Build better by building less

“Less is more”

While I do not know what inspired these famous words, I can surely vouch that they are completely true for making a digital product!

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, it has become imperative for companies to continuously improve their digital products to stay ahead of the competition and deliver more value to both customers and the business. With advancements in technologies like AI, Big Data, and Augmented Reality, there is always a temptation to add those cool, latest features to a digital product. Agile product teams often feel pressurized to keep adding new features to satisfy stakeholders and customers, instead of, more importantly, focusing on how much value each feature creates. This might lead to stagnant user numbers and decreased user satisfaction, even as the product becomes more feature-rich. Understanding the pitfalls of feature overload and adopting lean solutions is key to developing products that resonate with users and stand the test of time.

What causes feature overload in a product?

Product owners lacking true ownership

Let us start with an example. Say hello to Emma, who is a product owner at Everythingforpets.com, a fictional e-commerce pet shop. Even though she and her team are in-charge of the development and operations of the web shop, its product roadmap and backlog are decided by the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and the CPO (Chief Product Owner).  

Ironically, despite their title, most product owners do not have enough autonomy over decision-making. They face various pressures from higher management, conflicting stakeholder interests, and rigid organizational structures. As a result, they may prioritize features requested by stakeholders and higher management over those validated by user requirements. While stakeholders do (and should) create feature requirements based on data and user insights, unfortunately, more often than not, they tend to rely solely on assumptions.

Too many unvalidated assumptions

One day, the CPO approached Emma with excitement and asked her to add an augmented reality (AR) feature, which would allow users to see how a cat tree looks in their home. The CPO had just seen an AR company’s demo at a convention and believed that customers would welcome the feature. Not wanting to disappoint the CPO, Emma agreed to add the feature to the next sprint.

The Agile methodology emphasizes the importance of empirical evidence and adapting, based on what is learned. Despite this, products often suffer from an accumulation of features built on unvalidated assumptions about user needs. Without regular and rigorous user testing and feedback loops—cornerstones of lean and agile product development—teams risk overloading their product with unnecessary functionalities. Why don’t product teams regularly test assumptions about the users of their product? One major contributor to the lack of validation is how success of a product team is measured in many companies.

Measuring the wrong metrics

While Emma doubted how many users would use the AR feature, she and her team decided they would continue to stick to the plan. The quarter-end was approaching, and they had to deliver two new major features to achieve their performance targets.

Value delivery and customer satisfaction are key metrics of a product’s success. However, companies often default to easily quantifiable metrics like the number of features developed or the velocity of the teams. This practice not only establishes a false equivalency between output and outcome, but also creates incentives for product teams to keep adding more features blindly, ignore customer feedback, and ask fewer questions. Some might argue that if even one feature (out of three) creates value for both the user and the company, then the overall result is still worth it, right?

Underestimating the long-term cost of valueless features

The team found out during development that the Open-Source standard used by the AR feature is not yet supported by Safari browser on iPhone. To tide this over, the product team implements an additional workaround, allowing iPhone users to access their AR feature via a third-party app. This makes the implementation and maintenance of the feature more difficult and eventually, degrades the performance of the web shop.

One thing that product teams often overlook is that many useless features generate net negative value long-term. These valueless features consume resources not just during development, but throughout the product lifecycle, including testing, support, documentation, and maintenance. They can also dilute the user experience, making the product more complex, and hard to navigate. Individually, the negative value of such a feature is minuscule, accumulatively however, they can noticeably increase the time-to-market and hinder the product team’s ability to innovate.  

How can you fix this?

Have a product vision centered around value

During a retrospective session, Emma’s team realized the AR feature did not align with everythingforpets.com's vision of providing an affordable and easy-to-use shop for pets and their owners. The feature was costly due to the need for detailed 3D models of each cat tree. It was also inconvenient as it required iPhone users to download an additional app.

A clear product vision focused on delivering value is essential. This vision should guide all decisions and ensure that every feature aligns with the overall goal of enhancing user satisfaction and business value. Unlike company vision, the product team should review and adjust the product vision regularly, as they acquire more knowledge of their customers’ needs. By doing this, the team can validate product assumptions without the risk of losing their sight from the product’s key objectives.

Validate assumptions early and often

The team disagreed on how useful the AR feature is to the customers. There were a lot of opinions, but no one could provide enough evidence. As a result, Emma decided to halt the rollout for more cat trees and asked the team to add user analytics to the AR feature, along with a link to a questionnaire next to it.

During the design and development of the product, the product team should test and validate assumptions early and frequently, to ensure that new features are aligned with actual user needs. It be done either by implementing and evaluating user analytics, or by conducting user research such as prototyping or A/B testing.

Have the courage to retire or scale back features with no value

It turned out that very few users ever used the AR feature, and none more than once. Additionally, iPhone users were reluctant to download an extra app. It was then that Emma decided to retire the feature. Initially, the CPO resisted the idea, but after reviewing the data and conducting his own cost-benefit analysis, he agreed.

One of the most challenging decisions is the decision to retire or scale back features that offer little or no real value to users. Holding on to underperforming features out of sunk cost fallacy can detract from the overall user experience and negatively affect the performance of the product. Being decisive about scaling back these features step-by-step can streamline the product and refocus efforts on what truly matters.

Measure success through value-based KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

After much reflection and many discussions, the CPO decided to revise the KPIs for the company's product teams, incorporating more user-centric metrics and removing the focus on the number of features delivered.

The best way to ensure a product always delivers value to its user in the long term is to establish incentives so that the product team thinks like their user. By measuring success through the lens of value, product teams can ensure they are on the right track. Some of the often-used metrics such as burn down charts or velocity provide little value to the real customers. Whereas measuring user satisfaction, engagement, conversion rate and overall value delivered are directly tied to the market success of the product.  

Embrace the build-validate-learn cycle

Learning from the implementation and retirement of the AR feature, Emma decided to enhance user analytics across the web shop and conduct user research whenever possible, before implementing major new features, especially in case of any significant doubts about their value to users.

Embracing a build-validate-learn cycle is vital for ensuring every feature delivers value. This approach encourages the team to learn and improve continuously. Learning from previous increments and from the market informs the next set of features to be developed, ensuring that the product evolves in a direction that always adds new value for its users, drives adoption, and ultimately delivers value to the business.

Cultivate a product-driven organization

While it is tempting to simply equate the number of features with progress or success, it can lead to increased maintenance costs and often falls short of delivering the desired market impact. Instead, by focusing on validating assumptions, understanding the real needs of customers, and adopting an evidence-based approach to product development, digital products can achieve a balance that truly meets user needs and stands out in a competitive market. Adopting a value-driven approach not only ensures success of the product in a competitive market, but also fosters a more sustainable and user-centric culture within the product team and across the entire company.

It is worth noting that a value-driven and user-centric product team, such as Emma’s team, cannot thrive in isolation. A product-driven organization, focused on autonomy, value delivery and continuous improvement, is essential to provide the support and resources needed for the teams and their products to succeed. With a clear user-centric vision and a tailored transformation strategy, a business can position itself as a powerhouse in product development, consistently delivering products that resonate with users and drive long-term business success.