. Workforce leads and product managers ought to speak to one another about outcomes. If they’ll’t conclude, they need to go one degree up and contain high administration.

In my apply, when you have an inexpensive expectation of how folks contribute to the identical objectives and an inexpensive planning course of, you possibly can keep away from main conflicts in outcome-driven growth.

Consequence-driven growth – course of

The best way to construct a course of for outcome-driven growth? What are the required steps that enable for steady refinement of priorities primarily based on measurable outcomes? 

I feel it begins with a mindset shift. A feature-factory-type firm will not be going to grow to be outcome-driven in a single day. It places a distinct form of duty on folks.

The supply half can maintain itself, however the discovery half, the place we be sure that our assumptions make sense, requires a whole lot of thought. 

At Convious, we made it in order that we want particular info accessible earlier than a brand new characteristic can start growth. I can act as a gatekeeper and say: First, I wish to know extra about it. I would like there to be an artifact that outlines the issue assertion, the suggestions we received from companions in our analysis, the aggressive scenario, and the outline of the issue we’re to unravel.

The artifact is simply plain textual content. I’m a giant fan of writing stuff down. You keep away from the self-importance of making fancy slides and different visible content material kinds. This doc rapidly aligned all people across the goal. Making groups write extra stuff down in a structured approach also can result in every kind of downstream enhancements. You possibly can create a gradual course of and tradition enchancment round it.

As folks alter to this strategy, you possibly can add extra instruments to the invention course of. They could concern topics comparable to knowledge, person interviews, coaching, and even easy checklist-type duties to be accomplished earlier than you green-lit a characteristic.

You talked about alignment. Irrespective of how clear-cut your outcome-driven strategy is, you have to think about the large image – yearly objectives or KPIs. In any other case, it might be onerous to realize organization-wide alignment.

How do you make sure that every crew’s tactical outcomes keep consistent with the large image?

Having big-picture objectives is one factor. However there’s yet one more side of alignment. Groups will distribute the tactical outcomes correctly so long as they impart nicely with one another.

I don’t wish to sound like I’m bashing Scrum. There’s no inherent downside with Scrum. We use it for day-to-day work. However I’ve to say this – too many processes will be dangerous.

If you happen to attempt to use processes to unravel all points, the event course of turns into a sequence of hand-offs and communication through tickets. Getting suggestions in such an setting takes a whole lot of time. I imagine that it might even be referred to as an anti-pattern as a result of it compels folks to cease speaking to one another. As an alternative, they communicate with departments, inboxes, and cellphone strains.

A system that revolves round tickets or handoffs could make a small firm really feel like a giant firm – inefficient and cumbersome.

Avoiding this course of fatigue is essential to your outcome-driven growth. You should transfer rapidly and effectively slightly than waste time on processes. They’ll decelerate your growth a lot that it may be nearly as detrimental as constructing the unsuitable factor.

The retrospective assembly could possibly be a good time to mirror on the present outcomes and suggest new initiatives primarily based on them. How do you utilize it at Convious?

We do retrospectives, however they’re very team-specific.

I feel it’s essential to contemplate retrospectives on the complete course of, not simply the final two-week dash. At Convious, we make intensive retrospectives of the entire characteristic. They concern matters comparable to what the invention course of appeared like and the way we received to the ultimate form of the deliverable. These insights can inform future discovery. And that’s the way it all comes full circle.

In fact, this is a perfect situation. We’re not there but, however that’s our path.

Consequence-driven growth – mindset

On multiple event, you talked about the significance of a mindset shift in fostering outcome-driven software program growth. How do you promote folks the thought?

In any case, some teammates might get pleasure from doing what they’re advised. Earlier than, they needed to meet a deadline. Now, they’re straight chargeable for the corporate’s success. Or do that you must rent folks with the fitting mindset for it within the first place?

A tradition change is at all times robust to conduct. Some leaders is perhaps aggressive about it – get with this system or search for one thing else proper. Personally, I like to guide by instance.

My strategy is to elucidate, talk, showcase, and display the way it’s executed and the place that is smart.

As for particular person attitudes, I observed that any group has some individuals who rapidly undertake the thought of outcome-driven growth. You possibly can obtain rather a lot by rewarding them and exhibiting their mindset for instance.

Take the written artifact that I discussed for instance. We name it the shaping docs as a result of it borrows from different consultants’ and content material creators’ numerous frameworks and concepts. We take within the shapes of their concepts and put them into our discovery practices. It wasn’t profitable when it first got here round, however then one in all our product managers determined to attempt it. He received my assist, and we mentioned it extensively throughout our firm’s communication channels and in face-to-face conversations. And it took off.

Bear in mind – you don’t must get everybody on board from day one. So long as individuals are keen to experiment, you possibly can foster an outcome-driven tradition from there.

As for hiring, there are conditions when it’s a good suggestion to contemplate getting on board extra individuals who have already got expertise working in an outcome-driven setting. Equally, you would possibly think about partying methods with some individuals who actually can’t change their mindset over a while.

Nevertheless, for those who can’t get an individual to attempt outcome-driven growth in some unspecified time in the future, there could also be an issue together with your group’s tradition or management expertise.

Sources

Are you able to share some books or on-line assets that formed your views about and round outcome-driven growth?

Marty Cagan’s Impressed and his follow-ups are fascinating. They’re appropriate for people who find themselves new to outcome-driven growth. You need to be cautious and never take his recommendation too actually. I discussed the chance of shedding flexibility by following processes too carefully. As an alternative, you must get impressed, because the title says. 

Continues Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres – I’d suggest this one to an enormous viewers as a result of it has sensible ideas and frameworks for the product discovery aspect of outcome-driven growth. As I mentioned, I imagine that this side is the toughest to grasp.

Lenny’s Podcast is a tremendous sequence that at all times options inspiring folks. You should utilize it to find out about product growth usually and the outcome-driven strategy specifically.

What’s subsequent? Three actions for CTOs to take

Are you prepared now to drive the actions and mindset of your teammates towards a desired final result?

Bear in mind:

1. Care for product imaginative and prescient – there isn’t a good approach of making certain that the outcomes you selected are the specified outcomes, but when they correspond together with your imaginative and prescient, it’s very probably!
2. Align your folks – use formal means, comparable to quarterly final result planning, and casual ones, comparable to eradicating pointless processes and inspiring folks to speak as a lot as attainable.
3. Enhance your discovery. Being open to vary is one factor. Figuring out the very best path is one other. Polish your discovery course of and incorporate buyer suggestions to tell your selections.

The now-next-later roadmap will make it easier to obtain the pliability to answer knowledge and altering circumstances. The written discovery artifact will make it easier to higher inform your future strikes – constantly enhance it.

Most significantly, lead your outcome-based crew by instance!