Prioritizing the Development Pipeline: Listening to the Will of the People
I run a technology start-up. One of the things we grapple with is choosing what to build next. Is it this feature or that? This product extension or that feature enhancement? It is a hard, hard problem. In our business, it is the distilling of human customer feedback that governs pipeline prioritization, which is the way it should be. But it is an uncomfortable melding of art and science that is not wholly satisfying to one more empirically inclined. So consider a world where you could extract sentiment from a large pool of people to help guide your decision-making, where empiricism, pragmatism and speed come together to help make good decisions quickly. Sounds pretty cool, right? This is yet another example of what can be accomplished by leveraging the Internet.
Consider this example as described in today’s New York Times:
Users of Facebook, the social networking service, make up for any shortcomings in spelling, grammar and punctuation with their sheer numbers. After nearly 14,000 people joined “bring back Wispa” groups on Facebook, the food conglomerate Cadbury Schweppes announced on Aug. 17 that it would reintroduce the candy bar in October.
Companies everywhere are monitoring blogs and other online discussions for feedback on their brands and providing them with information about coming products, as well as placing so-called viral advertisements on video-sharing sites. But the company insisted that the expressions of affection for Wispa on the Internet were genuine.
The campaign for Wispa, and the decision by Cadbury to revive it, shows what can happen when nostalgia about lost brands converges with user-generated content and social networking sites.http://www.typepad.com/t/app/weblog/post?blog_id=375671
“This is the first time that the power of the Internet played such an intrinsic role in the return of a Cadbury brand,” the company said.
Cadbury said it had identified 93 user groups on Facebook calling for a return of Wispa. Fans posted video clips from 1980s advertisements for Wispa, featuring stars of British television shows like “Hi-de-Hi!” and “Yes Minister,” on YouTube, the video-sharing Web site.
This is totally amazing on so many fronts. That the Internet could have such an impact on corporate strategy. That Cadbury, an established, old-line company, could be as forward-looking as to consider such input in a product development decision. At infinity, there is no doubt that using the Law of Large Numbers as a tool for selecting product development initiatives is the way to go. It is just hard, in real life, to find situations such as these. My guess is that we’ll see more of this - and soon. And that product managers the world over will be thanking their lucky stars that the power of the Internet is in full bloom - and only getting more robust with time.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Rob
EMAIL: rob@businesspundit.com
URL: http://www.businesspundit.com
DATE: 08/28/2007 09:15:26 AM
Roger,
You make an excellent point, but I think listening to what is popular can also have a downside. Sometimes bold new products are released without much customer input, because they are things customers didn’t even realize they wanted, or would never have asked for.
One of my biggest struggles is deciding who to listen to when my own analysis differs from user feedback.
Rob
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Roger
EMAIL: roger@monitor110.com
URL: http://www.informationarbitrage.com
DATE: 08/28/2007 02:23:23 PM
Rob, I totally agree. I am reminded of when the ATM was introduced, or when Sony released the Walkman. They created new categories, and didn’t score so well in focus group research leading up to their launches. True innovation requires a leap of faith, and requires proceeding without full information.
However, if one is talking about categories that exist, where one is looking to get the most out of a series of new product launches, I think the Internet can be a very powerful tool for gauging sentiment and ultimate demand. It is more a matter of taste then it is of vision. Thanks for your comment - it definitely clarified my thinking.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Phil B
EMAIL: phillip.baker@nyu.edu
URL:
DATE: 08/28/2007 03:35:37 PM
This is a great development and I hope more businesses pay attention and actually create the tools to let customers ëvoteí for new developments and submit feedback like this directly. One drawback is that this model assumes all customers are equal which of course they are not.
If 10% of customers account for 50% of revenue, priorities need to reflect where feedback is coming from. Obviously, the 10% need to be involved in the first place but assuming they are, the harder part will probably be communicating to the other customers why the development with the most ëvotesí isnít necessarily the top priority without causing offense or undermining their confidence in the process.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: phil
EMAIL: ppearlman@gmail.com
URL: http://www.eightfatswine.com
DATE: 08/28/2007 05:31:48 PM
this just the very very beginning of such powerful trend…
great blog shmenge!
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: joe
EMAIL: coneryj@yahoo.com
URL:
DATE: 09/06/2007 09:01:00 AM
…and I was just wondering if Facebook itself solicited feedback from its users on its own plans for their new public search feature.
Critics are crying about privacy concerns, but I think these people are pretty disconnected from the user culture.
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3 years ago
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